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Make your own Capillary Towers By Exalted One

For starters, it's probably best to define terms so this text of mine will be at least remotely readable. This is also because this tutorial is meant for people of different ages as well as it is meant for both beginners and those with more experience. Although, if you are very young, you might want to skip the part about soldering. This operation took me few days if you count the painting, so these are fairly fast to build. The styrofoam I've been using in this is the soft kind, which means that if you use the harder stuff, it will be more time consuming. Then again, if you use the harder foam, you might be able to skip the soldering part, and save time there. I recommend you read this whole text with thought before starting.

First, crudely shape out the form. You'll find that a long sharp blade is needed, so you'll probably end up using a carpet knife. The blade will have to be very sharp, or it will tear instead of cutting. You might want to train on smaller pieces, so you wont spoil too much of the styrofoam you have, can see how best to get the shape done and that you see how you can make the pieces in the size you want. First cut out the shape of the scales on the "back". Make horizontal cuts to determine how many scales you want your tower to have, then verticals, to shape the scales out. Once these are about ready, then the shape of the bumps on the "stomach side" You can leave the bumps a bit square, it doesn't matter as you see later on. Also, the amount or the relation of the scales and the bumps is indifferent. If the scales have some sharp corners after you have cut them out, you can easily file them smooth. If you have the energy and time, you can try to cut the scales smooth instead, but without filing, the surface of the scale can have corners you cannot see until painting, and smoothing them over at that point is not very easy. Then again, the filing does leave the surface a bit rough and also the dust is pretty annoying. The dust also sticks to the surface and probably makes lumps with the glue, but I still felt this was the best way to do this.

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The bumps on the stomach-side can also be cut in shape with the knife, but I found it was best to do this by soldering. Melting the styrofoam makes the entire tower a bit more durable, but make sure you have a well ventilated work space, plus keep a glass of water handy in case your soldering gun is more powerful than mine, and the whole thing tries to go up in flames. (If you don't want to use a soldering gun for some reason, you might want to make your towers from some other material, because at least the particular foam I used, would be far too soft by itself without the soldering.) You might want to "draw" the wedges on the backside with the soldering gun as well. By wedges I mean the parts where the scales seem to be overlapping. To finish up, put your towers on the table, and make sure they stand in the angle you want and if need be, cut them into shape. The Forge World towers are straight, btw, these I made a bit curved for some reason. Now, the basic form of the Capillary tower should be ready now and we can start making the vents. Of course you don’t HAVE to make these, the towers look pretty good even without them. But since I made them, plus took pics of the process, I put them here. My English is a bit rusty for what comes to geometry, so bear with me. You need to make elongated cubes and then round the edges away. Then thin them down from the middle. I used a scalpel to do these, but any sharp knife will do fine. A scalpel just makes the whole thing way easier. Afterwards I noted that at this point, you want to have made ready all the towers you are going to make. This way you can make the vents by making a kind of flattened rod that is narrow on the other end, for each of the towers and cut it in as many pieces as the particular towers has scales. I'm not putting any measurements here, because it really makes no difference, and I never take any measurements of anything anyway. You might want to make the vents so that they don’t stand straight, but lean to up or down. Or you might want not to. It's a matter of taste I guess. But You should still consider this, when you cut the vents out. Most of the people making these towers might not need the instructions to be this graphic, but, here they are. If they help, great, if they annoy you, there's always suicide.

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You can add the finishing touch again either by the knife or file. I guess you could also use sand paper, if you don’t happen to own suitable files. This might still be easier, than using a knife.

The lower part of the vent, which attaches to the tower is handy to leave a bit bigger than the other end. This way you can, once glued in place, file or cut the seams clean, so they don't "grin" like those I made. Once again I thought of this AFTER I hade made them.

On a whim I decided to shape the ends of the vents thusly, but again, nobody is going care or even notice how they look. I also added this stripe-thing in it, but it doesn't show until in the last pics. I did it with the file tip, but a ball point pen will do fine.

At this point you want to make sure you have a vent for every scale, and that the vents are right size, small ones up, bigger ones down. Once every scale has a vent, we can start fitting them in their places. Also, if your vents are standing in an angle, at this point is best to make sure the angle is same in all vents.

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You also notice at this point, that gluing the vents in place wont work yet, because the bottom of the vent is straight and the scales are not. See the gap?

Here I think it is best to use a file with a one round side, to make the vents in their right shapes, but of course you could instead cut in the scales small flat areas to put the vents in. this can easily result in the flat area being bigger than the bottom of the vent so I suggest filing the vents instead. You want to file the bottom too much rather that not enough because the foam is so soft that it easily goes to place even if the curve on the bottom is too deep, but will smirk at you if it is not deep enough. After you try it out for a few times, the vent will probably fit fine, and most of them get ready a lot faster. You'll find that making them one at the time will work better. Once all of the vents are done, you can glue them to place using PVC-glue. The smallest of them will probably stay without holding, but the bigger ones need something to keep them to place until dry. Flat rubber bands will work best, but make sure that the bands won't be so tight that they leave a mark on the other side, or on the edges of the scales. Once the glue is dry, you can cut or solder the markings on the scales. You can do this before, if you are worried about marking the vents, just be careful not to mark the spaces where the vents are supposed to go. Or you can file them, or cut them with a knife or just paint them on.

At this point you want to have ready all the towers that you are going to make. Remember to make three towers of roughly identical size for that spore chimney. ;-) Also, note that you need your opponent’s permission to use these, thus there is no point in making very many of these, so you might actually get it. The number on the Apoc. card for towers is three, plus the chimney. You opponent is not likely to give you a permission to use these, if you stuff

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the whole table full of inv. saves for your 'nids. :-) If you look at the right tower, you'll notice it doesn't fit on the base very well. This is because I forgot to even the towers bottom, while cutting it. This is easily covered while basing the tower, but really, it is by far easiest to make the bottoms straight from the beginning. Also adding the tubes is easier, if all towers are based the same way, as becomes clear later on. I used this kind of thick cardboard as bases, but I have no idea what so ever of where you could get this, or from where I got it in the first place. You might think these don't really need bases, because they stand easily on their own, but the tubes you are going to make next wont last long and wont attach easily without some kind of base. In this pic you can see the scalpels I’m using. They are way better than any exacto or hobby knives, but hard to come by these days.

Next we’ll make the tubes. As the vents, you might want to make some longer tubes, that get narrower on the other end. And the tubes don’t have to have that kind of shape, they can be smooth, but using a square shaped file, they are easily made. (Plus the FW towers also got them! :-D)

One of these on the left pic will be enough for three towers if you cut them right.

On the right is how you cut them. The longer cuts don’t matter much, but the short cuts do; you might want to pay attention on how straight your towers are standing, so you can cut the

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tubes to the right angle. Before cutting the entire tube to pieces, just cut one or two, and see if they fit. This way you won’t have to do it again, in case you did something wrong. Then we’ll do the joints. The tubes look pretty good even without them, but they really emphasize the tubes going inside the towers instead of being glued on. Most of the vents I made from pieces like in this pic, cutting them into kind of thick crescent moon shape. The thinner you make them, the easier it is to glue them on and have no visible seam. Styrofoam like this is really soft, and the thinness makes it easy to force into place.

You can also cut the tube and the joint from one piece like in this pic on the right. Some might think it is too hard, but some might think it is time saving not having to cut the tubes and the joints separately. Afterwards there is no way to tell the difference however. Parts like this might not fit just anywhere, unlike the separately made tubes and joints, so how you based your towers is a factor, like mentioned earlier. Despite of my lack of camera skills, this is the same tower as in the previous pic. It has been added a separately made set of tube and a joint. As you can see, the difference is practically nonexistent. You can also see the joints are not fitting the tower very smoothly. That is because they are not finished yet. You either need a VERY sharp knife, or you have to finish their shapes before you glue them on. Or you can make them so thin, that their outer shape doesn't matter. I suggest you try different ways, at least it will make you to be better with a knife. Now they are finished and blend in a bit more smoothly.

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Once done, cover the whole shebang with at least two layers of PVC-glue. It helps to cover the might be seams, and lets you use spray -paint for priming without having the whole thing melting. Once the glue is dry, all that is left is flocking and finishing the base, and painting them.

Here are couple of shots of the finished towers. Notice the classic Old One Eye in the middle, giving you an idea of the size of the towers around it. Also note the old Epic titan base the OOE has. Thanks for reading the whole tutorial, if you indeed had strength to do so. :-) –Exalted One