Category: Painting and Modelling

Some More Sci-fi Bits

Around the Christmas break (which was very pleasant, though short) I have managed to finish a few more bits towards my 15mm sci-fi project.

I was given a pair of 4Ground building kits for my birthday, and have managed to get them done within 2 months of receipt – which is good going in my book!

They’re very nice, and come with removable roofs. They were fairly fiddly for someone as impatient a model-maker as me, but nothing was permanently damaged in the assembly. I decided to tie them in a bit to my other sci-fi scenery by touching up the black edging with dark green.

A new scout squad (very old TTG Laserburn figs) is checking them out:

I have also done a few other pieces, including some containers and comms equipment. Here are a couple of recent vehicle additions. A Brigade Models jeep-type thing on the left, and a Ground Zero Games APC on the right.

I’ve painted some more figures too, but the basing isn’t done yet – so no pics.

 

Brigade Models Sci-fi Buildings

To help the Sci-fi Rampant project along I decided to add a few buildings to the scenery collection, as I suspected that just having the troops run about in the woods in the middle of nowhere could get a bit dull.

Brigade Models do some excellent sets, and their Research Base was exactly the sort of thing I was after. With their winter discount running at the moment, it was 15% off too, which was a bonus. I was determined to get cracking on it when it arrived, so that it didn’t just get moved quietly onto the to-do scenery pile in a few weeks when my interest wandered in other directions.

So, after a bit of a clean-up on the bottom of the pieces, and a black undercoat, I gave them a 3-tone dry brush from dark green up to light grey. They look a bit tie-died but work OK on both my green and winter terrain boards reasonably well.

There are some small containers to do, which are included in the set, but otherwise this lot are finished – within a week of ordering, which is pretty good going for me!

Some 15mm Sci-Fi Bits

I’m slowly coming back to this ‘period’, and am looking again at using the Dragon Rampant rules to provide a manageable, fun type of game.

While I’ve been pondering the rules, and avoiding painting any actual figures, I have managed to add a few bits of scenery that I was recently given by a generous soul. These will be general items to scatter around, or make part of the scenario as objectives or targets for destruction, etc.

These are MDF kits from Blotz. They’re easy to assemble and easier to paint. I tried to find a colour scheme that would go with both my terrain colours, and I think it’ll do.

 

Changing the Setting

My naval/amphibious project has had some minor attention recently, with a view to getting things ready for a big multi-player game next year. I have added some more ground troops, including the odd tank and artillery piece, and will aim to post some pics of these soon.

Since painting some fir trees to dress the islands for a northern setting, I’ve been on the hunt for small palm trees to re-locate things in the Pacific when I want to involve the Japanese and American fleets. I tracked down a Chinese (aren’t they all?) manufacturer on eBay and bought 100 30mm palm trees for a few quid. I’d almost forgotten about them until they arrived at the start of this week. They look fine, and I’ve simply painted the trunks a darker brown and based them in 1s, 2s and 3s (as I’ve done with the fir trees). I’m not aiming for full-on jungles, I just want a few trees to create the right look.

So, here are some Germans in the Baltic:

And with a quick switch round, some Japanese in the Pacific:

Autumn Bits and Pieces

Although posts have been a bit few and far between lately, I’ve been getting some stuff done. I have set up a spill-over workstation on the dining room table, and up until the point where I’m evicted, I have a number of projects to work on – generally involving glue, styrofoam, MDF, sand and paint. Messy stuff then!

First up, was a simple assemble and paint job..

Oriental Jetties (TTCombat MDF) – for Sharp Practice and other 28mm skirmish games:

More to come…

 

September Scratchbuild Challenge

The Loose Association of Wargamers forum is running a challenge this month to use up some of the stuff that wargamers collect and hoard in the hope they’ll be useful someday. I am definitely one of those people who can’t help holding onto a decent sheet of polystyrene, cardboard tube or piece of balsa, so I decided to have a go.

Good timing then – as a new curtain pole came packed in some L-shaped card lengths, and I detected a potential use straight away!

I have been intending to buy some 28mm earthworks as defences to use in various games, particularly Sharp Practice skirmishes in the Medetian colonies. Nothing in 28mm resin is super-cheap, so I thought I might economise a bit with my new cardboard bits 🙂

This isn’t intended as a detailed step-by-step account of how I produced the final piece, but basically I cut a 30cm length and removed a section for a gun emplacement. Then I plugged the ends, and based the entire piece, with card. The remaining features were the adding of a firing step with a rear extension for the gun and crew (10mm styrofoam sandwiched between more card and decked with thin strips), a ‘planked’ shield for the gun and finally some sharpened dowel spikes to deter attackers.

I used some filler on the gaps and on the main earthwork, and covered it with sand.

Everything received a Sandtex black undercoat and a heavy brush of Sandtex bitter chocolate. The wood received a light grey drybrush before everything was finished with a sand-coloured final brush. I painted the front edge green to match my terrain boards, and that’s it done!

I just need to make a few more bits now and then get them on the table for some interesting pirate stronghold scenarios!

 

A 4-Part Hill

I have finally managed to finish these terrain boards, having started making them earlier this year. They’ve now had the sand and paint treatment and are ready for action.

I wanted the option for a larger hill, or 2 halves (on table edges), or even 4 quarters (in the table corners), and the only way to do this on 12 inch terrain tiles is to make it out of a number of pieces.

I made a side template from card to apply the same slope edge to each board so they’d all match up. The ‘filling’ was done with pieces of polystyrene, styrofoam, card and plaster. The overall height is only 30mm but it gives a good enough impression of a hill, especially with 6mm figures.

I may make a couple of middle pieces at some point, using the same edge template, to go between 2 corners and allow for long ridges or a 3×2 foot single hill.

 

A Few More Colonials

I wanted to finish off the rest of the figures I’d prepared before and since Ayton, and here they are. These will be seeing some action (hopefully soon) in my 1830s Medetian colonial setting, using the Sharp Practice rules.

First, some RSMs kindly donated from Andy’s cavernous spares box. Two will naturally be Big Men (ie. leaders) for Sharp Practice.

The last of the Gripping Beast Arabs:

Artillery crew converted from Gripping Beast Arabs:

Finally, an officer for my Fleurian artillery (Victrix plastic):

Junk!

Granted, not an original post name.

At the AMG weekend a few people brought along things to sell/dispose of and I picked this up from Paul for a few quid. It’ll fit in nicely with my non-specific colonial setting, either as an operational vessel for the locals or just as a nice piece of scenery. I gave it a dust, added the masts, and repainted the black bits. And that’s it, ready to go. 🙂