Terrain: Pringles Can Water Tower

Lots of folks have made terrain from Pringles chip cans. All I did was take pictures along the way. I was trying to come up with terrain ideas for "Steampunk" and ... well ... can't have steam without water. Tough to have water without a way to store it. Apparently I wasn't the only one that thought this way, I found somebody else that had the same idea.

Thus was born this piece of terrain. Props to Gareson at Blitzbattles for giving me the lion's share of the ideas for how to get this done. I skipped a few steps - speed was my focus.

Materials
~ Pringles Can
~ Hot Glue Gun
~ Wooden sticks (coffee stir sticks works great)
~ Paint
~ Sepia tone "ink" (I used Daler Rowney Acrylic Artist's Ink, but any sepia tone ink should work fine. In a pinch, heavily watered down brown paint will do just fine.)
~ Thick paper or cardstock
~ Heavy Duty Scissors
~ Sprue Snips (or cutters you're willing to use on the wooden sticks)
~ Base material (foamcore and flock)
~ Elmer's Glue (PVA glue)
~ 1 bendy straw
~ black thread

Here I cut the can into two parts. The length is equal to half the length of my wooden sticks.


Primer black because otherwise you'll see bits and pieces of the Pringles can though your woodwork.


Hot glue the sticks on, snip them off once in place. Continue all the way around.


I didn't do this perfectly straight so my last stick, I had to cut into a wedge shape to make it fit.


Trace a circle bigger than the diameter of your water tower on to cardstock. I used a plastic drinking cup.


Cut it out, slice a line towards the center. Glue it in on itself to make a flat "cone" and then trace the seam with hot glue. This will look like a "weld" when you're done.


Make the support in a manner that seems right to you. I made it tall enough that I'd be able to put a heavy warjack under it and still feel like it would believably be putting water into the 'jack's steam system. When you're done, cut off the bendy part of the straw to act as your water directing pipe.


I then mixed my sepia ink with water (50/50) and stained all the wood.


Then I painted the roof and the bendy straw. I did this by first painting it all black. Then slopping on some silver tone paint. Then I stippled rust colored paint in various places to show rust/weathering.


Add a base, and detailing. On the side of the bendy straw, I added a pull chain made from black thread. There's also a tiny piece of cardstock cut into an L that is used to represent the cutoff valve. At the end of the thread I put a glob of hot glue painted silver to represent the pull chain weight.

The base is bevelled foamcore, liberally slathered with Elmer's White Glue (PVA glue) and then dunked in a box of flock. Then I shook off the excess.


TOTAL TIME: 2 HOURS

I'll probably touch up the flock and add a few extra bits and pieces like bushes and whatnot, but for the most part... it's done.