blather

firstly, I have a smart phone - and I'm still finding my way around the damn thing - however, it does appear to be smart enough to automatically include pics in my blog in my gallery and I miss my old wallpapers... so stay with me...

ahem - ok, progress on other things has been really slow, I had some time off work and really intended to get some figures painted, but my mojo has done a Burton and I'm stuck... suspect I will get back to the old toy thing as that is pushing me a bit more, but I am painfully aware of how long it's been since I actually painted anything and am getting a bit worried I might not get back in the swing of things... bloody mojo...

old toy new life WIP part 2

well, technically part 2 at any rate, it just needed a catchier title...

Ok, the rooms within the base unit are done, walls thickened up slightly, some card down to hide various out of scale bits removed. All of the walls are at a slight angle, which makes things less boring, but means I have to get the doorways just right - and have just about managed it I think. Computer banks from Ainsty, which fit in quite nicely, the remaining corner will have swappable units I think, so it can vary what research/experiments might be going on...

The other room has had walls raised slightly to match the first room (and extended some of the exterior detail as well to cover the new wall), and again a door added. Again, the slant on the walls makes things tricky and this entrance had less available wall space to play with, so to make the removable door ended up with some very narrow strips of card to allow for the running grove - both doors should be the same size, but this one is a little tighter so has been sanded down on the edges a bit...

Much liquid g/s has helped hide any joins and blend stuff in. So far this is working quite well...

panelled gates and doors

the doors and gates I've done for my Manor House build are now available for sale from Fenris Games. Click on the pictures if you have a use for them:

Action Force Tactical Battle Platform

 I picked this old Action Force playset up ages ago for about £8 if memory serves...

- it wasn't complete, the flip out platform was missing, as was the gun rack, but that was fine, as I originally intended to use it as an oil rig... but that has become too specific and the name of the game now is as much use as possible, so taking it down to the base platform gives a very interesting start to a 28mm terrain piece. There are some really great and crisp details and textures and I now see this as a good generic bit of sci-fi terrain for Dredd, Who, Blakes 7 and Action Force - it should work as a research centre, a pumping station, anything science based really (the legs will be used elsewhere I think)...

As you can see, I've removed the recessed vehicle pit and put in a platform - this helps give more area for 28mm figures and means they can cross from left to right without going down into the pit - my initial thought here was to reset the pit so it stuck out and to build more platform around it, however that would make it too big for storage so currently a wide flight of steps will go in the remaining hole. The filler platform has some plating etched into it and some random plates will be added elsewhere to help blend it in. The trench that runs along the back of the platform (joining the armoury with the control room) just happens to be perfect (with plenty of room) for 25mm slottas, so that was always staying, but in what form was a big question - originally I planned access down into the old armoury, and then along at the back to the old control room, but I suddenly decided to fill that blank space between two nicely molded gubbins, and cut down to add some steps there, and so far it looks pretty good I think.

The armoury (on the left) will now become a computer room, as 4 Ainsty computer panels fit nicely over where the rifle rack was. A door will be added to the bottom wall, but am undecided on whether to have a room above this. The control room (on the right, complete with attachment for a action figure sized chair) will become a machine room/engineering, with more hands on gubbins. The chair stalk will be kept I think and a door will be added blocking off the trench/corridor. Now the old control room had a black piece that fitted on for various consoles and this will make the basis of a next floor room, more machinery to monitor whatever is going on downstairs. Even better, on top of that fitted a clear plastic piece that form a lovely angled window on two sides and screams Spy-Fi villains office (but that is down the way a bit), so from that one area, I can easily make a 3 storey structure within the complex itself... plus I still have the hexagonal platforms and the helipad which scale much better to 28mm figures anyway...

Needless to say, this is going to take a while, the plastic is really hard to cut, but should make an interesting diversion...

Imperial Landing Craft

Still plodding away at otherstuff as and when the moods strike (even dug the Quarry out a couple of weeks ago), and been taking advantage of some good prices on eBay in order to get some more ships for my Star Wars fighter scale stuff...

The Titanium Imperial Landing Craft fits in just about at that rough fit scale I want - it is better with the Titanium Falcon, as it should be slightly longer than the Falcon, but my attempts at tarting that up haven't really led anywhere, and the D'Agostini was always the nicer model...

In the background is a play around with the Micro Machine TIE Bomber - I did find a forum somewhere that went into great detail about the TIE Shuttle briefly seen in Empire Strikes Back, and with a lot of convincing evidence about the flipped wings. Annoyingly, I didn't bookmark it. Anyhoo, I had two MM bombers, so used the cockpit module from each one (never understood why the shuttle wouldn't have a window for the passenger module) and flipped the wings. It looks ok, but may not get much further - I have the D'Agostini Imperial Shuttle which is a good scale match (although guns need repairing after the really heavy paintjob was stripped).

wood for the trees and other vistas

ok, excuse the poor photos (colours really aren't being done credit), but have finally got stuff to stick to the sodding trees... it looks much more blended in real life, but job done (finally). The big trees sadly just didn't work, tried and tried to get them looking as I intended and just couldn't - so chopped them down and used the bases for thickets (as I was very happy with the bases), these are a good solid line of sight blocker, and will be doing some smaller ones as well to help make a more overgrown woodland-ish look. The new and improved foliage of course meant I needed to redo my bushes, so the hillfort and other bits of undergrowth have been redone to match the thickets, again, photos don't really do it justice... but as I said, more bits are in progress as I've run out of Burnt Umber.

 as the trees were to big to really get in the light tent, the board came out, which then dovetailed into a request someone on Frothers made to see it all, so above is the woodland in progress, with stone circle and hillfort, and below is the coaching inn, the blacksmiths and the two houses...

this has been surprising useful in that it fills the area better than I had thought - I have two more 2-storey houses to build which should about do it, along with some little bits for flavour (a well and some mud/dirt roads/townsquare), plus of course I still want to do a church and graveyard as a 3rd option (none of which yet exists). Also unseen is the river side which would roughly fill the bottom corner area above, and numerous hedges I built ages back when I was working to fill a larger area, plus some drystone walls from Fenris Games.

I know I plod along at this and am easily distracted, but am quite chuffed looking at it how good it's coming together... even if I do say so myself.