Penguin's Duck Tank

With the first game for the Penguin crew pencilled in for this weekend, most of my time will need to be spent cobbling together some terrain pieces, but perhaps one more flight of fancy before the Caped Crusader darkens the mood?  

'Batman Returns', Tim Burton's second outing with the Batman franchise saw Danny DeVito splendidly take on the role of the Penguin and make it his own, but the film came with other memorable moments.  The 'Rocket Penguins' have already made an appearance, but there was one more iconic piece of imagery that I wanted to try my hand at recreating - the Duck Tank! This ridiculous charabanc is an amphibious vehicle, perhaps salvaged from a fairground ride, and used by the Penguin as he emerges from the sewers below Gotham City - ridiculous, yet undeniably iconic!

I had a plan to fashion something together from a small bath time rubber duck, but a particularly productive session of 'Google Fu' unearthed a Matchbox Hot Wheels toy and at a reasonable price. Advertised at 1/50 scale, this was too good to pass up and so within 24 hours, I was the proud owner of a Duck Tank! It was perfect, just the right scale and required very little work. In the end I repainted the wheels from pink to red and added a little dry brushing here and there. The interior was given a lick of paint ant the steering wheel and gear stick matched to the Duck's onscreen variant; all the remained was a liberal coating of matt varnish and it was good to go.

I wanted to put my own stamp on the project and after a good root around my box of bases I eventually unearthed a 100mm x 50mm rocky slate chariot resin display base that I had picked up, for goodness knows what, an eon ago from an eBay seller known as 'Tiny Worlds Wagaming'.  A plan was forming in my addled brain and so I set to work with my trusty Dremel, attacking the base so as to add all manner of bits and pieces including a ruptured oil drum, sewer pipe, metal beams and bricks.

Once the mica gel flakes and red oxide paste had dried, I undercoated in black before starting to bring the various elements to life, trying to convey a damaged road complete with white lines.*  Finally, some fun with Bostik all purpose glue to recreate something horrible and toxic escaping from the drum and the piece was complete.

*When I removed the masking tape the lines looked too perfect and so had to be distressed. 

All that remained to do was to pin the duck to the base and "et voilà!"  Totally ridiculous, I grant you, but great fun to do; I'm not sure about the use of vehicles in the game so at the moment I envisage this as a terrain piece, something for my little villain to hide behind when the Batarangs start flying!

I have a couple more thugs to finish off before the Batman comes calling, but hopefully I should then have everything I need for an enjoyable day.