The Black Dog WIP finished interior!

I managed to get the interior of the Black Dog finished today and the ship re-assembled. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.

One thing I am eventually going to change is the extendable ramp. This one is just too long. For now though it will serve it's purpose.

I feel the cockpit re-scaled fairly well and that the ship looks reasonable as a 28mm ship. The engine compartments also turned out nice although they were a bear to paint.

Here is a nice closeup shot of the interior of the hold. I painted it green to give it contrast from the black hull. It also hints at an earlier military use.

Over all I'm really happy with other than the ramp but that's something I can fix later on. I'm also happy with my progress since I just purchased this ship a couple days ago and I've already got quite a bit of work done on it. I've still got some detailing to do and quite a bit of painting but if I keep up this pace I might have it finished by Sunday night.

Cockpit of the Black Dog.

I don't think it was all that clear in my earlier post but the white strip of plastic I glued to the cockpit was to make the cockpit appear more in scale with the rest of the ship.

Here is a shot of the cockpit painted with the first layer. The painting is rough. I will be cleaning it up on the finished model. I just wanted to make it clear for further WIP shots.

Finishing touches on the Black Dog conversion.

I was able to wrap up conversion on the "Cobra Gunship" last night using parts from the Platformer and Hexagon sets from Pegasus Hobbies. This turned out to be one of the easier conversion I've done of a toy to a game model because of the flexibility of those kits. Granted if I didn't already have these kits the cost of this conversion would have been a lot more but I've had they laying around for a while so I used them on this project. I could have probably scratch built what I needed out of cheaper material but this also gives me the advantage of being able to convert another gunship with exactly the same look.

Now on to the painting.

Work in progress on some spaceships.

Today I did some work on two space ships for various sci-fi games. Both are based on G.I. Joe toys currently available at several stores. I feel like I got quite a bit done on both of these ships in just a few hours.
I thought I would go ahead on show the method I use for gluing down the strips of plastic I use to re-scale cockpit canopies. The easiest way to do it is to just glue it in place on one side and let the glue set. Then I glue the rest of it in place. It's much easier to bend the plastic over the curve if you use this method.

Here is a shot of the cockpit after re-scaling. This may not be the "best" way to do this or the way a modeler would do it but it's just for gaming so I'm happy with the results.

I also worked on the "Black Dog" I'm converting from the "Cobra Gunship". Nicer toys like these are often held together with screws which make working on them much easier. Normally I don't go crazy and work on interiors on small ship models but this one was set up really nicely for that kind of thing so I went ahead and decided to detail the hold area and re-scale it for 28mm.

The cockpit on this toy was even easier to convert because of it's boxy construction. Here I've just added some straight strips to reduce the canopy scale.

The open area on the side of the ship had a boxy bench seat where you could set a couple of three inch figures. Of course this took up a lot of space so I cut it out and covered the holes with these pieces from the Pegasus Hobbies Platformer kit.

Here is a shot of what the hold area looks like after conversion. I should be able to stand several miniatures in the opening or put some light cargo inside. My next big hurdle is the side hatch. You can't see it in this pic but there is a lip on the end of the hatch which looks odd for 28mm scale figures. I plan to make a pull out ramp out of platformer bits that will extend to the ground and look a lot nicer.

The Black Dog

Well I picked up another G.I. Joe toy aircraft today at the local Wally World. This one is the "Cobra Gunship" and it cost me about $25.00 which is more than a lot of the toy ships and aircraft I've acquired for conversion but still much cheaper than most wargame models. In fact you could triple the price before you found anything close from Games Workshop and this model is a good deal bulkier than the Valkryie for instance.

I plan to use only the front half of the cockpit as this ships cockpit and I plan to add a strip of plastic half way down the side windows so that only the top part of the front will be the models cockpit when the conversion is complete. This should scale the model nicely for 28mm which is the scale I use for sci-fi roleplaying and miniature games.

A lot of G.I. Joe "aircraft" actually look a lot more like space ships than airplanes. There are no wings on this ship and the tale is minimal which suggest a lot of the same design elements of various sci-fi dropships and shuttles.

This ship has a lot of elements that are missing on a lot of toy ships. For one thing it has landing skids which is a major bonus if your not an expert modeler. I hate making landing gear and even though these aren't elaborate they look good enough for my purposes. I have a pet peeve about gamers who try and turn all their vehicles into realistic scale models. We aren't building dioramas after all we are building game pieces that are going to be handled sometimes roughly. Building fiddly bits like "realistic" landing gear is just a sure way to have those landing gear snapped off during a game. It's not a matter of if it will happen but when.

Another cool features of this ship is the big hatch on the side and the interior. I'm going to try and cut the bench seat out and put a new floor in so I can get a bit of a cargo hold in there. The hatch itself will also require a bit of modification to bring it to ground level but I think it will be worth while.

There are also compartments that open and show engine detail which will be cool for "repair scenarios" and the extra detail it provides. Also should I pick up another version of this ship I can strip the hatches off to make the ship seem more "used" and run down. Perhaps a ship that requires so much repair that whoever owns it decided to just remove the panels. Kind of like the Y-wing starfighters exposed engines for those of you who are uber Star Wars geeks.

I plan to paint the ship black with yellow or orange accents. I'll also paint a moon on the nose with a black dog head as the nose art. I plan to name the ship "The Black Dog" which is a double reference to the Led Zepplin song and the character Jet Black from Cowboy Be-Bop. I'm not a big Anime fan but Cowboy Be-Bop is just great sci-fi especially if your a tramp freighter fan like me.

I hope to have this ship together soon along with the Sky Sweeper Jet conversion.

100th blog post!

Well here I am at my 100th post and there isn't that much to post about. My gaming this year has been spotty. Either I'm playing 4 our more sessions a week or I'm going a month without a game. Unfortunately I've made very little progress on the miniature game front. Just a few days ago I assembled 8 Bretonian Men at Arms for Wahammer and Warhammer Roleplaying but that was the first time I've touched any of my miniature tools since January.
The biggest problem is that even though I've moved into a somewhat larger house there isn't a good spot to set up a painting station. I need to get some AC in the garage so I can start working on terrain but I need to get approval from the land lord to remove a window because all the windows in this place open sideways. The other problem is that my son is now 18 months old and toddleing around the house like a whirling dervish so it's hard to work on things while he is awake and I can't leave them out when I'm at a stopping point. Like all kids he loves the “little people” and would like nothing more than to get them out and play with them. I've considered retreating to my local game store to work on things but since I live out of town now that's a major trip.
Anyway enough boring excuses. One way or the other I need to get back at it. I am of course still buying minis because as you know it's an addiction so I really need to start working on them again. My plan is to try and get back on track with some of my running projects especially the space port. Hopefully I'll finish unpacking and get the rest of my stuff up and running.
Wish me luck.

I picked up this Sky Sweeper Jet from the current G.I. Joe toy line to convert into a futuristic jet for the Shadowrun setting. I figured I could use it as a transport type vehicle with limited VTOL capabilities. This is a neat little model that comes with landing skids which is a big bonus. Of course the cockpit will need to be re-scaled. I'll use the same method I used on the Skip Tracker model of using a plastic strip forward on the canopy to denote the size of the cockpit then I'll paint the rest of the canopy as the hull.

This is the spot I'm going to place the plastic strip which should make the entire model look appropriately scaled for 28mm miniatures. I'm also planning on adding some door/hatches to make the model look even more to scale.

Here's the shot of the model with a few modern and sci-fi miniatures from various lines. From left to right those lines are; Foundry, Void, Reaper, Copplestone Casting, and Games Workshop. I think it scales nicely out of the box. It might also make a pretty good shuttle or small craft for a sci-fi space setting although I feel the wings are a bit too long wide for that. Perhaps a drop ship type craft as well.

Another shot from the front with a Void militia model. The engines are a little tweaked because the support pieces are made from a softer plastic but I think I can fix that.
A 3/4 view from the other side with a Reaper Chronoscope miniature. I can't express enough how nice it is to find this kind of toy with landing skids. Making any kind of landing gear from scratch is a nightmare and really taxes my feeble scratch building skills.

A shot from the back with a Games Workshop Necromundia figure. I think it's going to make a nice little vehicle for Shadowrun and other futuristic games. It only cost about $15.00 so I may be able to afford a few more painted in other colors or with different role variations.