Welcome back to Plastica

We return to the world of Plastica with a bit more details this time about the geography of each nation.

Below are some quick facts about each nation's geography. And with the help of Michael Akkerman, creator and director of the Plastic Apocalypse films, we were able to produce the official insignias of each nation.

Blussia

 Despite its blue colour in the map, the real Blussia will look more like a rain forest because it's located in a Bayou area. That means, swamps, marshes and plenty of rough terrain to traverse. It is therefore to no surprise that the Blussian's strength is in its' amphibious approach in warfare. Their navy is probably the most advanced out of the four nations.

There is no explanation as to why Blussia has an eagle for its' insignia, except for the "it looks cool" explanation.

Greentoria

Greentroia is where the current events of Plastic Apocalypse take place. The terrain in Greentoria is the friendliest of the four because of the abundance of shade from the trees and grass. Abundant mountains and flat ground also means there is plenty of places to hide and to set up fortifications.
Directly north of Greentoria are pockets of Blussian island territory.

Its' insignia is a simple green G surrounded by wreathes. The logo itself looks very similar to the Green Nation's symbol in the Army Men games.

Below is the complete map of Greentoria, the first of the four nations to be given a detailed terrain. Hedge Base, the setting of Plastic Apocalypse 1, is located at the Myrtle Sector. That's just south of the Honeydew Depression aka the brown thing in the middle of the map.

 

Greyland

Greyland's name is a bit misleading because it's mostly covered with white snow. Grey people are both feared and respected because they don't appear to be interested in venturing out of their territory unless they really need to. Raiding parties who come to Greyland's shores tend to be veterans in order to match a fully-equipped Grey soldier. Greyland's interests seem to only focus on their own territory rather than conquering their neighboring nations. This has allowed them to develop sophisticated war technology which quickly became the envy or the bane of every battlefield commander.

Their symbol of the wolf was well thought of and best explained by my friend Sergi Kolguyev. The greys are like wolves, they like to keep to themselves, but mess with them and they'll hunt you down until you're dead.

Tanolia

Well known in being the antagonists of every Army Men game, and in every child's play time, the Tans that will be known more as the series progresses will have varying levels of cruelty per character. It's important to remember, that Plastic Apocalypse is all about the nations fighting one another. So the possibility of peace can only go as far as a temporary ceasefire. In order to win, all soldiers pocess a form of cruelty or another. The Tans aren't the antagonists in Plastic Apocalypse, but rather, just as equally "evil" or "good" as the rest of the Plastic nations.

So going back to geography, Tanolia is basically a giant desert, with giant sand bars surrounding it like a fortress. Most of its' Northern islands are disputed between Grey people, as you can see on the world map. Currently, the Tans are busy invading Greentoria, but obviously, things aren't looking good for the Tans. But invading Tanolia would require  everything the Greens can throw at them, and more. The Tan's main strength seems to be the endless hordes of men they could throw at their foes, they are the jack-of-all-trades type of people.

Their official insignia, the one that I'm personally most proud of from the rest, is a capital T fashioned to look more like a scorpion. I think this logo suits the Tans too well, because scorpions naturally live in the desert and are quite fearsome to their foes.

Well that's all there is for the nations for now, the rest of the very detailed maps will be made eventually, once Michael has more time and imagination juices flowing.

Tan Super Tanks!

The Tan Army has acquired a new super tank. I feel bad for the Tim Mee green tanks that have to face these.

 General Tannenburg approves the use of this weapon. But a monstrous tank needs an effective crew, and I'm figuring out ways to make some. I'm modifying army men as if I'm the evil Grey doctor himself!

Here is a size comparison with with my other tanks. The familiar Tim Mee Patton on the left, a tank destroyer at the center. The tank destroyer is modeled after the Pershing tank. I made the camouflage ghillie suit thing strapped on its turret with some garden foliage and strips of net that came from a bath scrub! I think I'll make a tutorial of that some time. 

Here's the super tank in the store, There's another design of a green colour that resembles the Tiger tank.

The super tank was actually a remote controlled. I can't have any of that in my army, so I stripped all its electronics and the antennae. The threads can't move by the way, but there were small wheels underneath that make the tank look like it's floating on air., so I removed those to. 

So what would be the future use of this tank? Well obviously there's gonna be some tank battles. I think these locations would be perfect. Check out the pictures below.

Tutorial #1: Urban Craters

Materials:
1. empty pie tins, choose any size that you like, make sure they're clean.
2. fine grain sand
3. grey acrylic paint
4. black spray paint (optional)
5. PVA glue
6.cork/small pebbles



I start with a clean pie tray, they are small ones, the ones that would contain tarts.

Turn them over with the bottom side facing up. Then press them down until they form the shape of the crater.

Spread some PVA glue on the crater and then sprinkle the fine grit sand over the glue to make them stick. Make sure to get rid of excess glue that did not stick.

Using small pebbles or pieces of cork(I used cork). Glue them down in the middle of the crater, this will help make it look more uneven and ruined.

Then we will prime the crater black using the black spray paint, you can use black acrylic paint, but spray paints are easier. And fun.

 The final part is dry-brushing this crater with a light grey. If you don't know what dry-brushing is, it is basically putting a little bit of paint on your brush, then your method of brushing should be in quick strokes. As you can see in the picture below, the left crater looks much better because I kept my brush from touch too much of the crater. So there are still some blacks marks left from painting it black, making it look more scorched. The one on the right looks a bit less impressive because I put too much paint on my brush, making the final product look more grey than I liked.

 Hope you like this tutorial, like, share and comment!