Test build kinda...

Ok this started as a none-GW Universe ship for use with the Battlefleet Gothic Rule set, and it has turned into a shape test for 15mm GravSkimmer. (Yes, technically this is part of my NewSpeeder model set of vehicles, but in styrene instead of epoxy putty)

Following are the standard three views. Yes, I need to clean my desk off, so I can get better lighting set up.

How big is that Starship on the worktable...

A cargo lighter in the middle of a very long process... It has been sitting a a half finished Idea for years, and I have questions.... Asked on the TMP .

The Water Works and Associated Madness

Well last I posted it was Machine Coalition Terrain, and  in the process of making room of the painting table I found Five Ground Zero Games Shanties and the Water Works ready for paint. The Water Works is a bash-up of a pill bottle, a couple of desiccant cylinders, some wood bits and a small nickel snap (look in the notions department of your local craft and sewing shop). The curb work at the bottom is just a bit of epoxy putty (Could be either greenstuff, Procreate or Magic-Sculpt, can't remember which and it was primered when I started painting)

Water Works

GZG Shanty

Another GZG Shanty

Next we have a little car I like to call the Slabmaster, it is in the classic American style, in that it is a slab of metal gently resting on beefy repulsers that propel it to agressive highway speeds. On the straight-away.....

Modeling-wise, it is sitting waiting for that bit of inspiration of what finishing details it needs beyond the the obvious. For once this isn't a point of hating the looks of a model, but one I love it so much I don't want to muss it up.

Slabmaster One

Slabmaster One

Slabmaster One

Here is a picture Angry Arthor, Monster Skinner, all dressed up in his Pandora Working clothes. In miniatures terms he is Gath from Rebel Minis 5150 set, he was sitting on the bench thus a picture.

Angry Arthor

Lastly a picture of "28mm" scale figures that are perfectly usable in 15mm, Bob is standing in for referance. The floating Robots are "Small Floating Robot #1" from Black Cat Bases, the lizards are Cynoraptors from the Viridians faction of the Void 1.1 line now available from Scotia Grendal. As for their various basing options shown here, Bob is on 15mm round from Litko, the Robots are on their supplied flight bases, and the Cynoraptors are on hand cut 12 x 20mm handcut plastic bases.

Bob and Friends

Machine Coalition Outpost

1st off I really need to clean my desk, or at least figure out a better place to shoot my pictures. I have been tied up doing summer stuff and working on my obsession very little, kinda I cleaned and sorted the painting table and am slowly making my way through the huge back log of figures/models that need paint, so in a word I am not meeting the pledge at all this year.

With that I have assembled and am painting GZG's Shack Set set I should have some pics up soon. Pictured below is the beginnings of a Machine Coalition Out Post. Basic construction uses the Platformer and Hexagon sets from IMEX that a mate of mine gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I recently discovered the boxes again in my vast collection of junk, and while looking through huge number of sprues a Idea occurred. A thus was born the Network Hub and Accommodation/Storage Unit of a Machine Coalition Outpost. 

MC Network Hub (front)

MC Network Hub (side)

MC Network Hub (rear)

MC Accommodation/Storage Unit (front)

MC Accommodation/Storage Unit (rear oblique)

Some more random notes from the desk;

I have a bunch of terrain warming up in the bullpin for further blogs, as terrain sits around the edges of my projects taunting me with the facts that my little metal guys need a world to play in. Or that is how it feels. With that I am still trying to figure out what my PA fuel station is going to look like.

I used to use GW's 60mm round flat bases for incidental terrain pieces, such as Moisture stills, gardens, rubble piles, etc. etc... But in their infinite wisdom they have now priced these like they are gold, so a new solution needed to be found, and I realize that I could just cut my own out of plastic card, but I am lazier than that. Or I should say the processe that produces said terrain is driven by inspiration and having a handy base means it gets done. So any ways, I have settled on Flames of Wars Large Bases, the size seems good. So far I have mounted GZG's Shacks on them as well a Well/Cistern unit that fits well with the shacks, all six pieces are on the painting table as I write this so there should be pictures of them soon.

In a freak fungus/closed paint box incident here at Casa MacDude I have been having a jolly old time sorting out my collection of Vallejo Paints, the fungus in the plastic tool box ate mos of the labels off the paint bottles along with the reference smear of paint, so I am having to redo them all, In the same process I am finding which bottles where quite close tight enough. The funny thing is the Old GW brand Coat'd Arms post cam through the incident quite unscathed. So the up side is that my 20+ year old inherited collection of GW paints are still getting broken out for use in pinch still. An ex-roommate of mine bought several boxes of the GW paints when they came out, and left them behind when he moved on. While I am not a prolific painter I have used a lot of other paints over the years only dipping in to this collection when in need, thus the longevity.

More Soon.

Evyn

Still MegaHex

Quick update, Summer sucks and the MegaHex project is still progressing. Though I am still working on the quickest way to produce a finished tile, I am surprised at the slowness of this development process.

Details still being pondered is detail for specific tiles, in that the amount of detailing that should be a part of the tile such as barricades and cover or should that be all on their own bases. I am leaning towards separately based such that they can be used out side of this terrain project.

Later this week i am going to get some pictures taken and maybe a After-Action-Report of a playtest. All depending how much Real-Life(tm) intrudes.

MegaHex!!!... The Project.

I know I have talked about MegaHex the interior terrian project before in this blog, today a little more depth. First off the megahexes are an invention of Steve Jackson way back when he was working for Howard Thompson of Metagaming on The Fantasy Trip (TFT). Well, preusing my collection of OLD gaming stuff I picked my copy of TFT and was mining it for ideas to inflict on my Playtest Victim, Space Monkey Slappy*. 

Well "Lo and Behold" I crashed into the idea of mapping the Labyrinth using megahexes. "What a neat Idea to Steal" says me, going one to think these would be great as 3d tiles.

Well, the first problem is what to make them out of followed quickly by what size. I pondered purchasing purchasing a bunch of 20mm hex bases, well a clicks around the usuale suspects for sources of bases and I find that idea breaks my bank quickly, in price, material and effort. So I decide maybe a bigger base as my core will mean fewer tiles, pricing is still ugly, thus a trip to the bits box to see if there is a solution I can build from scrap. I had discarded wood bases (MDF) earlier as too pricey as well as any sort of custom cut plastic, so the bits box yielded up seven 1 inch hex slotta bases, and the 1 inch hex didn't feel quite roomy enough, but I also found a selection of Hobby Products 34mm hex bases for their DemonWorld game, these where pretty much a size I could live with. Also while rummaging around under the desk I found my tub of Polymer Clay. With these two things in hand, I figured while I didn't have enough bases to make tiles, but I had enough to make templates. Added to the metric butt-load of Polymer Clay I now had a PLAN....

The templates are made from said DemonWorld bases and scrap styrene (see the second picture), nothing fancy, but more than enough to cut appropriate sized blanks out of.  

A quick side-note here on Polymer Clay, I haven stated a specific brand as I tend to purchase whatever is on sale when a project comes up and throw the the leftovers in a bag for use when I need to bulk out a armature. This bag is what I am using to make my blanks (see the 3rd picture). 

After I have cut a blank I cure it so I have a stiff substrat to work on for detailing. As you can kinda see from the top picture I hame playing with a number of methods for the core surface texturing and detailing. The most time consuming is individually tiling each hex, fun, but it takes lots of time. Currently I make a large thin sheet of uncured clay and tile and texture on top, then cut out a completes hex from that to tile the blank. The raised portions are made out of crumpled Aluminum Foil covered with clay then "glued" into place with a couple of drops of Liquid Sculpy. 

A collection of tiles on the work table

The Base Template

A Blank

A finished tile with multi-colored fungi

The basic modification to the Savage Worlds rule-set are that all movement and ranges given in inches are cut in half and counted out in hexes. A small 'area effect" template is one hex, a medium is a Mega-Hex and a Large is a Mega-Hex plus one Hex.

I am also considering writing a set of combat rules compatible with Classic/Mongoose Traveller rules stealing heavily from AHL/Striker rules.

(* Space Moneky Slappy is my PITA 16 year-old-just-graduated-from-High-School-wallet-draining Son, how often says "Dad, I'm Bored, let's Game".)

Boats in the Yard

First off, the Genetics Experiment graduated from High School a year early last week, my house has been occupied with relatives who we don't see too often. Mostly due to Large oceans separating us (which is in general a GOOD thing). In the pile of received boxes I received the following additions for the boat yard here in the Walled Garden. 

Thanks Dan. 

So it looks to be a Nautical Summer. Dan, if you where here instead of Hell... I mean... Texas, I would force you to play with me in the shop finishing these out....

Looking over these sparks my mind the terrain needed to support, thinking floating docks, residential barges, a floating market, etc. etc... Which suits a segment of the game world in my head which I like to call the Delta, which is a Post Apocalyptic pastiche of of large river deltas, mangrove swamps, levee protected lowlands world wide. 

Also on the table is more Mega-hexes for more of that deep down in the rubble and sewers, dungeon crawling goodness. This time with vehicles. The modeling limitations is a maximum vehicle size of three meters long by two and half meters wide and tall think the size of GZG's Mule  

If y'all remember I converted some of these a while back into Mini-APCs, this time I will be building from the ground up mostly (this really depends how long it takes to find stuff that got moved in my last spate of house-guests, Mom is getting old and she puts stuff away reflexively, even if it is in my office). But the good news is all the kipple that was occupying my Paint table has been put up in new or traditional homes, so the traditional drag of clean, work or build that normally gets in the way of painting isn't there.

4 Little Lost Treads....

So Guys what sort of vehicle should these happy little tread units go to? While I have a couple of ideas, I figured I would ask.

As for their construction they are dead easy to make. Use a round punch to form the "wheels". Then Laminate them to a bit of backing plastic card, and trim the plastic card to the shape of the tread unit flush with the wheels. Finally using a bit of flexible plastic card, in this case 1/4 by 0.01 strip, glue it in place around the wheels.

Additional track detail can be added at this point. I have considered lugs in the form of small T shaped rod. But simple raised plates wouldn't be much of a trick either.

RV's of the OutWorlds....

Here we have a Caravan with all the gross detailing done, ready for all the finishing bits. Things to be added; the back porch, steps for all the doors, door handles, a front grill, maybe some more bumper on the front and of course lights. I am considering a Solar panel for the roof of the living section as well as a HVAC unit on the cab roof.

The overall project I am working on is a Wastelands Truck Caravan, another couple of of RV's, I have a couple of tank trucks, one a Gekko Pickup the other a Provider (both from Old Crow), planned but not decided on actual form are at least two cargo trucks in the rolling peddlers shop motif. Add to these a number of outriders driving bikes, cars, etc... etc...

Game terms for this vehicle are still being figured out, but it is a relatively slow vehicle think 50 to 60 mph full out geared for torque (figure granny gear) with a Off-road suspension and tires. Range over speed is the emphasis. Both the cab and the "house" are armored, at least in terms of a normal RV's skin which really is no better that cardboard against firearms. All three doors have "doorgunner" rigs for Machine guns and the side windows on the House act as firing ports.

Back-story is that this is built up from a wrecked exploratory truck by the current driver/owners grandfather and he took took up working the road with several like minded Owner/Operators.

Shades of Traveller Batman!

Was playing around with making tread units and well one thing lead to another. this is pretty much a Classic Traveller Tracked ATV built to at 2/3rds scale. And it was completely unconscious build I was to the detailing stage before I noticed. 

Outstanding Landspeeder paint up on this Blog.

Going to have to get to the paint table here soon.

New Cars on the Walled Garden Lot.

Here are a couple of new vehicles for the Walled Garden's parking lot. 

1st up is a armored convoy point car. Armed with fixed forward Heavy Minigun with a large ammo drum and Ram-plate. The driver is surrounded by a full roll-cage and 5-point crash restraint seat, directly behind the driver is a small cargo area which is accessed by a armored hatchback.

A light road truck built-up from a Johann Wildebeest 6x6 light utility, it retains the Wildebeest's brand signature cab mounted air intake. As always a Wildebeest isn't fast, but it will keep on going long after others fail.

Modeling notes, these all styrene construction using both Evergreen card and tubes, with Kotobukiya M.S.G bits. The wheels are Evergreens telescoping tubing, in this case three layers of tube glued together then cut to proper width for the tires, and a number of appropriate sized disks punched out with my new punch from MicroMark, I bought it because it has sized dies ranging from 3/32nds to 9/32nds which are mostly larger than the dies available on your average rotary leather punch.

Game Notes; Johann Wildebeest was a major range/agricultural equipement Manufacturer in the American OutWorld colonies.

Paint Table Parking Lot

Here is a quick conversion of a Old Crow Model's 15mm Gecko Scout/Pickup. I seem to have a metric buttload of these I don't seem to remember buying that many of them. 

Anyways, I have alway thought the the Cab was a bit off, but it took me quite a number of years to get around to doing it..... So, here is my go at it. The last photo is of the base vehicle in Pickup form.

Looking at my vehicles drawer I seem to need to either sit and paint or teach the Boy how to paint vehicles, as I have quite the collection of models ready to go.