Thursday 20 September 2012

Solving the Housing Shortage



I thought that I needed a few more pre-fabs - we need at least a few people being able to afford proper housing rather than just shanties. I also need some sort of terminus and a civic building. So I put in an order for some more pattress boxes and blank plates - six one-gang and two two-gang.

If you live in the UK I can highly recommend Tool Station - cheapest I have found and if you spend £10 postage and packing is free and they get delivered express via Yodel. This lot cost just £8.49 for eight buildings.

I've got a busy weekend dropping siblings off at uni, etc so I'll have to wait until next week to get going on the pimping.

If only the UK housing shortage could be solved so easily!

Sunday 16 September 2012

Scifi Scenery So Far

I am planning to use Two Hour Wargames' "5150 New Beginnings" rules for my main scifi stuff and their "After the Horseman" for post apocalytic stuff so will need afair amount of buildlings.

So far I have put together a few shanty town shacks:



 I used the little bits of foam that you have to remove from protective foam trays to form a basic shape and then built the walls of the shacks around the foam using matchsticks, balsa and various plastic card and rod. The tarpaulin roofing is made from ordinary kitchen roll. In places this leaves the tarpaulin with a dimple texture but I can cope with that.

For more up-market buildings, I have used electrical boxes, hopefully to give the idea of prefabs which the owners have had the opportunity to customise (pimp?):-


The green one is meant to be a 'corner store' supplying a bit of everything and the orange one is the bar.
The customising has been mostly done with card, bits from various kits and other items from my bits box. The pub's sign is the end of a twizzle stick that you get with a cocktail. I've had it in my bits box for about fifteen years, knowing that it would come in handy one day.
Other parts have been cast using Oyumaru to make the moulds (exactly the same as Instant Mold but less than half the price - check on eBay!) and then using Milliput to make the copies. If you haven't used it give it a go. It is so simple and quite addictive. It gives you a new perspective on things as you look at the various textures,  protrudances and cavities as well as the item as a whole. For example the entrances of the buildings are copies from an old HO scale railway carriage.
I've got a police station and several prefab habitations on the workbench (if I had a workbench to have them on!)

And finally for the moment, I got these two off eBay recently for 99p. Hopefully, a bit of converting and a decent paintjob should make them look sufficiently realistic scifi.

Saturday 15 September 2012

It's All Their Fault

The first time I saw the Kaamados Squamata by Critical Mass Games, I thought that I would like to have a paint of them but managed to fight the temptation until CMG decided to discount them. But I haven't been disappointed - they are a real joy to paint.

Of course, you can't only buy the figures that you really want so I got these too:




and I have got a few more that I haven't finished painting yet.
Like the squamata, they are a pleasure to paint but I have to say that some of them are quite fragile and I have managed to break several of them off at the ankles and needed the supeglue to rescue them.

And then, of course, I felt that it wasn't write simply to CMG all my custom so I got these from 15mm.co.uk:


 I am not sure about these police - a bit of a labour of love - but I don't like the Laserburn law officers - too Judge Dread!


Fairly basic casts but I am pleased with them.

I do like their new SHM (an example on the left) and will be ordering a few more in the future. I might even submit a few of my own attempts when time allows. The second on the left is an assassin from the Laserburn fantasy range which I thought would fit. The guy in the centre is not 15mm.co.uk but I can't remember where I did get it. I think he looks a bit Obi Wan Kenobi a la Alec Guiness. And the dogs are the from Laserburn.

Well, that's all the figures that I've currently done. There's quite a few more in the pipeline.

 

Erred and Strayed

Well, it has been a long time hasn't it. Life keeps on getting in the way.
Added to that is that fact that having said that I would stay faithful to 10mm I am afraid that I gave into temptation when Critical Mass Games had a sale and before I knew it I was painting them and focusing on 15mm scifi scenery.
 

But I have been doing some 10mm stuff too which I have added to my gallery and I hope to starting gaming again soon I have managed to back two of our boys off. One is returning to uni while the another is about to start a gap year which has left our home looking like a warehouse for relief aid (they have a very caring mum!)

Now the question is do I start another blog for my 15mm scifi stuff or do I just accept that tenmilwargaming is a misnomer?