Projects on the go...

I haven't had much time to add anything to my Blog in the last couple of weeks - too little time as there has been lots to do at work, overdue gardening tasks to catch up on at the weekends and several evenings has been taken up with either:
a) preparing activities for about 40 Cubs and Scouts out in the woods yesterday evening and
b)painting numbers and sticking googly eyes on 100 small pebbles for a fund-raiser at our Community Festival this coming weekend!

I've been working on assorted little projects when I can snatch a few minutes, coming soon are...

Industrial type building constructed using Hirst Arts starship moulds (nearing completion - just need to cast up a few extra bits that I've run out of)

Some more shacks and a few wrecked/burnt out cars

GZG crusties (finally managed to watch District 9 last week!)

More work on the Eagle, starting with paint stripping and filing off mould lines


I'll be trying to take a few more photographs over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Finally... a thank you to Mark from Dropship Horizon for giving my Blog a mention!

Paul

Eagle Transporter

Space 1999 Eagle Transporter

I picked up this old Dinky Toys Space 1999 Eagle Transporter for £2 in a junk shop.

It is clearly in need of some TLC having lost engines, most of the RCS thruster nozzles and the majority of its paint! I'm planning to strip off the battered green Dinky Toys paint scheme and re-paint in a more appropriate grey/white colour scheme. There is so little of the old paint scheme left that I won't feel guilty about destroying it. Prior to painting, some quick surface detailing will be added to the interior of the support tray which runs down the spine of the ship, and to the sides of the access ways which will be inside the structural cage. A few sequins, plasticard bits and wire wrapped guitar strings will add a nice selection of technical gubbins. The "beak" command module will have mould-lines and joins smoothed over, and casting marks on the undercarriage pod "shoulders" and landing feet will also be filled / filed smooth.

As the craft is currently without engines or transport pod, I'm thinking that it will be a static display piece - a long disused ship, stripped of many of the useful parts and incorporating some sort of lean-to building underneath (where the pod would have fitted). In fact I already have a scenario idea which would make use of this piece of scenery...

One day I may try and scratch build some engines - I have a plastic Eagle kit partially constructed, with a set of fuel tanks, engine bells etc. which will provide a good template. For now though, it will just be cleaned up and re-built as it is.

Headswaps and skullhunters

A couple of my currents works-in-progress...

Head swaps using GZG replacement heads.

Security team leader...

Plus some "Skullhunters" from QRF.

Trouble at Grumpy's Shack

This little project was started around Christmas time, but it's taken me some time to get around to finishing it!

"Alright Grumpy, where's the money you owe us?"

"I ain't got it. And you should know - I've called the cops!"

"Thsi is Security Team 2 - we have the bandits in sight. Preparing to make an arrest..."

This is where Grumpy the colonist lives. You can see it's pretty run down, which explains why Grumpy looks so miserable all the time.

Walls are a mixture of corrugated cardboard and plastic mushroom punnet (Tesco value mushrooms come in a nicely textured container). All the posts are cocktail sticks, glued into small holes drilled through the base board. The base is 3mm MDF.

The building on the right will eventually have a chain link fence - hence the upright posts surrounding it.

The removable roof of each building is more corrugated cardboard. The buildings were painted with Inscribe acrylics. Base colour for the corrugated iron was Burnt Umber 1730 (old rust), with Burnt Sienna 1729 (fresh rust) around the edges. The grey colour was a mixture of Snow 1701 and Raven 1732, with a lighter drybrush for weathering. By painting the rusty colours onto the currugated metal roof first and adding the original metal colour afterwards, the rust ends up in all the crevices and grooves - where the water will have collected and caused the most corrosion. The pieces of plastic punnet were painted with Forest Green 1721 with rusty bits added afterwards. The wooden posts were given a coat of Taupe 1739. The bits of balsa around the base of some walls were painted with Ultramarine Blue 1748 and Holly Berry 1710, drybrushed with Taupe 1739 to give a suitable battered/weathered appearance.

I'ev also got a few more items to add some more character to my scenery. The oil drums come from Continental Model Supply Company, who produce all sorts of 1/76 or 1/72 scale kits and accessories for modern & WW2 eras. They also do some great ammunition boxes, jerry cans etc. These drums have been deliberately battered and damaged - the items as delivered from CMSC were in far better condition!

Unfortunately, they don't have a web site, but they can be contacted at: 36 Gray Gardens, Rainham, Essex RM13 7NH.

The concrete barriers are from the Hirst Arts fieldstone walling accessory set. Although designed for 25/28mm scale, I think they look pretty good as the sort of concrete barriers you might find in a vehicle checkpoint.

Alien egg objective markers

After allowing my moulds a good 24 hours to cure, the Lego brick casings were disassembled and the plasticine masters were removed. Here are the two moulds, washed and ready for use.

I'm very pleased with the amount of detail which the silicone has picked up, and I've managed to avoid getting any particularly noticeable air bubbles.

My first casting was a bit of a rush, and the plaster was slightly thicker than I wanted, but I'm still very pleased with the results. The plaster has been painted using Inscribe acrylic craft paints. I started with a thinned down coat of Raven 1732 (ie. black) to seal the plaster. This was followed by another coat of black to get a good base layer, then a drybrushed layers of Forest Green 1721 over the top of the eggs/base and Burnt Umber 1730 for the underside of the eggs. The final touch was a drybrush of a Taupe 1739 (a sort of concrete colour), which really brought out the detail - the mottled texture of the eggs and the "biomechanical" piping between the eggs.

The too-thick plaster mix has actually added some character to the castings, with parts of the piping looking slightly decayed and rotten.

Finally, here's a shot of the markers with a GZG light vacc-suited explorer and a Xenomorph, plus a smaller QRF alien creature.

I'll mix up some thinner plaster for the next lot of casting, and will probably add some black poster paint. This will produce a darker finish that won't show up the chips in the paint in case they get knocked. The moulds will need a small amount of trimming to ensure the plaster can reach all the pipework. Time to start work on the hive!

Completed caverns

Here are a few photographs of the completed cavern system. I wasn't really happy with the dark-edges movement spots I tried, so I went for lighter centres instead, which has worked much better. I wasn't sure if they'd be visible enough, but they were fine for the first game that we played. Working out how light they'd be when dry was difficult - the paint is slightly lighter in colour when wet, so a couple of extra layers of highlighting were needed to make sure that the spots were visible. Much easier to use than trying to squeeze a tape measure into the tunnels!


Some of the entrances/exits don't line up precisely, but they're more than good enough for my needs.

The large chamber in the middle has extra bits of wall which can be inserted to provide a more maze-like set of passages.

All in all, I'm happy with the results - especially as the only cost involved was about 5 pence worth of white paint for the highlighting and about £1 of cork tiles. All the rest was left over red paint & polystyrene sheet that was left in the garage / loft of our new house, plus a small amount of PVA from a free supply I was given many years ago.

Rusty Corrugated Metal

There has been quite a bit of interest recently in metal shack "shanty towns" in 15mm scale, what with GZG's new metal shacks (V15-COL4 SHACK SET) and Battle Works Studios "Startown Slum" buildings - see the Dropship Horizon blog for a review of both.

I passed some very battered old buildings whilst driving round Essex today, so thought I'd post them as good examples of heavily weathered corrugated iron sheeting, in case anyone could use a littel reference material or inspiration.

Click on pictures for larger images (about 2MB each?).