Random distractions

My efforts have been somewhat lacking in direction following the completion of the Mustafar set so I’ve been following my muse and just picking up little bits that took my fancy.

After finishing the scrap cars for my pulp city scenery collection, I thought I might do some of the other little incidental bits as some of them have been hanging around for years. First off were some generic bits including tables, chairs & beds. Quick and easy!

I got a TTcombat arcade a couple of years ago. I’ve not painted the building yet but the idea of painting an arcade machine tickled me.

Random build. WWII sentry post.

 

Colours was at the weekend and this mdf kit caught my eye. Rickety and characterful. I’m looking forward to painting it!

 

All this contemporary scenery stuff got my juices following for a bit of superhero gaming so we broke out the town for a game.




YTD 308

Scrapyard additions

I've not done any work on my Pulp City scenery for ages despite having collected and painted loads of it. I still don't actually consider it ready as I've not added any vehicles.

I three years ago (gulp!) I brought two 28mm resin cars to add to this set. I'd deliberately not painted them yet as I'd intended to try and do some cheap moulding from them to make some car parts to add to the scrapyard part of my scenery collection. Of course that was the plan but I'd not gotten around to it.

I ended up having a free hour at the weekend and it struck me that it could be a fun and slightly messy thing to do with the kids...so out came the tin foil and plaster to give it a crack.

I wrapped one side of the cars in foil, gently starting with the roof and carefully pressing it down around the body of the vehicles. There was no way to avoid creases but I wasn't too worried as they are meant to be junk! The surplus foil on the sheet was rolled round to add some support to the mould for when the plaster was added.

I extracted the originals fairly carefully then gave the foil a poke and a prod to deform it. Then the plaster was poured and left for an hour. I wasn't sure at this stage but hoped that they would come out okay.

I wanted to protect the edges of the plaster at the base as I suspected it would chip easily there. I thought the best way would be to mount them on some plastic basing material which also meant I could use the sand to help them look like they were buried slightly.

Just paint after that to finish them off. Simply bit of weathering and they were all sorted.

Now I just need to paint the proper vehicles!

YTD 287

TTFN

 

Mustafar or Mars?

I finally finished my lava world scenery set!

Using a great basing tutorial I had found, I made some drop on scenery tiles for the lava. They took a lot of painting as there was numerous layers to build up the lava effect. Pretty pleased with it tho'!

As it was modular I decided to add an extra tile so it could be useful for AoS as well

YTD 284!

TTFN 

Phase Two complete!

I’ve been beavering away for weeks now getting the walkways done for the planned Mustafar/Lava board and I have finally finished, after being distracted by tiny spaceships, to get the last few pieces painted.

Soooo…. course it meant that I had to have a play!

Next is the lava sections. I’ve got the plastic sheet to be the basing for it but having seen a few inspiring tutorials I have decided to use cork tiles for the rocks. I don’t have any cork tiles so I’ll need to squeeze in a shopping trip shortly. My kids are away soon for summer holidays so this may well mean that I get a chance to blitz a hobby job whist they are not around to ….um....help.



After that I want to ad some rock piles as scatter and I have some pink foam left over from other jobs to use. Then it will just be making sure I have enough cargo crates and other scatter to add cover around on the platforms.



Tally YTD: 254



TTFN!

Plugging away...

...Still.

I am determined to get these done before the end of July. Then I can get on and make the lava areas for the board.

After these bits there are only a few bits left to do but they are sizable pieces so will take a couple of days each.

TTFN

Mustafar progress 2

Chipping away at the different pieces for the walkway set. There's still a long away to go but I'm getting there!

All pieces are made now and a couple need their last spray to cover the exposed wood on the edges.

I'm generally happy with how the colour scheme is going. I suspect that I will find the three coats of red to be quite tedious in the end but at the moment I'm still nicely motivated.

I need to start thinking about the lava sections as well. I've got some 3mm foamed PVC ready as the base and some pink foam for the craggy bits soI think I'm all good to go on that part. I'll need to take over the dining room table for a few evenings so I have space enough to work on those bits.

TTFN!

Jakku finished!

I gave myself a kick up the bum over the weekend and finished the last two pieces for the crashed starship scenery set. There wasn't much to do, just some basing on the pod and weathering on the nose section.

Good to get this done and satisfying as it was the first set that I designed.

Wrecked ship nose

Pod front

Pod side

Jakku!!

Table is only 5x3 so it is a bit squished together. It'll look better on a 6x4. Needs some rocks as well and I'm tempted to buy a desert scenery mat as well.

YTD 179!

TTFN

Mustafar progress 1

Now that I'm happy with my colour scheme I've started on the rest of the set. I decided to have a crack at some of the slot in accessories first. All the interface points on the kits are identical so these parts of the kits can be added to wherever there is a lift out rail section.

Ladders and sensor pods

I do like painting screens!

All popped together.

TTFN

Project: Mustafar

I've got my mitts on the kits I need for my Mustafar/Mars scenery set now thanks to the excellent folks at Blotz!

Loads to do but I needed to pin down my colour scheme before getting stuck in. I'd painted the Blotz demo ones white but I wanted to go dark with my set to fit in with dark volcanic look for the table.

So I started with a black under coat. I usually spray them whilst they are still on the flat sprue and then again after construction. This avoids any difficulties getting the spray into nooks and crannies after putting the kits together.

After undercoating I gave the center of the platform a dry brush of medium grey as I wanted to break up the black and give the panels alternative contrasts. The main body was very dark so I picked out the detail on the leg panels and painted the platform edges and rail supports.

After that I tinkered with colours until settling on the ones shown. I want to pick out a couple of details with gold but this is essentially it now.

Right! Just a ton more to paint.

TTFN

More designs!

After designing the submarine last year my thoughts had moved back to a concept that had been rolling around my noggin for a time.

I’d been think about a set of walkways, mostly inspired by Star Wars, could be interconnected and had additional pieces to add flavour to the set. Now walkways have been done plenty of times before so I wanted to do something that made the set different.

I toyed with the idea for a while until my first eureka moment which was when I cottoned onto the idea that the joins could be handled using a ‘jigsaw’ piece connection that was echoed throughout the set. So I merrily came up with an interface and proceeded to try and create the walkways that would be the constituent parts of the set.

Whilst drawing up the intial walkways themselves I bumped into the question of hand rails. Now the Star Wars setting isn’t always particularly strong on handrails as they seem to hamper the leaping and fighting for the Jedi and their enemies. However I wanted them because it wasn’t just going to be for Star Wars Legion, I wanted it to have a wider sci-fi use.

Then I had the second eureka moment when I ended up handling how to interface the handrails between pieces. It became apparent that they needed to marry up and be inter-connectable like the jigsaw connections for the main body of the walkways.

After quite a bit of jiggery and swearing I finally managed to get a working design and merrily set about design the rest of the set. Two weeks later and it was done and I was excited to get them into production…..which for a variety of reasons hasn’t happened until this year.

I’m pretty happy how they have turned out. The kind folks at Blotz made some, in hindsight, very sensible tweaks regarding the height which has finished off the set just right.

Given how busy they are at Blotz getting ready for Salute I offered to paint up the set for the stall. Couldn’t wait to get my mitts on it!

I’m really pleased with it! Now to see what people make of it at Salute!

TTFN

Tally up to 68!