Rosie's Workshop

We have finally started working on the building for our space colony/shuttle port. This "Rosie's Workshop" a building my wife is working on. In addition to making as many of the building for the project as playable as possible we are also populating the colony with citizens as we build it. This work shop is part of "Rosie's Repair and Salvage" which will be owned and operated by Rosie and her small army of robotic servitors. We are using "Rosie: Chronotechnition" from Reapers miniatures and several Toolbots and other robots for this particular location.

Here is a shot of the building without miniatures. The structure is made from 1/8th inch white foamcore. The roof is made from a meat package and the pylon supports are made from parts from plastic hair curlers. We're going to make extensive use of these on many of the buildings in this project as support pylons to help achieve that "Space Colony" look.

Here you can see some windows we cut in the roof. We will be adding some clear plastic cut from the package of one of the G.I. Joe vehicles we have purchased recently to glaze them.

We decided to add a little detailing inside the roof that you would be able to see through the windows. The concept behind our colony type buildings is that they are somewhat self sustaining. In addition to heating and cooling they also have water reclamation systems and power generation systems. We will probably be adding a solar power array to the roof as we will be doing to several other buildings. These details are made from the cheapest plastic junk we had and we didn't go all out on them since they will only be a subtle detail. They will be painted up a bit nicer before we put the roof together.

Here you can see a shot of the inside. Again we detailed it with cheap junk. This is a small workshop Rosie will also be using as her house. We will be adding furniture which will mostly consist of worktables and robot parts but will also include a small sleeping space. My wife rigged a simple door system that will slide back and forth on rails.

The outside of the workshop will be covered in "thermal shielding" which was inspired by the Firefly Episode "Heart of Gold". I think there are actually other episodes with similar set treatments but it was very predominate in this episode. We will be using aluminum foil squares to create this effect. I have used this technique before when I made a building for a "Firefly" game I ran. You can see a pic of that building here.

Yeah I was going to say something clever about this being a close up shot of the building but I'm really only showing it because it features the lovely and talented Melinda Clark who played a major role in the episode. Rawr!

The Wolfhound Legion Freikorps

I put together 6 of my Wargames Factory Shock Troopers as a crew for AE Bounty. These are the Wolfhound Legion Freikorps or at least one of their veteran crews. The Shock Troop figures went together fairly well. I used Testors Liquid Cement to put them together. They went together fairly well. Not as nicely as I would have liked. The flame thrower armed trooper was a particular problem because in order to get his left hand under the weapon I had to rotate both arms so far forward that I'll have to fill in the gaps with green stuff but some of the other multi part plastics I have assembled have similar problems. Also the necks really need to be cut down a bit to sit flush and not be too tall. That's easily dealt with. These guys ended up costing me less than a buck a piece from the Warstore so I feel I got an amazing value. I've mounted them on GW bases because that is what I had laying around.

Here is a shot of their backs. As you can see they come with some nice gear options. I've use the daggers to designate my veteran level units. I thought it would be a nice subtle way to show their status without having to give them markings. It seems sensible that a large mercenary force might award ceremonial "swords" to it's veteran fighters.

Here is how I have set the crew up for AE Bounty:

The Wolfhound Legion Freikorps

Squad 4 Company C 4th Battalion
Veteran Crew

Sergeant: Lars (Human Individual Blooded Warrior Hero)
Experience Level: Veteran
Composition: 1 Mercenary
Equipment: Particle Beam Long Rifle, Light Armored Suit, Slugthrower Pistol
M/3 RC/3+ CC/4 A/4(5) S/2 DR/6 W/3
Abilities:
*Command
*Get up and Shoot!
*Inspiring

Old Guard: Otto and Heinrich (Human Squad)
Experience Level: Veteran
Composition: 2 Mercenaries
Equipment: Slugthrower Rifle, Light Armored Suit
M/3 RC/3+ CC/3 A/3(4) S/2 DR/4 W/1
Abilities:
*Apathetic

Heavy Hitter: Fritz (Human Individual)
Experience Level: Regular
Composition: 1 Mercenary
Equipment: Flamethrower, Light Armored Suit
M/3 RC/4+ CC/3 A/3(4) S/2 DR/3 W/2
Abilities:
*Apathetic

Hired Guns: Manfred and Reinhard (Human Squad)
Experience Level: Regular
Composition: 2 Mercenaries
Equipment: Slugthrower Rifle, Light Armored Suit
M/3 RC/4+ CC/3 A/3(4) S/2 DR/3 W/1
Abilities:
*Apathetic

I have no idea how these guys are going to preform on the battlefield and I plan to make up several other crews so I can demo the game locally. I will also be working up crews from the pirate army I've been working on as well as several of the Sci-Fi minis I own.

It's like Christmas in August!

So today the delivery guy dropped off what may be must last serious game purchase in a while. My shiny new copy of AE Bounty and a box of Wargames Factory Shock Troopers. I'm not normally one to pick up things brand new to the market but like many burnt out fans of a certain company and game who will remain nameless I was eager for some new Sci-Fi gaming alternatives. Something less Gothic and more space opera. :) Although you could argue that the Shock Troopers are kinda Gothic at least they aren't dripping with spiky bits and skulls.

The first thing I did was un-box the Shock Troopers. The pictures on the web do not do them justice. They are solidly in the 28-30mm category. Not too big or too small. Just about average in size and they look quite compatible with many of the other Sci-Fi lines. I was concerned about this because I had picked up a package of Wargames Factory Zombies a while back and felt they were under scale compared to most of the lines I use. The box comes with six sprues that each have three troopers and a ton of options.

Just check out all these heads. A couple of helmet options, several gas mask heads. A sergeant head with a side cap and even one head with just hair. There is also the alien head option which looks very Cthulhu inspired.

Here is a shot of two sprues from both sides. I like the level of detail Wargames Factory achieved on this set. Seems pretty crisp and comparable with some of the better multi part plastics out there.

I haven't really had a chance to read the AE Bounty book. I'm writing this blog entry perhaps 45 minutes after the box hit my door step. The book however looks nice. It's got full color illustrations and several nice shots of miniatures from the AE Bounty line although the game makers stress that you can use these rules with any minis and any setting. Darkson Designs do provide a setting for the rules and their miniatures which seems interesting and well thought out but the rules are designed to be generic. I've very excited to see how this game plays out and I hope to have a battle report and better review in a couple of days.

Venture Star Prospecting Company: Team 1 painting WIP

I started painting up Team 1 last night and I think they are turning out pretty good despite the crappy base cote. These guys are basically NPC mooks so they aren't getting my best painting effort. In fact I'm going try a new speed painting technique with these guys. I plan to give them a light wash of medium brown after I finish highlighting them and then I'm going to do a dark glaze in the deepest recesses by hand to add some contrast.

Stupid painting mistakes or how to ruin hours of converting.

This is Missouri in August. The heat index today is suppose to hit 110 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity is insanely high. My garage is even hotter and more humid than the outside. These are not good conditions to spray paint in. In fact they are almost the worst. So after spending a good deal of my Sunday converting these guys I managed to just about ruin them in less than an hour trying to base cote them in really bad conditions. To top it off I grabbed a can a paint I only use for terrain. Although in my defense the terrain I painted with it yesterday came out dead smooth. I thought "hey this will be fine for painting some NPC type minis I don't plan to go all out on anyway".

Man was I wrong. These guys came out really rough. Almost unpaintable and there really isn't much I can do about it. With the kind of converting I did they would be hard to strip and I'm not a big fan of stripping plastics. I feel like and idiot since I've been painting for almost 25 year and this is a pretty newb type mistake.

I'm going to try using some GW foundation paint and probably put it on a little thicker as a base cote than I normally would. Hopefully that will salvage these guys enough to be playable. I've done similar things in the past when I had this issue. It's not ideal but these aren't the most important figs on my table and I didn't expect them to look top notch.

I guess we'll find out.

Venture Star Prospecting Company: Team 1

I started working on crew members for the Venture Star Prospecting company. This is Team 1 most converted from Game Workshop plastics. It is kind of hard to make military looking miniatures look like civilian workers but I'm going to paint these guys up in bright orange pants and jackets with blue t-shirts which should help sell the fact. I went ahead and decided to give them weapons because as prospectors and not regular miners they are more likely to be in dangerous and contested areas.
Ideally I would rather have specialized miniatures for this project but I don't really have the money at the moment to go out and buy whatever I want so I'm trying to make due with what I have.

Black Dog Nose Art

Last night I finished the "nose art" for the Black Dog. I chose a cartoon Doberman because I felt the long narrow nose of the ship reminded me of a Doberman muzzle.

Next I'll be painting the name of the ship either under the cockpit or just above and to the right of the nose art.

Venture Star Prospecting Company

One of the first things I'm going to build for my spaceport/colony project is a prospecting facility. My first thought was to do a full blown mining operation but I decided that would be far too involved and costly at this stage. A small prospecting company doesn't need nearly as much equipment or crew members to be viable.

Here are a few of their vehicles. The large mole machine is a G.I. Joe “Cobra Mole Pod” which I picked up at Wal-mart for about $15.00. I've seen them on-line for a bit cheaper than that but of course you have to pay shipping. I also don't mind spending a bit more on the mole machine because it will be kind of the centerpiece for the whole operation.

The dump truck and excavator are from a “construction” set I picked up at the Dollar General store for about $8.00. It also came with a flat bed semi truck and a couple smaller bobcat type machines. These are not particularly exotic or sci-fi looking but the background of my space colony project is based on our solar system and a future Earth so it's somewhat more practical. I plan to have some hover vehicles but the wheel works quite nicely especially for heavy equipment like this. I feel future Earth style sci-fi should have familiar elements and these will also be able to do double duty in zombie games or other modern games. The cab on the dump truck is a bit smaller than I like but I think it will work out. I plan to pick up one more construction set so I will have two trucks and excavators.

I plan to build a base facility with an office/lab, barracks, a vehicle garage, and small smelting facility. The employees will consist of 10-12 people including crew, administration, and scientist.

Finished Shots of the "Sky Sweeper" and some other stuff.

I put the finishing touched on the "Sky Sweeper" a couple of days ago. Here is a shot of it in a Star Wars setting. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. It is converted from a 3 inch scale G.I. Joe toy if you missed my previous postings about it.

Here is another shot with a couple of my other finished toy ship conversions. This terrain is some stuff I made years ago for a Star Wars skirmish game I was working on with a friend based on the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG rules and Necromundia.

I just thought it might be a good time for me to post a pic of my current ship collection; finished, unfinished, and work in progress. I have a few others that will be set up as wrecks and junk ships.

Black Dog painting WIP more "Accents"

I got the yellow accent marks highlighted. They appear pretty chalky here but when I do the wash they will blend better. I still have some details to paint them weathering. I think I'm going to go dig through my old model kits looking for decals I can use.

More Black Dog painting WIP

I finished the first coat of the yellow accents. I think I like the way they turned out. Now I just have to touch them up and weather them a bit.

Black Dog painting WIP "Accents"

I started painting the accent markings on the "Black Dog" today. Took me a while to figure out what I was going to do with them. I didn't want the ship to be all black or look like a regular military ship so I wanted a little brighter color scheme. I've decided to go with Yellow for my main accent lines and will probably use Red for some of the smaller accents. After I get the accents down I'm going to add the markings and the name and "nose art" which will probably end up somewhere on the side of the ship and not the nose.

I'm pretty happy with the way things are progressing.

Sky Sweeper painting WIP 2

Here is a shot of the weathering on the Sky Sweeper. I kinda feel like I got the wash a little heavy but there's not much I can do about that now. Over all I think it's still going to turn out looking good. I don't think I'm actually going to name this one.

The only thing I have left on this is to finish the canopy and touch it up a bit.

Sky Sweeper painting WIP 2

I've made some progress today on the Sky Sweeper paint job. I think it's coming along nicely. Unfortunately the "Black Dog" is still at the same place it was last update but I think I'm having trouble deciding on the details for that ship so getting something done on this one is actually helping.

I still have to come up with a name for this ship so I can finish it up. I've still got detailing and weathering to do as well. Hopefully I'll get more done on both ships before the end of the day.

Sky Sweeper painting WIP

I decided to take a break from the Black Dog for a bit to think about the rest of the paint job. I used some plastic card from a "For Sale" sign to cover some places where I cut off the missile pylons. I also made a hatch although I'm not totally satisfied with it. I think it will work though.

The I took the ship apart so I could paint it. The engines are just too complicated to try and paint around.

Here is a shot of the project my wife is working on. A Valkyrie drop ship from Games Workshop. This thing cost about $60.00 but it is a real nice model. We might pick up a couple for general sci-fi games but at that cost we can't buy a lot. That's why I like toys. They are usually much cheaper.

Here is a shot of the ship with the base cote. I think it's going to look pretty cool painted up. I haven't decided what I'm going to name this ship yet. Guess I better get that figured out since I'm going to try and get it painted over the next couple days.

Black Dog painting WIP

I just finished doing the basic hull paint job on the "Black Dog". I did two layers of dry brushing to create the highlights. I tried to make the ship look black but heavily weathered. I think it came out pretty good.

Of course I plan to do a lot more weather and detail painting. I'll be painting in scrapes in the paint job that expose the metal hull and I have a lot of details to paint in as well. I'll also have markings and nose art which may or may not actually go on the nose depending on the design.

Here is a shot with the hatches open. I really like the contrast of the green interior with the black exterior. I think things are progressing nicely and I still expect to be finished by this Sunday. The crew pictured here are just a stand in crew. I chose them out of my collection because they each represent a different major company. I don't know that I'm going to make a specific crew for this ship straight away. It may change hands over the course of the campaign I am working on.

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.