Tutorial #2: making riveted plates

As I intend to go with a 'down and dirty' look for my Sci-Fi corridor project (think: Aliens, Necromunda, Blade Runner, starships from the old Star Wars trilogy...), there's a couple of details I just have to put in there. Riveted metal plates are surely one of these - but considering the planned size of the project, using blobs of superglue or tiny pieces of plasticard was simply not an option. So here's a method I have discovered for making rivets - I wrote about it once on TMP message boards but I think it's easier to figure it out when you can see the pictures.


Tools and Materials
Tools
Steel ruler
Hobby knife
Needle
Marker pen

Materials
Plastic canvas ('granny grating')
Thin plasticard (0.5mm thick)

Take a piece of granny grating and - using the holes as a guideline - draw the shape of the plate on it with a marker pen. If you want to have less rivets on your metal plate (for example: just four per plate, one in each corner), you may want to mark only some of the holes.

Place the marked piece of granny grating over a sheet of plasticard and go through each of the holes with a needle - don't push too hard, you don't want to make a hole. It may take a few attempts to figure out how to do it.

I use an unraveling tool with a handle as it is more comfortable - but the same results can be achieved with a sewing needle.

Use a hobby knife to cut your riveted plate from the plasticard sheet. As you can see, the same template was used a couple of times, producing plates of equal number and spacing of rivets.

The plates are ready to be put on your model and painted - see examples below.

These were painted using brown undercoat and then drybrushed with Mithril Silver. Devlan Mud wash was then applied to further bring out the rivets.

Riveted plates made with a slightly thicker, blunt needle (the model is an Space Ork spider mecha I'm working on)

Riveted plate on a wall of a shanty town shack