I now gave it a coating of a mixture of polyfila and cat's litter. Yes, that's right, cats litter (fresh from the bag!), sifted through a flour sifter to get the small grains. This mixture was watered down until it could be applied with a paint brush. Be careful not to get the cardboard too wet. Let this dry properly. To base or not to base? that was the question. I decided to base the pillbox not only to give it more stability but to raise it over the battlefield. The base is Durapor heating insulation sheeting. I took a sheet 3cm thick so that it not only gave me enough height but also allowed me to carve up the edges and make it look like granite. I cut out a rectangular slot in the base to fit the pillbox into (just draw around the pillbox).Fitting the pillbox into the base and not just glueing it on top adds to stability.

Painting. Everything was primed grey. BTW don't use GW paints for these large jobs, it'll cost you a fortune. The builder's merchants or DIYs have ample supplies of cheap water based paints. The base was then brush dried with a darker grey. I decided to give the bunker some green camouflage which would fit in with the grass effect I was going to add later. Everything was then given a black wash. Apply the black wash thickly in crevaces. Some areas were painted green, where grass was going to be added. This covers up any spots where the grass may be a bit thin.

I used static grass and iceland moss to add a bit of character. The trees are plastic and just pushed into the styropor. That way they can be swapped or removed completely at any time. A few bits of plastic flowers and some real stones. That's it!

My second bunker was built with styropor - which led to some complications.

The pill box is made up of the styropor packaging from two of GWs model boxes. Just glue one on top of the other. The perimeter wall of the bunker was cut from 3cm thick Durapor; mark out the shape you want and cut it out with a coping saw (like the one GW sells but again try your DIY store - they're cheaper). Sloping the perimeter walls was easy after working out how! I first tried it with a knife but it would n't cut straight, neither would the coping saw. I eventually settled for a normal wood saw and had a lot of filling to do afterwards on the walls I tried to slope with the knife. After the perimeter wall was cut, (be careful here, the wall can break easily with rough handling) I used the form to cut out a base for the bunker in 2cm thick Durapor. The sheet of Durapor I found for the base of the bunker had diamonds embossed in it which would look good as a metal floor with the right paint job. This base fit inside the perimeter wall and left me with a perimeter wall 1cm high. After assembly, the pill box was still missing some detail. I took some of the GW horse bases, cut out the middle strips and glued them onto the pill box as firing slits. I took some old rhino bitz and glued some on as the pillbox entrance and an escape hatch on the roof. I glued the whole bunker to a styropor base about 1 cm thick.

So that was the assembly. Now I had to repair some of the damage I'd done with the knife. I used polyfila to fill in gaps and holes. This was smoothed down and repeated until I got the walls back to the shape I wanted. I smoothed the walls down with sandpaper after each layer of polyfila and it was here I noted that, if you're not careful, the sandpaper can tear gouges out of the styropor. To add a bit of detail to the perimeter wall I took some bits of plastic sprue, cut them to length and glued them to the outside of the walls. Any gaps were filled with milliput and sanded down. I coated the pillbox with my mixture of polyfila and cats litter and was now ready to paint. Almost. I'd noticed that the styropor base alone was a bit flimsy so I stuck a sheet of cardboard (a cornflakes packet!) onto the bottom.

I primed everything in grey again. It was at this stage I noticed that the slight indentations of my pencil markings on the styropor/durapor were still visible through the paintwork. Styropor is not very forgiving! I gave the grey a black wash. As I said, I wanted the base of the bunker to appear metallic. I primed it black and then dry brushed it with boltgun metal. The doors were handled in the same way. The base of the model was painted green and static grass added.

Three things I learned:
Styropor shows up the slightest of impressions in paintwork.
It's difficult to sand down styropor.
Styropor (not durapor!) alone does not make a very firm base.