Sci-fi City Block WIP 4

 Block sign, magnetised and held reasonably well. Jobs a good one.

Sci-fi City Block WIP 2

 So… yeah, bigger than planned, but I’m liking it. Feels right. Hope the paint job feels as right. Planning on setting specific magnetised signs and statues to keep it flexible.

Sci-fi urban tiles

A change of pace, some modular tiles intended for Judge Dredd primarily, but will be pretty generic. Utilising the Kill-Team friendly tiles from Fire Dragon Games. I have a set of four, but space means I can only really work on one at a time.

The tile texture is scribed into foam-pvc in 20mm squares. The big step was cutting the hole in the foam insert, but it’s worked so far. It theoretically will house inserts for an airlock, an industrial grinder, a sump pool and just blank tiles. The odd grey tile is from the Maelstrom’s Edge terrain sprue, which was happily a 20mm square.

 

Some shipping container scatter

 A lazy bank holiday weekend doing some shipping container scatter terrain. I (like many projects) started these a while back…

So, as you may have noticed me mention, space is a limiting factor in all things, no space for any fancy tools especially, so ordered a load of mdf bases in various sizes from eBay. I could have gone foam core, but precise flat edges to mass produce a series of boxes was decidedly meh. The bases allowed a series of boxes, with 2mm foampvc for the sides which would give a slightly taller profile… if I hadn’t then proceeded to apparently keep the foampvc as the base. It’s not really noticeable in the grand scheme of things, just a thing I’d planned to take into account and then didn’t.

The frames were clad with corrugated craft card and the edges were done with L plastic strip. Didn’t have enough to do the seven I made so we’re down to six for now like some shite reality show.

Doors still to be done. These will mainly be for Dredd so they don’t need to be realistic really so may go do some kind of keypad. But some scatter suitable for modern onwards…

Red Shadow Hyena WIP

a GI Joe HISS Tank toy hacked and cleaned up a bit

the battery compartment (it had electronics and a guns - which I removed as they were oversized), was removed and the surround plastic cut back so the tank had a bit of ground clearance. the g/s'ing for the resultant holes isn't pretty, but is serviceable...

and I'm back...

OK, after a period of mojo recovery, I've been busy - sadly some of that was a build up, review, tear down kind of busy, but the corrections (note the plural there) were worthwhile.
 

The bridge slots on nicely and will lead to something I haven't come up with yet, I've decided not to use the hexagonal platforms on the corners as they look odd with the rear bits built up, so I've done a simple platform for security, am still working on ideas for the other corner.

I wanted an open area down into the engineeringy section, but that took a couple of attempts until I got something I liked. Even then, it didn't quite work, so I raised it slightly to give the joining bridge more clearance. That was too tall to join with the far build as I planned, so that got lowered. I plan that part to be quite tall, but haven't the foampvc at the moment to complete the walls. I dread to think how much got used on false starts to get cut off again.

Anyway, I didn't take a photo of the interior of the far build, but a recessed door has been built - I'm trying to take a leaf from BBC set design with the doors and split level floors. The recess should also give Vila some cover while he picks the lock. 

Quite a successful change has been the doors - I stumbled upon some hobby sheet aluminium, with a few scores from a scalpel, it's snapped to size and sanded down - it's quite rigid and has a nice finish, although I initially thought metal would be handy as a material if the paint should get worn off from use, it's kind of works as it is.

And that's about it really - am kind of stalled as I need some stairs in order to really advance the builds at this point, but that is in hand.

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...

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...

Snatch Land Rover

A terrible picture, but not much to see anyway. I took advantage of the Model Zone liquidation sale and treated myself to the Airfix 1/48 Land Rover Patrol box set for £15. One of which of course, will (should) work perfectly alongside my very old (15 years plus) white metal Lanny. Of course, it's scaled correctly and as you can see from the picture, lines up frame wise quite nicely, but it's probably about 20 years older in design times. According to the bumpf it's been used since the 90's so I could fudge that into the mishmash of the UNIT timeline without too much trouble. I may pick up another set so I can have two armoured hard tops for the troops and the older soft top can be a command/scout vehicle. Ideally, I'd have got a Bedford 3-ton truck, but they go for a bomb as diecasts on eBay.

The second Lanny in the Airfix patrol kit is the WMIK, which is probably a bit too hardcore for fudging into the UNIT fluff as is. I may try and UNIT it yet, but somewhere in the back of my head I keep thinking it may work as a more realistic basis for the SAS Force Panther...

Who Dares Wins

finally finished the SAS...

enough for a 4-man section plus one armed with pistol when he gets around to rescuing Lewis Collins (who is still headless) and gives him his MP5 - and the addition of a lone agent type with night vision goggles and a silencer (also from TAG) simply because it's a nice figure and fits the SWAT bodies of the other men...

had started these a while back, but got put off with blacks... getting sick of blacks... anyway, when that was done, I started on the bases and had thought of just doing grey concrete, but it looked so damn dull - I didn't want dirt and grass as these are for my urban/bunker plans, so found these bases on eBay...

of course, the new bases meant cutting away the slottas and then the integral bases and all while everything was painted (I must stop doing that), so again, not brilliant work, touched up pj's and some clumsy attaching to the base which was hidden with some extra debris...
I like the bases, detail goes down into the base on a couple of them which is nice and it turns out I have matching plasticard kicking about so I can replicate that flooring on the scenery when it get's started... I toyed with different colours, but white seemed best and a bit of colour was given to the rubble with a top drybrush of Foundry Sand Light and and partial dabs of Gryphon Sepia. I did toy with exposed wires or maybe paperwork, even the police tape I made ages ago, but then that would over clutter the bases just for the sake of colour.

Who Dares WIP

some g/s'ing has been afoot while waiting for Tudor cottage things to set/dry...

finally found some 80's SAS I can live with:

TAG Modern SWAT with gasmask heads from Eureka and some g/s - I did buy some of the Urban Beat SAS from North Star, but they are so skinny they looked silly next to normal 28mm figs... these will be doing duty as special forces back up obviously...

Lewis Collins in waiting:

a Rogue miniatures not-DieHard terrorist with new feet, soon to get some new hands and when I get my head order a new head... undecided which one, may be the Man from 2000...

and my super spy:


another Rogue Miniatures figure, this time a not Steve McQueen - I'm torn when it comes to Rogue minis, they have some nice ideas, but some odd sculpts... off came the small head and the small hand with a vague blobby revolver, some g's to give him some bigger feet (why the Rogue minis all have such small extremities I have no idea, they just look weird) and his remaining hand was bulked out... the shoulder holster was sculpted very oddly at the rear, I get that they were aiming for tight and elasticated, but the thing was sculpted so deep into his back it looked like something from a Saw movie, so g/s over that and a new rear holster made... the head is from the Man from 2000 from Crooked Dice, as is the gun (made less sci-fi and more silencer) - this head is quite close to the original in style, just bigger and better... sadly the Hasslefree heads are a little too large for the slighter Rogue Mini's, but the Crooked Dice heads work just fine... I almost went with the beardy Tweedy for this chap, but the MF2000 seemed more in keeping...