A lot of the terrain I’d make to represent the Mojave Wasteland could just as easily be used for any other part of the Fallout post-apocalyptic landscape: lots of rocks, dead trees, barren earth, etc. Most of my “New Vegas-branded” terrain projects so far have been along the lines of a few cacti to stand around, some “Sunset Sarsaparilla” billboards (instead of just exclusively NUKA-COLA everywhere), and some neon sign barricades.
One idea that came to me, however, was to throw together one of those creepy effigies that dot the areas either currently or previously occupied by the Great Khans. A sample image appears in the end-credits from New Vegas, when covering the fate of the Great Khans (depending upon the Courier’s interaction with them or lack thereof):
Now, I don’t have a bunch of to-scale dead tree branches or bones to use, but I DID have a large animal skull and various other pieces in my “bitz box” that I thought I might be able to cobble together to create something that was at least inspired by the look of this. (It’s not mass-produced, so surely two Khan effigies don’t have to look alike?)
Basically, I started with finding something to use as a supporting base (as having my marker NOT FALL OVER is important). In this case, I happened to have an acrylic round base of awkwardly-large-enough size that I wasn’t likely to need it for any other Modiphius models anytime soon. (And anything large enough to need that base would probably fall into the category of “vehicle” or “terrain” anyway.)
I used some Apoxie Sculpt epoxy putty (basically the same stuff as “Magic Sculpt”) to texture it, and then made the main frame of my effigy by forming an “X” with various toothpicks, craft sticks, straightened-out paperclips, some plastic “banner pole” and “polearm” leftovers from miniature kits (mostly Warhammer Fantasy), and used some thinner wire to bundle them together, with some putty as gap-filler. The “wings” were made by splaying some toothpicks out from the back, with “leather straps” formed with little threads of more putty.
The head in this case is a battle standard topper skull from Warhammer “Ogre Kingdoms,” backed by a single old pewter undead chariot wheel. (If I had TWO such wheels, I’d be using them for a chariot somewhere … but somehow I ended up with just ONE in a grab-bag of assorted “bits,” and I thought I’d use it to represent the “halo”-like arrangement of bones radiating out behind the “head” of the figure.)
To make the torso, I didn’t have a bunch of hubcaps, so instead I decided to go with a couple of traffic signs. The STOP sign is from Mars Attacks, while the railroad crossing sign is an old flat Warhammer Fantasy shield that I just painted the “R X R” lettering on, and backed with some putty to affix to the larger structure.
On the back is a random wheel from a bag of busted WW2 model kit leftovers I picked up a long time ago.
For a bit of base decoration, I used a scrap of poly mesh fabric for “chain link fence,” and a random bit of broken plastic (from those busted model kits) that I thought looked like it could be a piece of ruined railing.
The “license plates” hanging from the horns and the “ONE WAY” sign on the base are both printed paper elements.
Anyway, I could probably make one or two more of these easily, but I think I’ll try to find a plastic horse skull (a la the battle standard topper bits from the old Warhammer Fantasy Skeleton Army box?) of smaller size, so I can make smaller-scaled “effigies.” I’ll have to see if I can get something to pass for hubcaps for the torso. I figure I can combine these with a couple of my Hot Wheels campers I converted earlier, in order to make a Great Khans chem lab base.
(Now I just need some Great Khans! 
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