WIP on a Couple of Grillet Boxes

I've wanted to make some sort of grimdark diorama box for years now, ever since I first saw one of them from Nicky Grillet. I recently moved and don't have any painting table stuff set up yet, so I decided to try to put some junk in a little mint tin since I was only able to find some random bits container at the time. (The comparison minis below are  Stargrave Crew guy and  Reaper Bones alien trooper.)

This little tin was originally set up with the little platform in the way of it closing. I managed to dislodge the platform and moved it to the other side of the tin. It will now close.

The latest update to the tin was when I added a couple of chains to hopefully help it stay open. They're not quite as tight as I wanted. 

For various reasons, I set the tin aside and found one of several 7x4 wooden trays/boxes from Dollar Tree. I used these at the old painting table to hold recently built or painted miniatures or to transport minis from one room to another. Following the same concept as with the tin, I glued some random trash and bots to the box to give an interesting backdrop.

After some homemade texture paste (thinned glue with small grain sand and baking soda in it) on the flat parts, I primed the whole thing. And that's where we are right now on this potentially cool backdrop to photograph miniatures on. I think I'll be doing one more coat of primer to make sure everything is well covered before I go for mostly dry brushing the backdrop with greys. I will likely add some rusty spots here and there with pigment powders too.

The minis for scale are from Monkey Miniatures. I should really look into painting up some more of them.