trash build

Tasker Mining for all your deep desert mining needs!

I based the design on one of my favorite classic arcade games, Moon Patrol, as well as Judge Dredd comics. Early 2000AD stuff is something that we draw from for a lot of Yva’s settings so I wanted something that looked like it was designed by the 2000AD crew. And if I ever get anyone to play the new Judge Dredd miniature game it’ll come in handy in Mega City One as well.

The game was tough when I was a kid but I've always loved these cabinet graphics.

I used a combination of cyanoacrylate glue, JB Weld epoxy, and standard model cement. Bondo polyester putty for gap filling and rebuilding some parts. Sheet and strip styrene for detailing. And a pretty odd collection of other greeblies.

This project was 100% inspiration and 0% perspiration.

After going over the whole model with sandpaper to roughen the surface, this is especially important with the deodorant container since the plastic it’s made of doesn’t like paint very well, I used Rust-oleum Multicolor Textured spray paint to texture the surface. This gives a very rough and pitted surface, one that is great for drybrushing but might be a little over the top for most vehicles. It works really well for buildings or for a vehicle like the Camel that must endure powerful sandstorms of the planet Coronus. I think it might also work well for any kind of cast metal like Victorian iron plate.

I then used Rust-oleum Ultra Cover Flat Black spray paint to prime it. This is one of my favorite parts of trash bashing, when the first complete coat of primer makes all of the odd looking parts suddenly come together as a cohesive whole. I then drybrushed the daylights out of the thing before adding some grime with Citadel Washes and adding some Tasker Mining signs to the sides. These were printed on an inkjet printer and varnished before being decoupaged onto the sides.

There we have it! The totally trash bashed Camel Crawler ready to roll over the sands of Coronus. Now to make a stega-tank out of my next container of deodorant...

CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT

This build was so much fun that I’d like to see what my fellow builders can come up with. Beginning on April 1st (no it’s no joke) and ending April 30th I will be accepting entires for the First Annual Roebeast’s Trash Bash Contest! I’ve already got $150 worth of prizes lined up from various companies and a group of gaming celebrity judges to make the big decision.

I’ll be posting complete rules and information next week (March 21st) so you’ve got a month and a half to use up some lovely smelling deodorant and get building. Check back at Roebeast’s Magical House of Sunshine for more information!

Textured Easter Eggs Available

Sunday, March 6, 2011

I found this package of textured plastic Easter eggs at our local Giant supermarket. I thought that they would have good potential as alien pods, terrain, etc., and wanted to point them out to everyone. They are probably available at most major retailers who stock Easter candy. The green one has two different sides, a spikey one and a lettuce type leaf texture. The grey an brown ones are the same on both sides.

54mm VSF ACW GASLIGHT Vehicles

54mm VSF ACW GASLIGHT Vehicles

I was recently going through some old digital photos of GASLIGHT games that I ran in the past to review what troops I had (it was easier than digging out the boxes!) in preparation for putting together my Historicon scenario which I will be playtesting in the weeks ahead. I came across the following photos of a pair of 54mm GASLIGHT vehicle projects I did in '03, but never showed anywhere for lack of a venue. Now that I have this blog, and most of my current time is involved with last minute convention prep, I thought it would be a good opportunity to"dust these projects off" and share them with you all in hope that it offers some inspiration for your VSF projects.




First up is a Confederate landship I built, called the Daisy Cutter. The basis of the hull is a dozen-egg egg carton of the pulp-paper variety. I glued the carton together, then cut out holes for the port and starboard cannons and a front viewport,then I glued balsa strips around the bottom half of the egg carton to form the bottom of the hull. I then glued half inch balsa strips around and on top of the vehicle to form planking, leaving holes where the cannon and the view port would eventually go. I also cut slots underneath to mount wood disc wheels.



Here is a shot of the complete planking. i have included a 54mm soldier in the picture for scale. On top of the landship I have glued a turret made from a thin wood craft box. It is glued upside down so the lid forms the ring for the turret to sit in. I also cut a gun port in this. Underneath I glued eight wood disks to make wheels.




Next I added all the finishing bits. In the front I glued a wide-toothed comb to form a rake to sweep aside Yankee formations. I also mounted all the guns, which were cast in a homecasting artillery mold, and gave them balsa gunshields. The smokestacks were made from plastic tubing from the junk box, and the smokestack finials were made from wood craft bits. On the back I mounted a spar torpedo to deal with any threats from behind. The spar is made from a dowel, and a bit of necklace chain added a nice touch as the lowering cable. I also added balsa hatches and a cardboard viewport. Around the edges I glued heavy paper to finish the edges nicely. Then I added rivets made from very pins stuck through the balsa.




Here's the finished model with paint and weathering applied.



Here is the Daisey Cutter Landship in in its first convention game at Fall-In '03.


Here it is in one of my GASLIGHT games at Origins '04. Note the addition of a dollhouse Victrola on top, to play stirring battle music as the landship rolls into combat!

Sci-Fi Terrain bits

 The Station 42 project has all but spiraled out of control which was to be expected.  Instead of doing one big spaceport project we are doing one big spaceport project and a number of other locations around the spaceport creating a mini setting.  I guess this is to be expected and it's kind of a cool thing.  After all the big project is coming along nicely but it's still a 5x12' table so it's not the most practical thing to have regular games on.  Still because of the modular nature of the designs we are working with it is providing us with a lot of use.  One of the things we have been needing to work on though are detail bits.  We have managed to put together a lot of buildings but we don't have a lot of smaller detail bits or furniture for those buildings.  We have some that we have purchased and scratch built but we need more.  The goal is to make these bits as modular as possible too. 

 We have a number of these smaller adobe structures we built out of cork tile we are working on.  We plan to use them for a lot of different locations.  They are very plain however and we were looking to spice them up with some tech bits.  Here is an example of some tech bits made from junk.  We built little platforms that we can slide right up against the building so it will look integrated and be highly modular.  Also we can put these pieces out as stand alone terrain bits.  On larger buildings they can even be set on top. 

 Here are four that I made that have identical construction.  I often use the design principle of unity and variety when thinking about miniatures and terrain. 

 Here is a shot of a number of our adobe buildings with some work in progress modular tech bits as well as some of the other storage/chemical tanks and other smaller terrain bits we have been working on. 

 Stage one of the painting.  I hope to make a large number of these for use with my terrain sets.  I want to make some larger and some smaller sets to add to the versatility of my terrain.  Little projects like these can add a lot of detail without adding a lot of storage problems.  It's easier to make one building with several modular bits than make 10 buildings that only look one way when you set them on the table. 

 Here are some simple wooden tables we made.  All of our buildings open up for play so we need a lot of furniture.  There are several lines of pre-made furniture out there but we are going to need a large volume of furniture so we are going to have to resort to scratch building to fill in the gaps.  These are for a sci-fi setting even though they are wood.  They could represent either nicer actual wood furniture or fake wood furnishings.  That brings up another thing.  Don't discount any fantasy or historic furniture you might have in your collection for Sci-Fi settings.  You can find uses for it because furniture designs have a long life span.

 Another detail I'm working on is signage and billboard advertisements.  I was looking for a way to make them highly modular and easy.  I got the idea to pick up some cheap acrylic photo frames and some plastic trading card sleeves.  I plan to make adds using photoshop and them sliding them into the frames.  I'm going to use different methods to attach them to my buildings and also make some stand along billboards.  Being able to change out the art will make them highly modular. 

Here is a detail shot of the two types of card protectors.  The one of the left came in a pack of 35 for less than $3.00 and the acrylic one was $1.29.  They are designed to hold collector cards like sports cards. 

100 bottle cap barrels

Sometimes we do something completely insane for our games.  This last weekend we put together and finished 100 bottle cap barrels.  Before we had about 35-40 so this will provide us with a lot more scatter terrain for our games which is important because our Station 42 table is 5'x12'.

Our other barrels are all generic so we decided these should have corporate labels as well as warning labels. Cutting out and pasting on the labels was by far the hardest part of the project.  We cut and pasted literally hundreds of them.

You might recognize some of the fictional corporations we used.  Not bad for a weekend project I guess.  These are part of a larger supply depo project we are working on.  Next up will be some other containers and we hope to have some large shipping crates as well.  We already have a lot of labels printed out.

Storage Container

Being a lurker at TMP (theminiaturespage.com), I saw a link to an Spanish site for a guy that makes his own scenery:

http://www.toposolitario.es/workshop/container.html

He made a really cool shipping container that I decided to try and copy for 15mm. I try to save "bits-n-pieces" of things that might be viable for terrain and it looks like I had everything I needed to make a working prototype/proof of concept.

Contents Above:

• thick baseball/football card pack cardboard
• small nail/braid
• metal paper clip
• Starbucks cup insulation (also have the Seattle's Best ones)
• small piece of left-over plastic card from the DPM building kit

I guesstimated the dimensions and starting gluing things together with supper glue which took pretty well. Below is the assembled container, hope to post some picture this weekend of how it looks painted.

This took about 30-45 minutes to complete. I will take care to keep track of measurements better next time so the containers will be the same size. I also need to find some stencils to put information on the sides.

terrain ideas

The city needs a facelift.

Well not that my city is big. But so far I have gotten by with what I had. But the only real buildings of use are Survivor house ,the gates and Gravesend segway tours. The hospital is a project on its own. But I really want more to Gravesend than the 40k ruins, lego house and old pirateship. So I am investing in some lasercut buildings from Sarissa. The two first buildings here are on the list. 

I have some roads painted on my board. But lets face it....I am not entirely happy with the result. One step at a time, and the roads will get a shine up. I do have some cars and you may remember my wrecked car. The city will need more stuff. I have some spawn points and some bits to throw around. It needs a bit more personality. Thus I created these flower pots out of bottlecaps. I made it look like some of the earth was missing and they were a bit neglected. The idea to this is from real life. 2nd picture is rom a place I pass everyday when on my way to work.

I think they came out pretty good. Picture below is some of the other stuff I will use to clutter up the streets of Gravesend. Spawnpoints, citysign, the wrecked car and the tubing. It needs some kind of rope around it and ofcourse a spot of paint so it actually looks like some metal piping. Good use for cover and it could actually look like some sewer pipes now I think about it.

 Well that is it from me this time. I am awaiting a package from England with some...Scenery. But that will have to wait to be revealed. This coming Monday will see me and my mate battling some zombies as we finally try out the ALL THINGS ZOMBIE ruleset. If all goes well I may be able to start my little campaign.

fuel tank

Tutorial to make a fuel tank funded by the SGAE for miniature gameINFINITY Click here to see photos of the finished container Infinity is a game set in the future between us only 200 years and in the fighting are devastating, men die, the machines are volatilized and any piece of coverage is welcome, so I started to build a long time ago This fuel tank. ENOL Why?many years the ENOL has been the fuel that has driven spacecraft of my fantasies ... Where did I get the name? the truth is that I do not remember, but the first picture that is clearly written in a spacecraft tank corresponds to a ship the game "ELITE", by then in his version of Spectrum 48k ... That takes us back to 1986! And since then has been my fuel ENOL staff (and more powerful but ENOLUNO reserved for more designs bastards). Okay, down to business ... the idea is to use a box of blank CDs and give it a look that mole scifi-salchichero atmosphere for any type of scenery of Infinity ... and take advantage of the canyon depaso for recreational activities, which never hurts. So I propose a brief tutorial on how it is done (though the truth is that we would not need because it's simplest and smallest as you can see below) Materials A glue gun is basic (everyone should have a home and plenty of bars, of good hardware that around a hundred are worthless except to fill gaps), all one hundred wire, small wire cutters , a set of cutters dime (there are some that come in blue box sold in Alcampos and brings up other punches, hear this set highly recommended!) straws drinking articulated some cardboard or foam board (0.5 cm) and of course an empty tub of CDs. highly recommend wash the pot with fairy (tm)to remove grease and mold release you may have. But the painting is going to be hell! Outside the tubes Support With foamboard we do the outer support tubes, the idea is that the reservoir has tubes coming from entering inside the floor ... Why? It rocks! in fact or are in the base as it seems to be logical or anywhere ... but you will see that interesting. ;) Will mark the position of the 5 tubes (straws) output, you can see in the picture how there is not much mystery. The ladders Notice that in this first model are made ​​with titanium ... but hey, once painted are reasonably good, so the method is this: make the holes and perfóralos going to do with a punch to pass the wire.  In this photo you can see the holes already made ​​in addition to the straws with the punches (You can also use a xactocutter is more complicated but it is perfectly circular, thinking it does not matter much. Instead of drilling, the tubes may stick on the plastic of the CD but I did not trust much of that subjection). And pass the wires to make the rungs of the ladder, giving them a ladder-shaped wire ... we, as in the picture ... Giving a taste for glue gun We prepare the pieces to put them, we put the straws (Notice that the idea is more protruding side of the center so that when they do come down to earth online and not following the curve of the tank). The stairs to the subject getting an accurate measure amid a strip leftover foamboard. He should have gotten more steps and the use of a shielded cable that seems thicker than the wire ... First round of glue, look inside the ladder and straws ... should no longer move the least. And second round of glue, glue pot to first base (like a silicone hand for the bathroom stall, by the rim) and will prevent it from moving, warping, cracking the paint ... etc..  we put a glob on the site to be nailed down each tube and the straw, simpler impossible. A few details The top is a little bland and it has raised some text like " open "and" close "so I put a couple of details to cover a bit, one is a piece of foam board and three straw cuts ... the other is the inside of a plug of Trina that I thought it was a manhole cover that scale perfectly. Primer For the primer is very important to cover, this type of plastic (and more that of the straws) refuses to hold on to painting. A primer is good, a soft layer of gesso is probably even better ... CUBRID is as well and with love.  If for priming had used gray spray or spray with texture to new City Games Workshop (which is too expensive for what spreads) and have the deposit ready to go in record time .. . 1 hour and 24 minutes from the first to the last photo! Painting I've tried to paint work it a bit, but the paint was also very fast, first a layer of medium gray to dark shooting (70% or so), then diluted with a few strokes darker paint in the grooves and edges. .. and finally the fun part, grow light with a couple of shades of gray using a sponge ... work with the sponge is fast, plus cochinón left with a beautiful texture. The details (although they may look complex) were extremely simple, a couple of stencils made ​​on the fly for the lyrics to "ENOL" and "T4" and some masking tape for wasp lines that will surely give a final touch of luxury. Ale, already, here are several images gossip ended: click image to enlarge  click image to enlarge  click image to enlarge  click on image to enlarge