The Valley of the Goblins

This is a re-post of a page from my old website.  A couple of people have asked where I've moved my site to, and the problem is that I haven't gotten around to it yet, thus my re-posting of the pics.

My Valley of the Goblins has no green-skins, or other fantastical critters.  It was inspired by the rock formations at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah.  The park may be overlooked due the number of amazing national parks in Utah, but is well worth the stop if you have opportunity.  The photos below may also seem familiar as it was the site of the not quite abandoned mining colony in the movie Galaxy Quest.

The goblins for my tabletop came in two phases.  The first was done as part of a contest for an online discussion group.  I used the photo below as inspiration for the project...

...and built the following.

The contest called for the construction of a religious site, so I added the walkway which lead to idols, including a "giant" birdlike idol that stood in the cave.

I always try to make terrain as flexible as possible, so the various parts of the terrain piece were made in a modular fashion , breaking down into the separate pieces shown below.

A couple of years after doing the original piece, my daughter (aged 9 at the time) and I sat down and added some more goblins to the valley.

The project isn't really done yet, as there are several other unique goblin formations that I still want to add, as well as some more of the lesser "troops".

All were constructed from  blue extruded polystyrene insulation foam.  Small pieces of foam were glued up into blocks with spray adhesive (3M Styrofoam adhesive, or Florabond brand), then cut to rough shape with a hack saw blade, further shaped with a surform tool and coarse sanding block.  Deep cracks were added with the Foam Factory stylus, and the final shapes were sanded relatively smooth with a small orbital sander (Minicraft, old Black and Decker mini sander, Mouse sander, etc will work). 

They were then "primed" with an artist's acrylic paste, and painted with acrylic artist's paints, and then coated with Testor's Dullcoat.

The Goblins have served well in 28mm near future, alien world, and fantasy games in both desert and jungle settings.

15mm Laffly W15TCC WIPs

I recently delivered a master of a 15mm french Laffly W15TCC tank destroyer to Craig at Gaming Models and thought I'd post of a couple of pics.  These were taken a little before completion.

Craig is currently going through a major mold replacement project, so it might be a little while before he gets the next batch of new items added to his page, but there are more coming, in the short term, particularly for the Japanese forces.

I've been out of town for several days, but prior to that had been quite busy working on my ERC90, which is coming along nicely, and on a M-ATV for my modern 15mm forces.  Once these guys are out of the way, I'll get back to my post-apoc terrain, and probably start assembling some of the 1/100 aircraft kits for use in my modern African campaign, which has sat dormant for almost a year.

Waltzing with Matilda in 15mm

In addition to my own projects, I have made a small number of masters for Gaming Models over the years.  One such project is Craig's upcoming 15mm Matilda I.  I've actually had most of this one done for some time, but have been piddling around with making the track assemblies, which have taken more consideration than most vehicles, due to the way the mostly fenderless tracks stand out from the hull.

Anyway, I'd thought I'd share a couple of pics.  These were taken when I was near to being finished with the hull and turret, but before I had done much on the track assemblies:

This has been an interesting vehicle to build as it feels very "Victorian", similar to the French Char D1 and Char D2 that I did sometime back.  Something about these prewar designs always strikes me as being so ugly, that they are attractive.  I'll be turning the Matilda I over soon, so that I can get on to some other early war projects. 

The Matilida will be available soon along with the rest of Gaming Models 15mm line of WWII vehicles and landing craft.

ERC 90 Begins to Take Shape

When I started gaming my fictional modern African campaign, among many things I began looking for 15mm modern French armor.  And, I was really surprised to find how few modern French armored vehicles were available in 15mm. As a result, I began my quest to fill some of that gap for my French, African, and Middle Eastern forces.

I am currently working on several vehicles, including the Panhard M3 apc, the VAB, and the ERC 90 armored car.  As it turns out, I am making the most headway on ERC 90 (probably because it is just the coolest armored car out there), and thought I'd share a few WIPs of it.  So here Goes:

It is still in the early stages of construction, but with the fenders finally roughed out, it has really taken shape.  In these photos, it is setting on wheels from my VBLs, and is setting just a little lower (maybe .06 or so inches) than it will when complete.  The VBL is for size comparison.  The ERC 90 is very sleek looking, but has a noticeably larger footprint than the VBL.

This side view shows it with two Peter Pig US Marines (which are just outstanding figs if you haven't seen them).

And lastly, the overhead view shows the footprint comparison between the VBL and ERC 90.  Still bit rough, but I hope to have it done by the end of the weekend.

A Hummer of a Weekend

Though I hadn't been able to work on anything for almost two weeks, when I finally got down to the basement this weekend, instead of jumping back into the post apocalypse, I decided to do some cleaning.  Well, actually, my wife decided that I was going to do some cleaning.  As it turns out, creating the post apocalypse is messy work, and the mess had started migrating into the rest of the house, so darling wife suggested that I put a lid on the mess, before she put a lid on me.

Anyway, as I started cleaning up the smaller of the two work tables, I realized that I had castings all over it and my painting table for various vehicles that I have mastered over the last couple of years, and the best way to clean up, was to assemble some of that heap into useful miniatures.

So, in keeping with my wife's demands, I assembled about over 30 15mm vehicles this weekend. 

All of the primered vehicles are new builds.  I rounded out my fleet of M1114 Humvees for the Middle East and African ops (14 new minis), 6 more Humvees to get woodland camo, 6 M2A2 Bradleys, and 8 VBLs. 

With any luck, darling wife will next demand that I finish some painting that needs done around the house...

Blowing Up the Police Station

The second building that I'm working on for my PA terrain is the previously mentioned Police Station.  The actual building is pictured below:

I am adapting it to fit my modular terrain system, but the general design and exterior finish of my model is very similar.  I want my models to be somewhat believable in appearance, so my method of construction depicts the construction methods that I observed being used during an construction of an addition on the station a couple of years ago.  My model is based on the original structure, thus everything to the ring of the "tower" is excluded, as is the addition to the left front of the building.  I was able to get approximate dimensions using google earth.  The following photos show the building as it comes together.  The foundation with the base terrain tile layout with parking area below:

I'm trying a new method in construction of the this model.  The building features concrete block construction with an outer brick fascia. First, the exterior block wall is constructed with the exposed block pattern  pressed in/drawn on with a ball point pen.  Then, the thinner brick wall is added around the exterior of the building, using a brick pattern plate made from styrene sheet and strips  The foam wall stock panel is cut from the sheet on foam on a band saw, the pattern aligned with the panel, and the pattern is simply pressed in by hand.  I've done this with larger stone and block patterns and in larger scales before with great success, but the small brick pattern in 28mm is a little tougher to transfer. 

In this case the windows and doors were located and cut out of the block wall. The outer brick wall was then applied over it, requiring the windows to be re-cut into the brick layer using the block layer as a guide.  The layers are glued together with artist's matte medium, using straight pins to hold the pieces together while drying.  The view below shows the model with some of the windows re-cut into the brick layer and pins still in place in the back wall.

I never had the pleasure (or possibly, misfortune) of exploring the police station, so my interior design my be somewhat chaotic.  It is partially based on help from the members of the yahoo group, Baddawg's Landing, http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/BADDAWGS_LANDING/
Baddawg's Landing is owned by the Baddawg himself, and filled with all kinds of great stuff for skirmish gamers, (especially modern/near-future/sci-fi gaming) and lots of good people.  Assistance from the Landing made this task quite a bit easier than it might have been otherwise.  Below you can see the model as it currently stands, with a portion of the interior walls in place.

My time has been getting sucked up by other thinks over the last couple of weeks.  So, lots of work to be done still, but since I hadn't posted in a little while, I thought I'd let everyone know I'm not dead yet. 

When completed, this will be the dominating structure in my initial PA terrain layout.  The building will be about 9 inches tall, with a 13"x17" footprint, and set on a two foot square terrain tile including walkway, drives and parking lot. Hopefully I'll have something more to show by about next Monday.

My Dilemma, or Why I'm Basing Marines, Rather Than Blowing Up the World

When I build terrain pieces that have any character, I usually develop a bit of a storyline for them, as I build them.  Generally it is something that never really relates to a game, but helps me visualize the evolution of the piece, as it came to be the way that it appears on the table.  It is kind of like having the evil twin of Bob Ross, the painter, talking in my head as I build, but instead of "... and a little bunny lives here, and nearby is his friend Mr. Tree...", it is more like "... and a psycho with claymore mines lived here, but he was cut in half by his cannibal friend with a minigun on a acid trip...". 

Anyway, a story develops, a pictures appears in my mind, and I create the terrain piece.  In the case of my little house, the story that developed involved the house being caught is a crossfire between the National Guard and group of thugs that occupied the police station, which is located across the street (as is the real house and police station on which my terrain is based). 

The house gets shot up by riflemen, a 20mm gatling, and grenades, scavenged and stripped, left to decay, and sometime later caught on fire by transient survivers taking refuge in its remains.  Then comes the time of my games with the shot up, blown out, cut down, burned out, pillaged little house.

While I was painting the foundation, I was considering whether to build the wrecked house out of styrene or bass wood.  I like styrene, as it is very fast to work with and gives a very clean finished product.  The bass wood is nice, as it is strong, has a fine grain, and lovely texture.  The down side of the styrene is that it does not have the earthy texture, and produces an almost too clean product for what I want in this messed up little house.  Meanwhile, the bass wood is much slower and tedious to work with (requiring super glue, rather than solvent with the styrene), can be damaged by dampness in my basement, and is a little trickier to paint as water based paints can cause the wood to warp.

In the end I was leaning toward the bass wood, thinking that the texture would lend more character to the final product.  So I went through my stash of wood, and found that I am way short of what I need to complete the house.  And looking at my plastic, I have enough textured plastic sheet and strips on hand to build it right away.  I know that in the end though, that I will not get the same splintered wood effect with the styrene, and my paint job won't be as good.

So my foundation sets...

... without a house, while I base 15mm Peter Pig US Marines and ponder what to do.