Everyone who’s played Warhammer 40k in the ’90s will remember the green death world cacti with the red spikes made out of styrofoam and toothpicks. I built a few of them myself back then, but unsurprisingly they didn’t survive the dawn of the new millennium. More recently Jonas over at the Oldhammer Forum put together a whole bunch of these which are looking great.
Inspired by Cheetor’s excellent Alien Flora & Fauna series I’ve been meaning to extend my own collection of terrifying terrain for a while now but most things haven’t progressed past initial assembly.
During one of my hunts for source materials I came across an item that immediately jumped out at me as a modern version of the cacti of death though – a rubber massage ball from Tiger, available also in bright green.
Dark Angels livery makes for surprisingly effective camouflage on many jungle worlds
A dark green wash and far too many red spiky protrusions later I had a suitably alien looking plant, made for the ages. To complete the death world look, I added jungle foliage (some of which taken from a toothbrush holder also bought at Tiger) and a broken old skeleton to the base. Ironically, painting all those spikes did give me tense shoulders so I guess I’ll have to buy some more of these massage balls…
