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Dark Future… Messing About With Greenstuff

No painting tonight…

But I did have a play about with weapon configuration…

I felt the lighter guns were more streamlined on the right. The top of the interceptor will be a turret, containing either a chain gun or a 40mm grenade launcher.

The skeleton volunteered his head to act as a hood ornament, which was jolly decent of him 😁.

Whilst having a mooch for things I came across a nice little oil drum, this fits these cars really well. So I sought out my reusable moulding stuff and made a simple mould. This stuff has been used with Milliput and unfortunately has left a nasty residue. And over time this has worked into the material. It still seems to work though.

Now a sensible person would have put it into the mould with the mould line in line with the two halves…. sensible and me was discussed yesterday…this is a proof of concept test run….that is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

Finally the Greenstuff tool was hauled out and put to use to make the following…

I am not sure what it is meant to be but it fills in a couple of holes. The mould seems to have worked too 😁.

I am out working on internet safety tomorrow evening so I am not sure how far I will get on these.

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Dark Future – the Exteriors

I managed a bit on the external parts of the car.

The Green on the camouflage is a bit too light as it doesn’t show up too well.

These have still a fair way to go, I need to highlight and shade them both.

The biggest problem is what to do with all of the holes. The buggy is going to have a couple of guns, some skulls and various bits and bobs that befit a wasteland raider. The interceptor will just look wrong with stuff draped all over it. Too many guns will just look wrong. I will have to have a think. A sensible person would have filled the spare holes first. I aspire to be a sensible person one day😉.

I contacted Ramshackle today to see if they would just do some drivers, if not then Elheim do some as well as gangers.

If I need Zombies I reckon I have enough…

Slightly on the large side, but who cares!

Well me actually….now that I see that I can’t unsee it… grrrrrr!

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Dark Future, the Interiors

Made a bit of a start painting the cockpits on the cars. Brown seats for the buggy types and coloured for the Interceptors.

I also added lots of bright buttons and lights as well as trying some dashboards…

I actually only needed to paint the engines on two. They can only be seen on the buggies!

I have already started on a blue interceptor to match the seat cover 😉. Too be honest I am a bit worried as to what these will come out like. Edge highlighting has never been my forte. More like my minus forty. But it is something different. I will have a mooch online to see what inspiration I can get.

I only wish I had drivers to add into them. The original drivers had the steering wheel moulded onto them. These will look a bit weird without them.

Having had a look I can get some from Ramshackle games, problem is I only need 4 drivers, they have a good deal on their stuff but do I pay £20 for stuff I will never use?

I will have to have a think on that.

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Remembrance

Well that’s it one hundred years since the end of the First World War.

This is my Grandfather Robert Surtees Knott Renwick of z Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers..gassed at 3rd Ypres and was one of the lucky ones to be invalided home. Sadly after recovery he went down the mines and the coal dust finished off the job the gas started. He died aged 58.

I was working in a school the other day and one of the teachers were a bit concerned that when she asked her class what remembrance meant four had said nothing or not much. But you know, what does it mean to a kid of 10 playing Call of Duty or other such game on a PS4. My kids know what it is about, but to be honest have no real understanding.

When I was a kid the old men in the village had been in the second and the really old men had been in the First World War. Well to a 10 year old everyone over 30 was old. These guys would occasionally tell tales of where they had been or what they had seen. Then there were others with one arm or leg. Every November 11th they would mass beside the Greenside cenotaph, but year on year there would be less of them. My dad went every year, he had been in a reserved occupation in WW2, working in the mine with my Grandad as a surface occupation rather than down on the coal face.

So I honestly believe that the vast majority of today’s kids are a long way removed from the understanding that I had. Unless they have family in the forces or are in a garrison town then it really is small wonder that they write ‘nothing’ or ‘not much’ when asked what remembrance means.

Today we took part in the pages of the sea event at St Ninian’s isle. This is a natural tombolo with the sea on both sides of the beach.

The sand was raked through a stencil.

There were a number of different ones including nurses.

They did look very effective.

The following one reminds me of shadows, I suppose the arty side of me thinks of the shadows of people long gone…

We left around two hours before the end, hundreds were done by then, and by all accounts around 800 people turned up.

Tonight I have mostly been listening to:

https://youtu.be/FsynSgeo_Uo

https://youtu.be/XDyip7SIJkQ

https://youtu.be/cnFzCmAyOp8

https://youtu.be/QmBLSGy6g58

https://youtu.be/BB2Ad04mukI

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Dark Future… the start

Well I made a start on my vehicles

I started painting them with a brush, after 30 seconds I thought sod it and located a rattle can, sadly it was black, but it was in the house with me, rather than out in the shed.

All sprayed black and ready to make a start tomorrow.

Tonight’s film of choice was…

I needed to check it out before letting it loose on the kids. My little boy is 8 so technically too young, but we always check things out before letting him loose. It has got a stygimoloch, which he has gone on about since he heard about the film from his school friends, so he will be happy!

I enjoyed the film, a good sequel to the first in the trilogy.

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Tournament Results!

Bloody Hell I won!

Not only did I win the competition, but my Stronghold also won. I managed to come Second in the themed army too. My daughter was somewhere in the middle. Not bad for her first ever game.

My prize for winning was a new 15mm army = Scalians from Battle Valour Miniatures My prize for the stronghold were some mdf roundhouses. These were by Martin of Dragonfrog games, him of the pyramid design.

There were some tough fights in the three games, first game I beat My daughter by 2pts. Second game I lost by 2 points and third game I destroyed an army with the loss of only two points.

Game 1.

Me as the attacker against the Early Germans

Game two

Me as the attacker against a Martian force

Game 3

Me as the defender against a host of Alien worm thingies (made by Martin on his 3D printer)

So a big thank you needs to go to Mike and Martin for organising a fun little tournament. Everyone were also given a nice 15mm giant for taking part. Nice cake appeared too. All in all an enjoyable morning.

My miniatures….

And finally, the giants…

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Hordes of the Things Armies

It looks like the tournament is on tomorrow,

My daughter and I both have an army each.

She has my early German one.

Hero General (Druidic types with their spirit bear)

Warband x 5

Riders x 1

Beasts x 1 (werewolves)

Flyers x 1 (bat swarm)

Behemoth or in her case Bearhemoth x 1

Plus a sacred pool to act as her stronghold.

Mine is as described throughout the posts, I decided, however, on the smaller temples as they fit inside a box file.

My daughter is very trusting, she let me choose an army that will face mine. I did, in fairness, discuss the various types. She did make a few changes, added a flyer instead of one of the warband bases.

I had to quickly knock up a base for the behemoth. This is a Beorn figure from the battle of the five armies set. He is my giant cave bear for my 10mm Mammoth hunting games (hence the round base) I did a quick circle out of Greenstuff to make a basic sabot base and then did the usual sand and flock approach, but this time I painted the sand.

A bit rough and ready, but time wasn’t on my side.

We shall see how things go tomorrow. We each have three games with various victory points etc. Let us see how the Dice Gods look upon us on the morn.

Till Tomorrow!

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Conquistadors Officially Finished

Sort of….

Still a bit of contrasting flock and bushes to add and then a quick varnish.

And from the side…

I decided to paint up the skulls, some are the remains of the Triffid’s last meal and the rest were placed on the temple.

Still don’t know if there will be room in the tournament due to the size of the room and me having to have the kids. But either way at least I got something else painted.

Tonight’s painting was brought to you by:

https://youtu.be/hEJnMQG9ev8

Motivating myself to paint some Dark Future Vehicles…

And finally I shall leave this with you all.

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Tingaholm

Tingaholm rising out of the mist on Tingwall loch this morning.

Tingaholm was the site of Shetland’s local parliament until the late 16th century. It was once an islet accessed by a stone causeway, by 1774 the stone seats had been ripped up to provide grazing space and in the mid 19th century the water levels in the loch were lowered, and the holm has appeared the same ever since.

https://www.thingsites.com/thing-site-profiles/tingwall-shetland

Pinched from my Wife’s post on Archaeology Shetland.

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Temple Complex Completed

All done…

Well when I say all done, I did contemplate square plinths in the corner to put skulls on. Part of me wants to add plants on the outer wall to add a bit of brighter colour. But this would cause problems with bits getting knocked off.

I can fit two of the smaller pyramids into the same space provided that they sit diagonally front to back.

I decided to see how the pyramid worked with 10mm too. I am happy with the results.

I felt my Amazon’s were a good army for a funky pyramid, well that and they were the only ones I had to hand. 🙄

I gave the whole thing a smack with a ball of silver foil to give it a bit of texture. Not that you can really see it in these photos

For this build the paint was mixed 50/50 with PVA. This helps the craft paint adhere to the polystyrene. I also made up my own Sepia wash with water out of the condenser dryer, some sepia ink and a drop of detergent (I was too lazy to go back out to the shed for the proper stuff).

Guess who shook it vigorously to mix everything together? Three hours later there are still bubbles! Once this was dry a gave it a quick dry brush to lighten it back up again.

I decided against doing it the same colour as the Pyramid as it would look better with a bit of a colour change.

The Dry brush colour is the same as the temple.

Finally, I was going to add a terracotta tile pattern in the plaza, but decided against it as it would be a lot of work for very little gain.

Tomorrow I will probably flock up the troops and then who knows….

Azazel’s monthly challenge is something mechanical…. off the top if my head I have…

6mm Post Apocalyptic vehicles

15mm Flames of War tanks

20mm Dark Future Vehicles.

I may have a blast at some of them (but really should finish the Mongols) 🤔