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.

Inspection Droid

A happy large inspection droid is buzzing around the cluttered worktable. It is a exercise in figuring out how small I can go with plastic card.

SoT APC construction final. Chika sleeps on....

So the question occurs to me as I sit down to show off the finished Sons of Thunder (SoT for Short) APCs, what naming sceme to use for characters that are basically "Space" Dwarves that live in their environment suits? Either use names randomly generated from one of the numerous online fantasy name generators or assign names like a color and a number like one might name production batches.

Well anyways here are two small APCs for the SoT. Added from the last post are turrets from Ground Zero Games Accessories, panels and vents from Kotobukiya line of Mecha customization bits line available through HobbyLink Japan plus the usual selection of offcuts and bits and bobs from the scrap box.

The next Update will be from the paint table once everything has been primered and ready for Paint techniques, though with these I plan more normal weathering rather than the grand amounts of abuse my other Post Apocalyptic Vehicles receive.

I don't know about other peoples bits boxes, but mine is several separate boxes generally sorted by size closest to the table is the general catch-all which all the off-cuts from construction go. periodically I sort this box's contents by size, larger chunks of rod and card get cycled back to their respective boxes if they a larger than 2 inches in their gross dimensions. I have a separate box for sprued items, though I tend to prune said sprues back after they are used, with the resulting sprue lengths in to the off-cut box. The following picture is the catch-all, I use a clear plastic box so I can see what has drifted to the bottom at a glance.

The worktable catch-all bits box.

Last but not Least of my Shop equipement Chika the dog skin rug, or that is how she a appears half the time. But what should I expect from a 10+ year old Lab Mix with arthritic hips

Chika in one of her normal configurations...

Wheeled Desert Caravans and wheels...

The start of a new Model, a wheeled Desert Caravan, in both a 4 and 6 wheeled formats. The actual suspension for the wheels is yet to be decided, though I am leaning towards a regulare under the body sor of suspension for the 6-wheel and the external strut for the 4-wheel. Conceptually a combination of gypsy wagon, antique truck (cab-forward 1910-1920s) and SF off-road truck. 

First up is a picture of the cartoon of the model.

Following are pictures of the construction of the wheels. I am using a new idea for these the core is made up of 3/8ths of an inch (approx. 1 scale meter) chunks of telescoping styrene tube from Evergreen Plastics. The end cap is a bit of card glued on then trimmed to round. I used a little electric cut-off/miter saw from Harborfreight for my cuts. I nested the tubes to my desired width, and marked my depth on the outer tube and cut each chunk as a whole to minimize the number of cuts, Though a miter box and razor saw wouldn't have been much effort either.

Note on scale, I use 3/8ths of an inch as my default 1 meter in scale while it tends to give a absolute scale of 1/95.75th, once the skin is on most vehicles it rounds out to approx. 1/100th. This allows use of the prevalent measuring system of materials to speed construction. 

 

Here are some rough cut chunks bamboo stick, for use as handles durning construction. A dab of Greenstuff keeps the handle in the center of the smallist tube. I would have used styrene rod, but I want to keep the option of placing the wheel in the chuck of a rotary took for sanding and shaping, and the styrene rod won't hold up.

Pictures of the wheel hubs being put together. 

The Greenstuff tires started. The detail doesn't show up very well in this picture. 

The last part of this project is figuring out what the crew of these vehicles are going to look like. This year I am trying to have a crew picked out and finished alongside the vehicles I make. Kinda a Pimp my Ride and Crew Pledge. This pledge may extend to buildings as well, depending if I get Wastelands Village Buildings idea up and running. It basically is a generic idea of building the survival basics as terrain, so House, Water Source, small plot/Greenhouse farm, assorted workshop/business and Defensive buildings plan. All are to be build on standard bases, I am using Flames-of-War large bases as they are relatively cheep and a good size.

Bob and Ralph Inspecting the Midget APC

All the basic skin is on the midget APCs. Next bit is the top Hatches and other related details that haven't been decided on yet, most likely a vent or two and some stowage. The last shot is both APCs and the MAWP. 

The thing I ponder right now as I look at these shots is the need for a contrasting stage for pictures, all of the white and off white tends to wash out the models which tend to be all in white card.

More Midget APC Work

Following the post on the guts of these models, here I give you the first work on the skin. The Cab with the  windscreen are done in the gross details. 

I have been pondering Names for these, Clown Car keeps coming to mind. 

Back to Basics With Ralph

I have spent most of the new year trying to figure out out which of the multitude of Ideas I started last year to work on. I figured out I wasn't happy with many of them. So it is back to joyful Styrene basics, and conversions. Here is a conversion of GZG's 6-wheeled Utility Trailer for the Mini-Mule into a APC for Rebel Mini's "Sons of Thunder" and idea I have been kicking around for a while. I am inspired by some of Niklas Jansson's Art from the StarSword section of his website ANDROID ARTS, StarSword is his hommage to 40k. In the picture indicated it is the Squarish APC thumbnail.

In the Picture series we have Bob's cousin Ralph standing in as our Standard 15mm figure (note the base he is on is a 1.5mm thick 15mm round from Litko and he like Bob are left over from GZG's Assault Team pack.) and a leader figure from the "Sons of Thunder" infantry pack (Well, his base is a penny. I am slowly standardizing my core basing to pennies, which are cheaper than bought bases, and just a bit under 20mm in diameter).

The Vehicle (actually two Identical builds) is shown here being bulked up with pre-scribed Evergreen sheet and then sheeted with bits of the same. The next step is to clean-up the over hangs and joins in preparation for the detail layers. Clean-up consists of trimming down to the core desired shape then using a little of Squadron Green to fill any gaps. Followed with a rough sanding to even out the core shape. 

I use pre-scribed sheet as my base material in that it is fast to do core shape build up with it. Evergreen's "Sidewalk" comes in 1/8" through 1/2" increments, so each layer can be roughed out quickly with just a few snaps, with minmal tool work each layer. Sheet thickness is approx. 1mm and 3 layers is a approx. 1/8" thick. So in the core build resolution is generally 1/8" square pixel. Tools used here are fingers, clippers, Xacto knife, straight hemostats and generally a bit of emory board.

Choice of model was mostly the failure of another project, I got the Mini-Mule, the two trailers and a Wheeled MAWP to build a starport armed baggage train. It sounded neater than it looked. after a year of sitting on the paint desk in failure mode, the new idea struck. The MAWP will stay as-is, the Mini-Mule will get it's conversion once the APCs detail shapes are finalized.