Some Small Projects

Just a quick recap of a few items from the workbench.  I have a couple of scenery items and a couple of Horrorclix zombies.  These have been staring at me from the workbench for a while, I was glad to finish them off finally.

First thing I did was build a Plast Craft Games building I got for Christmas.  It's from the EWAR 28 line.  It's listed as a grocery, part of the WW2 France building collection.  It is printed foamcore that basically snaps together, with some parts getting glued.  It built very quickly, I think I had it done in under 30 minutes!  It has a basic interior, and as a bonus, it comes with a destroyed version as well.  It's not spectacular, but it makes a nice building for the table.

Nice small package

It will work best as part of a wargame, like Bolt Action.  As it has a destroyed version, it fits nicely that wherever it is located on the table, if it is destroyed, you have that version ready to go.  Nice idea, and it works well enough.  I had hoped for a ground floor, but I can deal with it being a single large room on the ground.

Some of the parts

It comes flat packed and is very clean and very well printed.  I'd love to see some other buildings like this.  If I get a chance I'll look at getting a few more, they have some townhouses that would be good for urban filler.  I have left off the French sign for now.

Dawn checks out the building

Interior Upstairs

The ruined base

In addition, I painted up a Dark Heaven Bones dumpster.  I'm happy with how it turned out.

Dumpster in blue

I had a busted toy van I found last summer and it's been just sitting.  I finally based it and turned it into a wreck.

Toy car wreckage!

I love taking old and broken toys and making them scenery.  This car was busted up for me already, no wheels and a crushed top.  Some black and rust paint makes it a decent wreck.

This van has seen better days!

Finally I have two zombie cops from Horroclix.  I just did some painting, added some gore and based them on smaller bases.  The Horroclix line has some fun models, and they make for good additional zombies in the horde.  Too bad they are getting hard to find.

Two zombie cops

That's it for the update.  I'm hoping to get more productive, as well as figuring out how Dawn and company are going to handle their prisoners!

Lady!  You can't park that here!

Scenery: Sheds and Warehouses

This is a quick post on some storage buildings, based on parts I have found recently at one of the second-hand stores in the area.

I managed to find a bunch of parts for some Ertl farm buildings, as well as some more Hot Wheels street building sets. 

Various plastic buildings

First, the Hot wheels building.  I wanted to try something a bit different with this building, I have made it into a garage or shed before.  I didn't make the top removable, so it was hard to have play on the interior.  I sawed off the top before painting or any other work.  To help with locating the roof, I added a piece of plastic card to  the front.

Top sawed off

Top with added front card

I cut a piece of hardboard for a base.  It's painted up as a concrete slab.  I just give the interior walls a quick black spray and then some touch up with a neutral brown.  It's really just to give some coverage of the bright blue.  I add a couple of plastic numbers to the front after I painted it up.  I also managed to not take many pics, so we jump to the finished product.

Front view

Jack checks the garage

Jack just inside the door

Garage door open, roof off

For the Ertl buildings, they are just straight builds.  I paint one up with a red oxide exterior and green roof.  It is mounted on a sheet of plastic card, painted to look like a concrete slab.  I keep it very thin for the red building.  There isn't much to show for in process pictures, it's just painting really.

Jack checks the warehouse

Jack in the warehouse

A look through the open doors

The other garages are still work in progress, but they will look about the same.  I haven't decided if I will grab my older small Hot Wheels garage and open the roof up like the first one I did here.  For now I will just leave it intact I believe.

If you get a chance to find any of these buildings, I definitely recommend them.  The Ertl parts can be used for larger or smaller buildings, or for ruins.  Especially if you can get them cheap.

Scenery: Small Church

Just a small chunk of scenery, a small church.  This started as a small decorative building for a Christmas village.  It had a small bulb inserted through a hole in the back, which I removed and filled in.

It fits the bill

I covered the interior walls with some scrap book paper.  I also covered the floor, hoping for a tile like pattern.  I'm not trying to get a great representation of a church, the model is much too small for that, but it should work out for a small roadside chapel.

Under construction

I covered the roof in corrugated card, trying to get a tile like look.  I am pretty happy with the results, the roof texture looks better than the smooth roof of the original.

The doors are a pain

It should work fine for a quick stand in for a church in most uses.  It took longer than I expected, but I'm pretty happy with the results.

Open interior, need some details

Next up is Zomtober...  Time to paint some zombies!

Atomic Liquors! (Papercraft Building)

I am slowly coming back from Fallout 4.  Setting up my next game I decided something I needed was a commercial building, and I decided to make Tommygun's "Atomic Liquors" liquor store.  For anyone not familiar with him, Tommygun has made a string of very nice paper models of various buildings.  They are designed to be shells, but are very easily fleshed out.  I recommend them highly, especially as he has tons of little extra details for them as well.

It's usually taller...

As I started the build, I decided to separate the second floor and roof, to make them playable areas.  I ran into some trouble with the second floor, and until I get a chance to print off another set of walls, I am going to have a one story version of the building.  <sigh>  The best laid plans I guess.

Jack looks through the doors at Dawn

I cut out the front and rear doors, using a basic paper hinge to make them 'functional'.  For the front doors, I cut out the frames and inserted clear plastic card for a glass look.  Overall, I am happy with the results, although the front doors do not open as well as they could.  The small frames are hard to make flexible enough to open.

A basic interior

The interior is reinforced with thick card (from a cereal box) and then lined with scrapbook paper.  I have found quite a few nice wallpaper and floor patterns in scrapbook paper.  It's a great resource - pretty cheap and the paper is usually a good quality for cutting and gluing.  I haven't finished the interior yet, I will add some various bits when I play next until I decide what the final floor plan will be with the second story.

This place needs a new roof!

So the roof is messed up.  It works. and looks okay if you squint and don't stare too long...  When I was putting it together I managed to build it backwards, and the glue was not forgiving.  I made the best of it, and I'll use it for now.

Overall I'm happy with the basics so far.  When I finish the second floor and new roof, I am sure it will look better.  If anyone is interested, I found this site with much of Tommygun's models:
Tommygun - One Drive

It's a Microsoft One Drive location, not mine, just found it on the web.

Keep wandering...

The wasteland awaits...

Scenery: Ruined Gas Station (Flo's V8 Cafe) Finished

The detail work for the gas station is complete, I'm hoping a "less is more" effect is better.  I added some various cans, newspapers and such scattered around the pump areas.  The truck has been replaced with a die cast pickup truck that I destroyed and added some various car and truck parts to give it a ruined feel.  I decided to leave the roof alone (for now) to make it easier to get to the inside of the building.

On to some pics!

Top View

Burned out truck (with a box/crate in the back)

Top view left side

The sign is removable, makes it easier for storage and if it gets hit during play, it *should* just breakaway where it connects to the toy base.  I hope I don't have to prove out my theory!  I tried to add some fun details, like beer cans, newspapers, an out of gas sign, tires, etc.  It was pretty fun to start putting junk on the toy set, it would have been very easy to go overboard!

Ruined truck, damaged overhead

They're out of gas

Dawn shows the front of the station

Dawn stands at the entrance

I considered adding handrails to the entrance ramp (in real life I am certain the government would require them!) but they were a bit too fiddly, and would just get in the way of moving figs around the area.  The various items added were just to add some junk feel to the ruins.  Most of the items actually came from this toy.  The various tires are from a box of tires I have from stripping them off various toy cars.

Some sort of vacuum?

Pile of tires (some Fallout influence here)

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  Hopefully I'll get to place it on a table soon.

Comments and questions are very welcome!

Scenery: Ruined Gas Station (Flo's V8 Cafe Toybash) WIP

This starts with a CARS play set of Flo's V8 Cafe.  When I got it, it was already in rough shape, so I figured a ruined gas station was the best way to go.  The set was already missing one gas pump, the top was broken, the sign was missing and some various parts were missing.  It's not the largest building, but the overall look and feel of a gas station was easy to start with.

The original out of the box (not my pic)

The one I found was in pretty bad shape (which to be honest, is the way I love to find these toys!) but still had the main parts intact.  Normally I wouldn't post until I had the build completed, but I am hoping to use this in one of my next campaign games.  With luck, showing something half done will encourage me to finish it more quickly!

Some WIP pictures:

Front view, still pretty clean

Front and above

The first shots I have are pretty clean still.  I'm adding junk to the base, as well as show a little more damage.  The interior I have added some fallen shelves and other bits.  There are some cans and bottles, plus a cash register salvaged from a Polly Pockets play set, just painted up.  I'm pretty pleased with the interior, although I may add a bit more debris before I call it complete.

Interior Details

I have some crushed glass beads I have used for simulated broken glass.  I was hoping they would pick up the light a touch and give that 'broken glass' glint.  It works, but not as well as I had hoped.  I have a ton of beads, so I'm going to play around with them some more and see if I can get them to work better.

Side view, open access plate behind

I placed a wreck where one pump was missing from the original play set.  I'm not pleased with the wreck, so I am making a new one.  The pictures show what I was thinking at least.  I'd like a much more "skeleton" wreck I think.  Hopefully I can make something work.

Wreck where a pump should be

It's a wreck.

The toy was missing the sign post, so I need to come up with a new sign.  I'd like to make both a sign post as well as something for the roof of the building.  There are various details on the roof, I think it should lend itself to a collapsed sign structure once I have a design.

That's it so far, comments and suggestions are welcomed!

Scenery: Parking Garage (in progress)

Dawn and company, where are they at?

I have another recycled Fisher Price play set, this time it's the parking garage.  I am using the older version, mine has a date of 1971 on it, and has a hardboard base.  I have seen the later (1980's) version, but it has an all plastic base, and doesn't look as easy to make useful.

The original box looked something like this:

If it was in the box, I might have just sold it...

First thing I did (after a quick cleaning) was disassemble the various parts.  One benefit of the older toy is that it is assembled with screws.  There are two pop rivets that I had to drill out that held the ramp to the base, but otherwise the whole building is held together with screws and some plastic snap tabs.

Bunch of pieces

"Tower" splits open easily

The actual parking area

I considered re using the base, but it had a really bad corner, and was an odd size.  I will cut a new piece of hardboard for the new base.  Still, the old base looks interesting; it's pretty nifty what they put on the base as far as artwork goes.

ahhh, memories...

For the next step, I replaced the turntable with a piece of foam core, the original turntable is a soft plastic, and paint won't stick to it.  I had to tear it up to get it off the building, so it's not even useful for scenery.  No big deal.  I added a little texture to some areas of the parking structure to make it a bit less 'plastic'.

First primer pass

The primer didn't completely cover up the existing stickers, but it doesn't have to.  I plan on a few coats of primer before the final coat.  I am not entirely pleased with the fill in disk on the top of the parking garage.  It is quite visible, but short of a full cover of the top, I'm not sure I can hide it.

Instead of the elevator, I am going to make the 'tower' a staircase instead.  I am making the stairs out of foam core and I painting it to look like concrete.  The stairs are more for looks, rather than functional, but I have some landings to make it possible to place figs "on" the stairs.

Foam core stairs and gray paint

On one side of the tower, removing the mechanism for the elevator leaves a rather large opening.  This is large enough to reach into the tower and place figs.  I am going to come up with a 'window' to cover the opening at times, but be removable to use the interior.

Tower and stairs, open side

On the ground floor, there is an open are where the old base had a picture of a hoist for the old elevator.  I am filling in the space with a piece of a floor sample tile.  I recommend a trip to the DIY store to check flooring samples for some useful base/scenery pieces.  Some of the tile can be used right off as a base for a smaller project.

Things go together pretty quick from here.  I put the floors into the tower, and get everything glued together.  I reuse the original screws that held it together, on the chance that I may want to take it apart someday and do something different.

Ground floor, concrete look

I paint some pf the parking lines, and a few other minor details, and get everything placed on the new base.  There are not enough parking spots for this to be a really useful structure, but for gaming purposes, I think it works okay.

I'm not quite done, I plan to add some billboards to the front of the parking levels, partially to cover the gaps where the elevator used to move between floors.  I still need a large window for the side of the staircase, and detail work on the base.  

Some cars and survivors check the layout

Open staircase - needs a window

Moving between levels

Careful near the stairs

So it's not quite done, but it's come along pretty well in the past week or so.  It just might figure into one of the next scenarios in the campaign, so everyone will get to see it in its completed glory soon.  I was inspired by another toybash from the internet.  Searching google will give plenty of results, but my personal favorite, and the most direct inspiration is at Combat Zone Chronicles, the Park n' Blow.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome!  Thanks for looking.