Stargrave Water Gun Spaceship Part 3

In this phase I need to tackle a few tings.  First up was the top handle gap.  I decided to put some card stock over the gap to give it a cockpit type feel.  I used some of the faux credit card plastic that comes in the junk mail that we occasionally receive in the good old snail mail.

 

Next step was to clean up some of the details.  I grabbed some spot putty to fill in some of the gaps, screw holes, and other 

I had to keep reminding myself that the goal was a finished model, not a perfect model.  Next shot is the first prime in black.

I'm planning on trying the salt weathering technique on this so first up was an undercoat of black, then some large salt chunks are applied.  now for the 2nd prime in grey.  The white specs are the first salt application.

Now for a touch of grey!

As you can see in the second black primer photo I will have to do some more work on the top of the main body to eliminate the connection seam.  I'll give it another round of spot filler to see if it holds up.  More updates soon.

Stargrave Water Gun Space Ship Part 2

The bulk of the structure is worked out with the exception of the rear cargo area, I'm going to need a bit more time to figure that out.  I moved onto some detailing.

Front nose communications array was just a few odd bits I had around.  I think one was connector, another was a plastic missile from a toy gun.  

Landing gear is actually made of of old leftover windshield wiper parts.  They were the connectors that I didn't need for my vehicle and turned out to be very useful.  

Top weapon is actually a bad wire connector that we cut out of a piece of equipment that I immediately saw potential in.

This alternate weapon is from a line of toy soldiers that Dollar Tree sells and at a $1.25 I couldn't pass it up.  My original thought was to use it as the main weapon until I stumbled on the electrical connector.  I plan to pick up a few more of these for other projects.

Drive units are have a lot of misc greebles from various things like the inside of a bourbon bottle, tops from kids squeeze fruits, etc... 

Next step is to finish up the prep of the main body and get to some painting!

Stargrave Water Gun Space Ship Part 1

 As I have been working on various Sci-Fi projects I got the itch to do a space ship for scenery and because I seem to always need something new to work on.  After some searching I found several options.  One was a foam board lander that was originally designed for Reapers CAV miniatures.  The scale and design we such that while it is a 1/285 is scale it can easily pass for a 28mm with a few modifications.  I downloaded the pdf's for it and have plans to give it a go.  As I started to get things prepared I realized that I had missed that one of the templates had a piece that needed multiples cut out but only provides one template for it.  Given I printed on full page stickers and just slapped them onto the foam board I will need to either make a few more or do a design modification.  I have decided to put that one to the side and work on another example I found that was made out of squirt guns.

There was a video online by Dark Matter Workshop, that caught my imagination and off I went.  First up was to get the squirt gun, I managed to find the exact one in the video online and made the purchase.  

 At least I thought it was the same one, I clearly didn't read the dimensions before I purchased it.  While they are identical in design, the one in the video is rifle sized and mine came in pistol size.  After reviewing the dimensions I realized it was my mistake.  I contemplated sending it back but decided to make the best of it and try to make some thing out of it.  I went to Dollar Tree and found some nice looking pistols as well and started to make my plans.

Dark Matter cut the handle of his and that made good sense to me so I followed suit.  I had always intended to use the smaller pistols as some sort of drive unit.  I considered keeping the grip intact to use it to attach to but had concerns about cleaning up the trigger areas and just decide to cut their grips off as well. 

Now came the fun part, I just started to play around with different configurations, taping them together with painters tape.  I landed on this configuration for the drive units.  I just need to work out how to connect them.  I tried a few different bottle tops, I really liked this bottled tea top but couldn't figure out how to make the attachment.

Figured out a connection after several tries.  I landed on the top of a pop bottle cut just below the top thread with a cap.  I had a couple already done so it was more out of convenience.  Turns out it was very useful as I had to adjust each side slightly, just had to tighten/loosen the cap!

I got them connect and realized they weren't quote square or level.  Then I had an epiphany, of course they aren't square since the area you are gluing them to isn't level!  D'ou! The areas that I planned on using as the connection point slant in towards the nose at a slight angle.  I realized that I wasn't making a model to enter into some contest, it is intended to be used as table top terrain and doesn't need to be perfect. Once I got past that I reworked the connections.  I have a few more modeling things to address like the nose, a front landing gear and the back section.

 

General WIP Update-Actual Painting!

Inspiration and motivation have been slow to come to me lately and 2020 was a disaster.  2021 hasn't been much better but I did finally manage to get a project finished with a Stargrave crew from Reaper's Chronoscope line.  In an effort to speed things up and try to keep some inspiration flowing I've taken a cue from Jean-Baptiste Garidel over at Leadplague and tried a different direction with my painting.  JBG uses a muted palette with a couple of key pieces of vibrant color over an apex spray of dark then light.  I thought I would give his style a try and to be honest I'm pleased with the results.  This is my first attempt and I don't feel like I'm even close to mastering the technique, especially selecting the color and spotting of that color.

With that said I really like the first attempt and the better news is that it seems to be a bit quicker for me!  I have a few more started and will post when done.  Thank you JBG for the inspiration!

I also managed to wrap up the truck for Car Wars/Dark Future/Gaslands.  Started looking like this:

and now looks like this.

These are magnetized turrets that go on top, I embedded the magnets on the inside of the trailer in two spots.  They can also be used on a small box van.  They are made from round bases and a variety of Iron Wind mech weapons.  They always have a booth at the Origins convention with boxes of loose lead at ridiculous prices.  I had always intended to do Car Wars 3up someday and Gaslands just pushed that work to the front of the queue. 

 

Here are some WIP on a wasteland/apocalyptic truck.  Still figuring out the wheels and how they attach.  Not sure I have it worked out yet but getting closer.

As well as getting some work done on the "Off with the old/On with the new" troll project. A quick before reminder, here it is stripped down.  I'll do a proper before and after once I have it wrapped up.

And now a few updated pictures.

These pictures don't quite do it justice since I'm not much of a photographer.  These are older pics, here are a couple of more recent ones with a new phone.

 

I will need to wrap up the base and maybe a bit more detail to work out then I'll call it done.  Next up for the Off with The Old project, FTS!

Incredible Deal!

 

Look out, two posts in 2021 which is two more than 2020!  During holiday shopping I stumbled upon an incredible deal that I thought I should share.  I was looking for some board games at Walmart, as I strolled down one of the toy isles I noticed some Aliens toys hanging on the rack.  I’ve always been a fan of the movie franchise and was intrigued by them.  The xeno figures were actually pretty good, very true to the Geiger design for what appears to be a cheap 3-1/2” action figure.  The human figures, well they just appear to be some space or military figure and not specific to the colonial marines.  That was enough to dissuade me from impulse buying anything.  Then I looked down and was shocked to see this!

It is listed as Alien-Xenomorph Attack-Advanced-APC Vehicle!  Holy crap, it’s the APC from Aliens.  Now action figures aren’t really my thing but I picked it up and gave it the once over and realized it was way out of scale for the 3-1/2” action figure but it was probably perfect for 28-32” miniatures.  Better yet it was on clearance for $7.  I couldn’t pass it up so I secret Santa gifted myself.  Here are some out of the box pictures for details and size reference.  I wasn't impressed by the stickers so I peeled them off with ease.

 

My Wallyworld only had one but I’ll check some local towns if I’m out and about and see if they have any.  Looks like it is still available online for $10.50 as of today.  I’d like a second to modify and make a bit more realistic like removing the top door hinge as you can see in these pics.   

 

Possibly opening up the side slide door.  

But I won’t do that until I have a 2nd given my propensity to start a project and not complete it.  I wouldn’t want to be without a functioning copy for game play.  I might have to break down and order one online!  Not sure how or if it will take paint since it appears to be a softer plastic, again it would be nice to have a 2nd one to experiment on.  Looking forward to more posts on this in the future.

General WIP Update-Incoming 3

Incoming Round 3-Okay now I can see I'm just bragging!  Got a chance to stop by a few HPB stores awhile back and hit the jackpot with finding three of the Horus Heresy novels I still needed!

That was about a month ago and I've already read two of them.  Looking forward to the third one soon.  I also received a parcel the other day that turned out to be my Kickstarter from Diehard Games.

I had to go light given my recent uncheck spending on several expensive Kickstarter projects.  I went with a nice collection of bounty hunters, an intergalactic lawman and his faithful cyberdog, and a space snakeman.  Not sure what the heck I'm going to do with them but I am looking forward to painting them up!  I did go through them and start the clean up process.  Most were in great shape but a couple of them must have been at the end of the mold life and had some nasty mold lines.  I really don't mind taking care of this until that damn mold line runs right through some important detail.

I also picked up some new bases.  These are Star Wars Legion bases for Fantasy Flight Games war game.  They come in a standard grey and could honestly be used right out of the package.

The above picture actually shows them already painted with a base coat of matte black, I just stuck them back in the package for storage.  I then highlighted them up to a medium grey with some weathering and miscellaneous spots and stains.

I bought these for the likes of the previously mentioned Diehard miniatures and a handful of other sci fi figures.  I don't think that I'll put Diego's Knightmare Games Space Raiders on them, some of his figures are huge and wont even come close to fitting on these bases which are 27mm.  FFG only has a few larger sized bases and they have some odd notching to them which I really don't care for.  I'll probably just stick with my hex bases for those beasts.

General WIP Update-Incoming 2

Incoming Round 2-So I didn't want to brag too much with a long post on acquisitions so I broke it up.  Maybe that is worse?  Oh well on with it then.  I have unfortunately been bitten by the damn Kickstarter bug far too many times lately but it is hard to resist with all the great work by people like Tim with Diehard Miniatures or Diego with Knightmare Games or in this case Mantic Games with their Hellboy board game.

It was too good to pass up especially since I'm always looking for Hellboy miniatures for WWW2 scenarios or just to have Hellboy miniatures!

Oh so many miniatures! I'll have to break out a few of the henchmen and have my hand at painting them.  I'm not sure how they will take paint as they seem to be a hard polystyrene.  Not sure if they will need a primer or if I can just slap paint on directly. I just got the announcement from Mantic yesterday and the second wave of this Kickstarter is due in a few months with a shit ton more miniatures!  At my painting rate I should get them painted up by, oh say 2025 maybe 2026.