Vic's Gaff

Front view (the double doors don't show up well)

Well, OK, it's not really a rendition of my mate Stuart's shed and it's really my attempt at a run-down garage, but for some reason it reminded me of him and what I envisioned his wargame work/painting area to be like (a long time ago).

The building came about whilst I was watching the England v San Marino football game (it was a really boring first half) and I designed, drew out and cut out the whole thing by the start of the second half. (The second half was better and therefore work stopped on the model.)

I wanted a feature on each of the four walls, so this side has a window in it .
The model itself is made of a fairly thin card frame to which has been added some thin crimped card.
I didn't want to risk my newly purloined crimper with the thicker card that I used for the shell of the building
The effect I wanted was that of corrugated iron sheets, so they were all cut to a uniform size (about 50mm x 30mm) and applied to the model.

This does have an advantage in that it makes the model slightly stronger with the extra additional layer.
The rear of the building has a high window as its feature.
The frames for all the  windows, door and the upper part of the rear of the building are made from the ubiquitous wooden coffee stirrers.

Both the windows in this model have been "glazed" with clear plastic. (I wouldn't want Van Fampi on my case now would I ?)

The final side of the building showing the side door. (yep, boring. -  I know)

The roof was made in exactly the same way as the main shell of the building, card then thin corrugated card on top, but it does have the addition of another thin sheet of card along the ridge; this is meant to represent roofing felt (possibly also  known as tar-paper, but don't quote me on it.)
It appears as a fairly uniform grey in the photos, but I blame the crap cameraman for that. It is actually several different shades of grey and has a texture too, created by a small amount of wall filler

 Another three-quarter view of the building showing that the doors are openable.
The doors are made from - yes, you guessed it - coffee stirrers.

Overall approximate dimensions are
Base: 75mm x 125mm 
Height to roof:  50mm
Height to roof ridge: 85mm
I also reinforced the internal corners of the model (coffee stirrers yet again).

Time taken to assemble the already cut-out walls, roof parts and corrugations about another hour.

 

Here are two views of the inside of the building.

I had decided early on that I wanted the whole building to appear fairly run-down, both inside and outside, so the inside got a similar treatment to the outside.

None of the walls were actually fully painted in any particular colour, but as i used paints for one thing or another, whatever was left on the brush was wiped off on the inside walls.

 The inspiration for a lot of the inside detail came from Zombietown (http://www.skankgame.com/zombietown.html), the sire where I really started my venture into zombie wargaming, even though I was looking for ideas for my then gangster project.

The stains on the floor and the accumulated muck in the corners (dust from filing cork) all add to the overall  "lived-in" look.




This next view shows many of the bits and pieces that I used to detail Vic's Gaff.

The workbench is four pieces of card (top, two sides and a shelf).
The shelf has a piece of piping on it, which was cut from a skewer I had used to stir some silver paint with (god know when). On the bench is a book, a newspaper and some "gentleman's reading material", scratch built or left-overs from Nipper's Newstand (March 2012's blog, as is the poster above the bench.

The shelf on the back wall was a piece of card on which there is a box (scrap card) a couple of cylinders, representing rusting paint-tins and some wire mesh which I've used in the past for leaded windows. Underneath the shelf are three more slightly larger cylinders painted in red and yellow (a colour scheme I've seen used on cooking oil in my local cash and carry!) No doubt anyone familiar with WWG products will recognise their tool-box. Not shown in this photo, but fairly visible in a photo above is a sack I scratch built.
A tyre and a broom handle complete the props in this end (broom handle is a cocktail stick and the tyre is from a card racing car toy)
There's not much going on in the other end of the building, a broom and a few bits of wood on the side shown, another tyre and new piece of corrugation are on the other on the other side, they can be seen in one of the photographs above. The brush was inspired by Sid the Sweeper (the foundry figure I've used a lot for scale purposes) and like so many other things it's probably well overscale. It was made from a small piece of cork and a cocktail stick.

Finally here's an aerial view of the building, just to prove that I can in fact get a vehicle in it, even though its a bit of a tight squeeze.
Even with the vehicle in though you can see that there is still room left for figures to fit in, especially as I use 20mm bases (pennies or washers).
In the back of my pick-up truck are some of the sacks, which I scratch built after making the experimental one for this model.
Designing, cutting out, painting, making props and everything else that went into this model probably took no more than five or six hours total, but was spread over six days, so about an hour a day.

That's it for another week then and as always comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

I'll also take this opportunity to welcome my latest follower  - "Dark_Jober" to my blog, I hope he and all you others that peruse this site find something to interest or entertain you.

Terrain: Office buildings and lamp posts

I have been wanting to make a large office building piece for sci-fi and superhero games, so I bought six white miniature milk crates as a base to make these simple buildings.

This crate is from Office Depot (item #785-255) and unfortunately it appears to be discontinued.

The first step is to remove the curved section of plastic at the top that imitates a handle. I found that the easiest method was to use a Dremel to cut through the thicker sections, then I cleaned up the cuts with a utility knife.

Next, I made the pieces that will fill in the windows on the sides of the buildings. I used cardboard from cereal boxes and similar packages, cutting them to fit the inside of the crates. I taped the pieces to a board so they would not warp while drying and used a broad, coarse brush to make the streaked pattern seen on these pieces.

Here are the window pieces glued in to the crate with white glue. One of the windows has been filled with white to match the crate.

Next, I filled the remainder of the middle row of windows with white, making an area that represents the separation between floors of the building. Some touch up on the windows is still needed at this point. To have a flat, dark surface on the roof, I cut a square of black craft foam material, applied some spots of dark gray, and used hot glue to hold it in place.

Here are the six crates finished and stacked together as one building. I am considering making some low walls to surround the roofs and other items like air conditioners and stairwells that might be found on roofs. Ideally, these would be stored with other small items inside the buildings.

Along with new buildings, I made a simple set of street lamps. They are made from mass-produced wooden parts: 2.5" shaker pegs and doll stand bases.

There is not much to the construction of these lamps. The pieces are glued together with wood glue and painted. I chose a streaky verdigris paint scheme and painted the lamp area with splotches of white, orange, and yellow.

3rd map and how to make building out of bins

This week we hosted the second installment in our annual Halloween zombies game. For our initial effort last year, Tim (our zombie gamemaster) set the bar pretty high, with a walk-right-up-and-play urban horror game featuring desperate survivors and mindless zombies. This year, we turned the dial up to 11 with more terrain, more players -- and of course, more zombies. Here's the zombie pool that Tim used to populate our map.

For last year's game, we used All Things Zombie with a few modifications. This year, we used Blasters & Bulkheads, which did an excellent job simulating a small group of heavily armed heroes blasting their way through hordes of walking dead. B&B has a "henchmen" mechanic that was well-suited to running the zombies -- keeping them dangerous in big groups but also giving survivors a chance to escape.

We set up a tabletop with all sorts of urban terrain, including office buildings, abandoned military checkpoints and an industrial area with fences and warehouses. Here are a couple of the little vignettes that helped tell the story of the last days of New Chicago.

What's this? An abandoned medical supply depot? Who knows what's in those barrels...

And over here, it looks like the military fortified this office building against the oncoming horde. But where are they now...?

Prior to the start of the game, each player selected two armed survivor figures from a big pool of maybe 30 figures. Then Tim randomly generated each character's stats. They were assumed to be armed with exactly what the miniature was carrying -- little wonder, then, that the shotgun-wielding figures got selected first!

The players started their figures in a couple different board edges. Here a small group of survivors creeps onto the battlefield. By the end of the game, we had developed a persona for the guy in the tan coat -- his name was Jimmy Jaworsky, a tough-as-nails South Sider wearing a Bears jersey underneath his jacket. Yes, I put on my very best Chicago accent when it was Jimmy's turn to activate.

Across the board, Tom's two survivors found themselves in an abandoned industrial area. A warehouse loomed up ahead, so Tom sent Professor Paulsen -- an aging, tenured scholar from the University of New Chicago who nonetheless knows how to handle a shotgun -- to explore.

Tim came armed with plenty of random charts to aid in our looting efforts. In this case, Professor Paulsen stumbled across a handful of zombies -- and two survivors cowering behind a stack of crates! After Tom's two survivor characters dispatched the zombies, the two newcomers agreed to join the survivors, giving Tom two more figures to control for the remainder of the game.

To the north, a multi-story garage loomed against the darkened skyline. That's where Karl sent his two survivors, who were both clad in bright yellow biohazard suits. Perhaps they were scientists before the outbreak?

Inside the garage was a garbage truck, a formidable mode of transportation with the potential to squish dozens and dozens of zombies -- if only Karl could get the vehicle started! His attempts created a lot of noise, which brought even more moaning, groaning zombies to the scene.

As with last year's scenario, noise played an important role as the game unfolded. Fighting in melee, starting cars, shooting firearms -- all of these things generated noise, which in turn could attract zombies. Sometimes a gunshot or scuffle wouldn't result in any undue attention from the undead, but other times a half dozen zombies might show up, hungering for flesh.

Anyway, back to the game. Across the map, Jimmy Jaworsky was getting himself into a bit of trouble. He spotted a high-end sports car peeking out of a shipping container, and Jimmy decided that this was the ride that was going to get him out of New Chicago once and for all. But as he closed in on the vehicle, two small groups of walking dead stumbled after him...

Meanwhile Mike's two characters -- a grizzled military veteran and a plucky girl sidekick -- commandeered an old pickup truck, got it running, and began zooming across the map, splatting zombies left and right. 

They sideswiped a big mob of zombies that were harassing Jimmy, then skidded around a corner and headed off into the industrial sector to help out Karl's survivors.

And speaking of Karl's survivors -- they finally got the garbage truck up and running, but about a dozen zombies were thronging around the garage, pursuing two different groups of survivors.

By this point Karl's survivors had mobilized the garbage truck, and Mike's survivors were careening around the map in their pickup truck.

Poor Jimmy Jaworsky had gone to the big Polish sausage stand in the sky, though -- he was ripped apart and devoured by eight zombies as he attempted to hotwire an abandoned car. Professor Paulsen, too, went on permanent sabbatical, as he was dismembered by zombies in the industrial sector. Luckily Tom's other survivors proved particularly adept at self-preservation, and they emerged onto the streets to meet the garbage truck saviors.

We called the game there, as Games Plus was about to close. Everyone had plenty of praise for the scenario and for Tim's gamemastering. The game was fun, bloody, exciting and grim, just like any zombie apocalypse game should be! Here's the final photo, showing the garbage truck plowing into a mob of zeds.

Doubtless we'll run a zombie game next Halloween. Until then!

Warehouse 51

When some of the Necromunda terrain at my gaming club got a bit tatty we decided to re-cycle the bulkheads into some larger buildings. This warehouse was made as part of a participation game, and will then become general 40K terrain.</td>
The warehouse houses a captured Falcon Anti-Grav Tank. Unfortunately it has fallen into enemy hands, and is now deep in Ork-held territory. This is a job for Colonel Shaeffer's Last Chancers - a do-or-die unit of ex-convicts who are dropped behind enemy lines on suicide missions in return for absolution from their sentence (if they survive...). This model was made for this participation game that we will run at open days and wargaming events. Thereafter it will make a nice piece of standard 40K terain.

Materials

1. MDF board (hardboard in the USA)
2. Mattboard (thick cardboard, such as picture-framing board)
3. PVA, superglue, epoxy, etc.,
4. 32 necromunda bulkheads, including 4 with doors
5. Plastic rod in an I shape and U shape (for the door tracks)
6. Corrugated cardboard
7. An old computer fan
8. Bits and pieces of junk, plumbing couplings, a waste elbow, and barrels for external detailing
9. Textured paint for the base.

Method

I used solid Necromunda bulkheads for the ground floor, and gothic-window bulkheads for the first floor. These were glued together to make the two sides 4 bulkheads long by 2 high (with a door bulkhead in each), and the rear wall 3 bulkheads wide and 2 high. The centre bulkhead on the rear wall was left out to make a larger door.
The front wall has a larger opening and sliding doors. To make the opening I cut down the bulkheads to make them narrower by removing the part with the ladders. The offcuts were put to one side to use inside the building.
I wanted the inside of the building to be more than just a large space, so I made a walkway out of thick card that would run around the two long sides and rear. The walkway also helped hold the building together by slotting into the tabs on the bulkheads (it was left as one complete piece). You can see in this photograph that I used the bulkhead offcuts from the front wall, complete with ladders, to act as support pillars to the walkway. I also used triangles of thick card in the corners to help strengthen the building. Eventually these were glued in place with a hot glue gun (or PVA).
The roof is part flat, and part sloped. The flat part is just more thick card which also acts to stabilise and strengthen the front of the building.
The sloped part was made out of two triangles and two rectangles of MDF (hardboard) glue-gunned together with some small blocks in the corners for extra strength. The hole for the computer fan was cut out first. The sloping roof just sits on top of the walls so that it can be lifted off to gain access to the inside of the building.
The whole roof was then covered in corrugated cardboard. The small stair-top building is just four more bulkheads, one of which is a door, glued together with a cardboard roof. The one on the ground floor has three bulkhead sides. Leave these unglued until you have painted the rest of the building.
The doors are a bit of a feature. These were made from a railway bridge kit that I bought some time ago but hadn't found a use for until now. The small panels were really intended to make one of those metal bridges over a rail track. I glued them all together into two large doors and reinforced the backs with some plastic strips. You could make a similar door from thick card with thin strips of card glued on to make the panel effect. It was important that the doors opened so that gamers could get their hands in to fight some battles inside the warehouse. I decided to make them slide open, rather than hinge them.
The doors just slide in U shaped plastic track glued to the baseboard at the bottom. At the top I glued some I-beam across the building first, to bring the track far enough out from the building to allow the doors enough clearance to slide easily. You need to fix the building to the baseboard before gluing the bottom door track in place, to make sure it goes in the correct position. Paint the inside of the warehouse first, before it is fixed to the baseboard, and then glue it down.
Some external detail was added by gluing two plumbing couplings on the flat roof, and a large waste pipe elbow to the side building. A few barrels, computer bits and wheels were added to the baseboard to give a bit of ground cover. The door mechanism and winch is the motor from a broken disk drive (or CD-ROM) glued to the wall with a length of jewellery chain draped over it. The whole base was then given a thick coat of textured paint.

Painting and finishing

This was one of the quickest and easiest models I have ever painted! I sprayed the whole thing black, and then used a camo-green spray to get the camouflage effect. The whole operation took about 15 minutes. The barrels and bits were dry-brushed with silver and washed with black ink. I also dry-brushed a bit of silver in the doorways and on ladders to give the impression of wear and tear on the building. The base was dry-brushed with dark brown, highlighted a bit with lighter brown, and then embellished with a few patches of static grass.
The 51 lettering was done by spraying white paint through a stencil. I printed out the large numbers on my computer and carefully cut them out to make the stencil. To avoid too bright a finish on the letters I dusted them with black and green spray to tone them down a bit.
When playing around with a 9v battery I discovered that the computer fan still worked! So I added a small switch to turn the fan on and off, and stuck the battery inside the roof with blu-tac. Now we had a model with working fan! This gave me an idea for the game we were designing. I shall make the fan the only way into the warehouse - the saboteurs have to get onto the roof, turn off the fan, and lower themselves through the now static fan blades. Sounds like a suicide mission to me!

SAM Station

I wish I had a pound for every time someone has sent me a tip saying 'Hey! Styrofoam packaging makes really cool buildings'.
The fact is, they usually look like styrofoam packaging. Unless, like Salvatore, you finish it properly and detail it up. I'd be delighted to have this superb building in my collection.
Packing manufacturers surely have model terrain in mind when they design these Styrofoam marvels! The benefits of saving Styrofoam packing material are threefold. First, the stuff is absolutely free (indirectly). Second, the shapes are so perfect for futuristic buildings that very little, if any, additions are needed. Finally, think of all the landfill space we could save if everyone made at least one wargames building from packing Styrofoam!

Materials

1. Packing Styrofoam (an endcap, in this case)
2. Joint compound
3. 1:1 mixture of PVA and flat latex house paint (a pre-mixed jar of this is handy)
4. Acrylic paints: black, white, boltgun metal
5. Spray paint: flat black
6. 1" bristle brush or spackling knife

Method

1. Haphazardly dab on joint compound over the entire outer surface.
2. Lightly sand when dry.
3. Seal with PVA/latex paint mixture and allow to dry.
4. Spray paint flat black.
5. Dry brush in light shades of grey.
6. Highlight with white.

Missile Launcher Materials

1. Superglue
2. 0.030" sheet styrene
3. Plastic square tubing
4. Plastic rectangular tubing
5. 1/35 and 1/72 scale model tank bits
6. Brass rod
7. Wooden doweling
8. Plastic bottle cap
9. Frozen food or cereal box card stock

Missile launcher method

1. Construct two boxes (or one box, if you prefer) using eight 2" pieces of square tubing. Join with superglue.
2. Using superglue, cover the sides and rear of each launcher with .030" sheet styrene panels. Leave one end open to accommodate the missiles.
3. Add some spare model bits for detail. A tank kit is my favorite source for bits.
4. Join the boxes together with superglue. If you have a plastic bit separating the two boxes as in my launcher, drill a couple of holes and insert a brass pin for extra reinforcement before gluing. The diagram indicates all pinned joints in red.
5. For the launcher rack, cut some rectangular tubing and join with superglue.
6. Glue the launcher assembly to a plastic bottle top.
7. Glue the completed launcher to a platform made from two layers of card stock.
8. Spray paint black and dry brush boltgun metal.
9. Missile construction: I used a mechanical pencil sharpener to shape the tips. You can try an electric sharpener, but it may not have the power to cut the doweling. Each missile measures 2.5". It is better to sharpen the dowel first and then cut rather than cutting eight pieces and then sharpening each in turn.
10. Sand the missiles smooth.
11. Paint the missile tips any color you wish (mine are codex grey).
12. Add a dab of PVA to the bottom ends of the missiles and insert into the launcher tubes. Take care not to glob on too much glue at this step as is may drip onto finished surfaces.

Radar dish materials and method

This radar dish is a collection of junk, model tank parts, and a plastic bottle cap spray painted black and dry brushed boltgun metal. The assembly is glued to a platform made from two layers of card stock.

Rear door and side doors-materials and method

The rear door and side doors are thick card stock spray painted black and dry brushed boltgun metal. The rear door details are model tank bits, hinges are plastic rod, and the handles are bent brass rod.

Ladder materials and method

These are O-scale ladders made by Plastruct. I heated the tops of the ladders over a candle flame and bent them with tweezers to create the look of hand-holds. As you may notice, the tops are not exactly even.
Heat-shaping plastic is not an easy task, especially with these thin ladders. I recommend a paint-stripping gun. It will heat the plastic in a more controlled manner than an open flame. The ladders were spray painted flat black and dry brushed with boltgun metal. I have elected not to build a base for this piece so it can be used with any variety of terrain.
This SAM site is the second in a series of armed fortifications I am building.

Refinery

http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/infopages/page394.html

 The refinery makes extensive use of plasticard and specially shaped plastic rod - see the materials section for details.

Materials

1. Plywood or Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) for the base
2. Foamcore
3. Plasticard
4. Plastic rod in girder cross-section (like a capital "I"), in "T' - shaped cross-section and in round cross-section about 3mm diameter.
5. Two tin cans for the tanks. I used 1 litre beer cans which are about 7.5 inches tall but I recommend you experiment with lots and lots of beer cans until you find the best ones. This is a major advantage of this terrain piece!
6. Thin card, such as cerial box card.
7. PVA glue
8. Press-studs (also called poppers - see materials section)

Method

The refinery was made in sections and fixed to the base as ready, so prepare the base first. This model has very little strength from the buildings - because there are no walls - so use a good, strong base like 8mm plywood or MDF (see materials section). My base was about 14 inches by 16 inches. The concrete block effect is simply slabs of foamcore or thick card stuck to the base with gaps between. Seal with PVA and spray black. Paint with grey powder or poster paints and mix up the paints to a thick, pasty texture to get the concrete effect. Dry brush with lighter greys. Brush or spray with matt varnish to seal the water based paint and provide a good surface for gluing.
Obtain your cans, empty them, and then arrange them on your base in a position that pleases you (this may take some time due to knocking them over and failing to resist the temptation to stand your miniatures on them - this passes as you sober up). I suggest you allow a miniature-sized gap between them.
When you are happy with the position of the cans slip a sheet of plasticard beneath them and draw on the shape of the platform you want - this allows you to build a platform that is logical in relation to the tank position. Don't make it too complex a shape. My platform is like a capital letter J.
Cut the platform shape out of the plasticard. This now has the legs built onto it in plastic rod. I used the T-shaped rod for the legs, one at each corner (internal and external corners have a leg). My platform is 4.5 inches tall. I used liquid poly cement to attach the legs, though a hot glue gun might allow quicker work. I then glued girder-shaped plastic rod under the platform at the edges, butting up to the legs. This makes the platform reasonably rigid.
To increase stability and add detail I used plastic rod to make X-shaped cross members between the legs. I cut and glued one cross member of the X as a long rod and then glued two rods half as long to complete the X shape.
Small rectangular plasticard plates were glued over the cross to tidy it and strengthen the joints. The rivet detail is just pricked into the reverse of the plasticard. The steps are scratch-built from plastic rod using I-shaped rod for the sides of the steps (stringer) and T-shaped rod for the steps. I got the rivet detail by pricking into very thin plasticard and sticking it on with the bumps uppermost.
The platform has a guard rail around the top constructed from plastic rod and plastic card. The rods appear to pass through the rail but really small slivers of rod have been glued on top.
I have also added a round rail to the top of one of the tanks.
The control box is scratch-built and the dials painted on.
Plastic rod in various diameters has been used to add a ladder to the tank side, waste and connecting pipes and so on. When adding them think about letting miniatures between and beneath them. To bend plastic rod I use a hot-air paint stripper on it until it softens. It will then bend easily but don't over-do it or it will go all wobbly. Prop the hot air gun up somehow, hold the rod in both hands, and keep testing it until it begins to bend at which point pull it out of the hot air.
One of the tanks has a pointed, conical top. Just cut a circle of thin card, cut a slit from the centre to the edge along the radius, and overlap the card to make a cone of the correct size. You will need to start out with a circle of card about 1 inch radius greater than the radius of the can.
The control wheels are just half of a press-stud (UK name, also called poppers or pop-studs) painted in different colors. Press-studs come in various sizes. Sometimes I glue them straight on to a pipe, at other times I stick it in a small length of plastic rod and then stick that onto the pipe.
The large bore pipe in the photograph is an offcut from a piece of copper plumbing pipe that is sold as hand-bendable, hence the corrugated appearance. Look out for offcuts of interesting piping.
This model has some fans added here and there. You will find instructions for these on our industrial fans page. If you are having difficulty gluing and fitting onto round surfaces you will also find help on this topic on the fans page.
All that is left is the painting. Spray everything black. Then apply silver paint using an old, largish, soft brush - because the best way is to splay the brush by prodding it onto the surface rather than brushing. This gives a criss-cross pattern to the paint which looks like galavanised steel. Wash with black and chestnut inks diluted 50% with water. Paint rust on with neat chestnut ink. Paint black and yellow stripes, lettering, control panels of anything else you fancy on it.
Pat yourself on the back and look forward to some great games on the beautiful terrain piece you have just made!