Building the Ancients' Tripod

I now have a Tripod for my Ancients army. You've probably seen this picture by now.

 

Here's how I built it. I knew this was going to be a tricky piece to make, and so I went to Lowes and Home Depot looking for parts.  After a few false starts, I found the following lamp on sale. 



The map minus shades.

As you can see, the arms of the lamp are flexible metal tubes.  When I saw this, I said "that would look great upside down." 

Next I needed something to put on top.  I went with this drip shield for a stove:

I put an old plastic tub under it and it balanced nicely:

 

I then used some cardboard and plasticard to permanently affix the shield, and to seal up the gap on the bottom.  I sued the same painting technique I used on the sails of the Trireme to indicate the common technological base between the Ancients and the Free Martians.

The underside.

For my next step, I placed some bases and green stuff "jewels" over the holes in the shield.

 

 Finally, I painted the extensions, and added some alienesque hieroglyphs onto the carapace.  Most of the parts were already shiny metal, so I didn't have to paint them.

 

 

Here is the teaser shot, before I used GIMP on it to add the sky and laser beams.

 

 

Guns of August is this weekend in Williamsburg, VA.  (Hence the early post this week.) I hope to see some of you there.