Gorram Tracy Island

It turned out that one coat of the brown house paint was enough so I dry brushed some burnt umber over the top but by the time I was taking photos, our short Scottish days meant there was only artificial light so there isn’t much to see. I also painted some areas green that are due to get sawdust flock out on them as much a mental reminder to do it than anything else.

Next up was the runway for Thunderbird 2. A simple strip of cereal box, painted black and then dark grey sponged on to stop all the grey I’ve been doing looking the same. The clever sausages at Blue Peter used bits of white sticky label for the runway markings and who am I to argue. I also added the sandpaper for the beach at this point though it isn’t stuck down because there is still some messy stuff to come.

Now the bit I haven’t been looking forward to. Stairs.

In the original video, Anthea Turner says make stairs out of cardboard or bits of wood and they are nice little things. My Tracy Island though is a) bigger and b) for wargaming so my stairs were going to be trickier. I took her suggestion on wood though – I have some 4mm balsa sheet in the cupboard.

First up I did the ones up to the main house. These I curved around to the side to give myself the space for each step to hold two bases. Supports were made out of balsa off-cuts and these will be hidden with bushes.

My Round House has ended up much the same height as the rest of the lower level so it only needed one step to it rather than the set she suggests.

Now we break from the original completely. The infiltrator forces (or the good guys as they are known) need places to land and while there will be rules for scaling the cliffs around the island, and a hidden cave with secret stairs to the upper area (not modelled), an easier stairway was necessary. Coming up from the beach is actually quite a steep climb but I wanted each step to be able to hold a base so they take up a lot of space. To make it work I ended up having to cut into the papier-mâché/foil layers for the top stairs. Once each step was glued together, I took them off and repaired the area so it can get repainted on Sunday. I also had to level off the area around the pool a bit after finishing up the surround for it so by the end of the night it definitely feels a little like I’ve gone backwards!