Acquisitions - Narrow Gauge Pictorial Vol I

Well, it seems that some of these books just keep falling into my lap at reasonable prices. How can I refuse! Here is Vol 1 Locomotives the RGS & D&RGW.

The Sci Fi Pulp Diorama - The Gathering

While I was messing around with templates and finding the bits and bobs that I had already accumulated I went back to Reaper to find some more stuff to work with. I wanted to get some more toolbots for sure, I figure more than a couple of them were going to end up as crushed remnants along the floor. You can never have enough toolbots. I picked up a possible alternative to the heroine. Then, of course, while I like the original protagonist quite a bit, I think he is just to small to get the whole "terror" aspect of the diorama. 

That care package arrived on Friday, here are the contents:

Here is the whole lot. Everything I could possibly need...yeah right.

This is really most of what I want to work with. I think I have already eliminated the alternative heroine (somehow I managed to order 2, oops) and will go with the original. But toolbots and extra weapons should come in handy.

Here are the big beasties. All three of the Bathalians and the Hivewarden. I think the Hivewarden has a lot of potential, perhaps add some bits from the others to up the "fear" factor.

 

Once more into the Breach - The Sci Fi Pulp Diorama

I have had this concept for a Sci Fi Pulp Era diorama in my head for years now. I even have miniatures primed and ready to go but I just couldn't seem to make any headway on it. Those minis were scattered across my workbench or even repurposed for other projects. This one has really been in my head the last week or so. Enough that I decided that maybe I would make a couple of templates and mock up what it might look like.

With a ruler and an old circuit template I stared doodling some lines on a piece of cardboard. Grabbed the hero mini and decided how tall the interior of the rocket ship needed to be and I was off. In 30 minutes or so I managed to create the template for the ribs and bulkheads. Drew a couple of circles on it to represent where the cut out sections might go and things were on their way.

I also managed to find all the LED lights I bought and I pulled those out so I could figured out what I would need to do to fit the lights into place.

I need to use the template to make some ribs and bulkheads from thicker stock and I think I can mock things up pretty quickly at this point. I'm actually excited about it again! Enough so that I went in and purchased some more minis and paint from Reaper to play around with a couple of ideas for the alien menace.

I only drew on one half of the template. I cut that shape and then folded it in the middle to cut the other side. I didn't really need to, I will only be using a little more than half of it for the interior. Basically to the line to the right of the centerline.

I went ahead and cut out as many of these as I could from the piece of cardboard that I had. Don't know if I will need them but its nice to have them available.

Lights, Camera, Action! While a single 9-volt battery will run all of these lights and more, I want them on different circuits. So the plan is to have three nine volt batteries, one to run the "Sun" light, one for the main interior lights and one to run the condition red lights.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

A Brick Building from the Ground Up - Part 6

At this point I need to mount this on some kind of base. The original is now to small as it was defined for a shallow relief structure. I cut some 3mm Sintra (Foamed PVC) and laid out the building location along with the sidewalk and curb.

Of course nothing goes perfectly the first time and I had forgotten how easy it is to make impressions in the Sintra. Just drawing on it will create a depression and being ham-fisted I put a bit to much weight on my mechanical pencil.

I scored each of the correct lines with a knife then I when back a blunt sculpting tool. I'm hoping that the paint will fill in offending mistakes since they aren't terribly deep.

Starting the layout. Plenty of missteps at this point as far as proportions. All of which left light score lines...oops

Once I was happy with the proportions I scored it with a knife then ran this blunt sculpting tool to widen and deepen the grooves.

Here is the front of the building on the base. I think it looks pretty good.

I still need to cut out the curb for truck loading. Shouldn't take to much work.