R-CEE Robot

This 3D printed R-CEE robot comes from the talented Evan Carothers.  Mine has a few ridges on the arms and legs, but this is due to user error (or "incompetence" if you will), not any problem with the file or printer.  I am always very careful to ensure the screws for the resin vat are done up tightly, but on this occasion I failed to tighten the bolt on the print head, leaving it to wobble around.  Despite this astounding stupidity on my part, a bit of superglue fixed the worst problems, so it's fine to use as a bit of background scenery.

The scenery includes a lino sample, some Hirst Arts blocks for the walls and hatch, Lego wheels for the barrels, and a few small 3D printed crates and oil cans.
 

 I've reprinted the robot since I took these photographs, and it turned out much better with the build plate securely fixed in place!

Quest For Makuta - the Bionicle Adventure Game

Bionicle game

We had a nice trip to the market town of Diss today, and we always enjoy a browse of the charity shops while we're there.  Today in the Oxfam shop we came across the Lego Bionicle Adventure Game: Quest for Makuta for a mere £2.99.

The blurb on the back.

Number 1 son (7 years old next month) has enjoyed playing with my Bionicle stuff for the last couple of years and he didn't need much persuasion to spend his saved up pocket money on this rather than some bit of useless tat from one of the other shops.

Mata Nui.

The game comes with a set of neat jigsaw fit hex tiles, shown here assembled as the island of Mata Nui, home to the Bionicle Toa (player characters).

Counters/tokens.

The components are decent quality, nice thick card stock.  It's a shame the playing pieces are plastic pawns with card inserts instead of actual plastic figures.  I suppose I could always order some of the Bionicle Hordika minifigures which are quite cheap (and the right colours, though not exactly the correct shape), but I'll wait and see how the game plays first.

Bionicle Guide

 I was asked to get out my Bionicle guide (a previous 50p Charity shop find) so we could have a look at some of the glyphs and try to translate them.

The Bionicle Lexicon.

With any luck, we might get a chance to try playing the game tomorrow!

Barrels from Lego

Following on from my crates, I had often looked at small Lego wheels and thought they'd make nice barrels for 15mm.  Their ribbed appearance reminds me of intermediate bulk containers, something any self-respecting starport or industrial site needs.  They're also a good size, enough to provide complete cover for a 15mm figure standing behind them.

Liquid bulk storage containers.

I chose orange for a couple of reasons: first of all they were cheap (about 1.6 pence each); secondly, I didn't even need to paint a base coat - it was easy to just apply a black ink wash and call them done.  I bought some matching orange single stud circular plates and sanded off the Lego logo to fill the holes in the top.  The 6 pictured are only a small proportion of the number I ordered.  Now I have all the portable liquid bulk storage capacity my starport needs for under £1 and with minimal painting time - super cheap and super fast!

Crates from Lego

Lego is a great source of bits that you can use for scenery, even the more basic bricks. I had a few pale pink 4-stud square bricks in a batch of secondhand Lego.  These don't really go with any of our other bricks so I liberated them and provided a new lease of life as scenery for my games.

A small stack of crates.

The bricks had a flat tile glued on top as a lid and were undercoated with Wilko grey primer spray.  A quick coat of old GW blue grey paint was followed by application of a few waterslide transfers from my decal supply, a mix of tank markings from various WWII kits. Broken wiggly lines of white were painted on some to give an appearance of labels.

Paint chipping around edges.

 

They were shaded with a wash of black ink thinned with matt varnish - experience has led me to do this after applying the decals because using a decal fixing medium often reactivates the wash and removes some of it, leaving odd pale patches. Some of my ancient pot of GW chainmail was dabbed around the edges for paint chipping effect.

Lego!

So there we go, a set of crates for only a few pence.  The groove around the edge of the tiles enhances the lid effect and they're ideal blocking scenery for 15mm games.  They'd do as smaller crates for 28mm games too.

2020 Summer of Scenery - Part 10: Electrical box buildings

I've been working on some buildings constructed from surface mount pattress boxes since around May.  I've used 3 depths, 25mm, 32mm and 45mm.  I've also used 2 widths, single and double socket sized.  All came from Toolstation, ranging from 54p to £1.14.

All boxes were well sanded with a wet and dry foam sanding pad to give a good surface key for painting and remove any sharp edges.

Basic materials and tools.

 I've used mainly plasticard and Lego parts to enhance the buildings and add detail.  Main structural elements (eg roof) use 1.5mm plasticard while thinner sheets and textured sheets (treadplate, corrugated) are used for surface detailing such as doors, panels etc. Various other wires, old toys etc will also come in useful.

Lego enhancements.

 

Doors have been scratch built from thin plasticard. Most will have entry pads added from Ainsty Castings (now sold by Brigade Models) 15mm stowage basket sets.  These etched brass sets come with 4 stowage baskets of varying styles on each frame, plus a couple or radar dishes, a small grille and a couple of display screens/keypads.

Scratch built doors.

 I've used some 1.5mm plasticard for walls/barricades. Small Lego curved slopes (part number 11477/17134) form the supports to either side and a section of corrugated plasticard to create a more interesting texture along the centre.

Plasticard and Lego barricades.

 The largest building is a 2 storey workshop (45mm lower storey with 32mm upper storey) with the upper floor mounted at 90 degrees to the ground floor.  Windows are created from Lego windows (part number 28961) glued on sideways.  The door is Evergreen/plastruct metal siding plasticard with Lego curved slope (part number 13731 razor-sawed to size) sides.

2 storey workshop with office above.

 The flat roof has some hatches and a Lego brick electrical cabinet with plasticard doors etc. The height of the building provides a strong attachment for the Lego girder tower (part number 58827).

Flat roof area with electrical cabinets and hatches,

 Plastruct steps provide access to a plasticard treadplate platform. The overhanging office section is supported by a pair of Lego inclined stanchions (part 4476).

Note stairs to roof and supports for overhanging office.

  More Evergreen metal siding plasticard provides doors for this 45mm tall double garage / workshop, plus some sloping vents at the top of the wall.

Double garage building.

A smaller workshop has a nice large door plus 32187 "extension for transmission driving ring" chimneys.

Small workshop.

Small workshop side door - with access control.

Rear of small workshop.

Guitar strings make useful bits of cabling.  Small lego tiles and scraps of thick plasticard make junction boxes.

Side of small workshop.

Small workshop 2 with roller door and canopy.

Rear of small workshop 2 with plant and machinery.

Small workshop 2 with small vents.

Communications antenna from Lego.

Painting has started but more on that another time!