Hasslefree Post-Apoc Scoobies & Jayne Cobb

Hi, friends. I recently got the Hasslefree Miniatures Post-Apoc Scooby Gang and got them painted up. My son Mark also painted a Reaper Mini version of Firefly's Jayne Cobb. I did a little work on it to finish it off. I love these minis.

Here's Jayne first. I love the way Reaper made him with the cool hat from the Firefly episode "The Message".

I didn't include a close up of Fred. I need to fix his face some more.

I'll soon be working on the Armorcast Mystery Machine but will give it a Post-Apoc theme.

On an unrelated note I got a Continuous Ink Supply from CIS Inks. I had heard about it over on Morbious' blog. I've been wanting one for a while and got it hooked up and running today. I've got a bunch Of Stoelzel's Structures I still need to build and this should help a lot with that.

Thanks for dropping by. I hope you have a great day out there.

Great Service from Demo's Laser Cut Designs

Hi, friends. I just wanted to share with you something cool that happened. I had recently ordered the Filling Station from Demo's Laser Cut Designs. When I got the kit, I found a couple of small problems: the toilet seats were missing, a bookshelf was missing, the top and bottom for one of the gas pumps were missing, and one of the tabs for the bathroom divider wall had been cut slightly too high to fit the slot on the interior wall separating the restrooms from the rest of the store. Nothing real big, really, and nothing that I couldn't easily fix myself. However, I thought he would want to know in case there was a problem with the layout so he could fix it for future kits. So I sent him an e-mail describing the problem. This was on the 4th of July (USA Independence Day holiday). I figured I might hear from him in a few days. I got an e-mail response within the hour, and a very kind response it was. He said he'd be sending me something in the mail to fix it and a little something extra. A few days later I got this big package in the mail from Steve at Demo's Laser Cut Designs, just full of nice pieces of laser cut awesomeness. All of the missing parts were there, along with 2 new restroom walls. I would have been happy with just those replacement parts, but that's not all he sent. Steve also sent the following extras: a 7.5" x 11.5" mdf base for either a new building or weather shield, most of the components to make a whole new weather shield, and almost all of the components for all of the store furnishings, including 3 more gas pumps. How cool is that!?

As you can see, Steve sent enough stuff to fill an entire work table. Very generous and very cool.

That's all for now. I just wanted everyone out there in blogland to see what kind of customer service you get from Demo's Laser Cut Designs, the best kind. Thanks for dropping by.

Grocery/Big Box Store

Hi, friends. I recently played some scenarios for All Things Zombie wherein I had to go to a Big Box store and then a Grocery store as part of the Day One events. Normally I don't play a scenario unless I have the terrain finished and ready to go. That day I went ahead and played without terrain for the store. I just used a big box I had. It was still fun, but lacked the visual element so I didn't post any pics of those scenarios. I finally got around to making the Big Box/Grocery store. Just a quick job, here's pics.

Here's a shot of the Big Box store across the parking lot. In that scenario, LJ got owned by a bunch of terrified civilians because he didn't use his katana on humans, just tried going "mano a mano". Predictably, the fat squishy bastard got stomped. The scenario was over for him and he didn't get any goodies.

Here's a shot of the Grocery store across the parking lot.  As you can see I did a lot of work to differentiate the Grocery store from the Big Box store. :) The signs are stuck onto the building with removable double-sided sticky tape. Anyone recognize the name of the store? Anyway,  the Grocery store was LJ's next and last location. I did two things differently with LJ at the start of this scenario. One, I changed his attribute of Stone Cold to Brawler. Since it was Day One, I decided I'd pick a better attribute if I was going to survive the rest of the Apocalypse. The second thing was I decided that terrified civilians represented a significant threat and I took off the kid gloves. I would use the katana in melee. Worked like a charm. Between switching Attributes and using a 2-handed melee weapon, I had much better luck with that scenario. Even found a SAW, used it to kill a couple of gangers, shots attracted Zombies, which I killed with the Katana, for my first Zombie kills. That was so successful a scenario I actually got a Rep increase. So to memorialize that fight, I finished the store building.

A little about the store. It is 21 x 18 inches x 4 inches tall. It was made from an old Dell Laptop Computer box. I chose it because it had a little built-in box inside that could be used as an interior room. The walls are made from an old WorldWorks Games kitbash siding texture kit I bought several years ago. I went for a simple blue and white color scheme. I was thinking of Ikea's Blue and yellow. I used other WorldWorks Games textures for the windows and doors. Normally I use doors that open and close and windows that are open. This time I went for quick and just used the print-outs glued onto the walls. 

The tile floor is from the WWG Mega Mall set. The brown concrete floor in the loading dock area is another WWG texture. 

The shelving units and refrigerator cabinet come from Stoelzel's Structures Market, as do the register counters. The two gun cabinets in the loading dock are also from Stoelzel's Structures, I think it was the Modular Lair. The shelving is held in place with double-sided tape for stability, but I can reposition them if I want to. I left plenty of room between the shelves for getting my fingers in there.

Shot from different angle.

Shot from the back.

Scenic shot across the parking lot. How do you like the "Valdemart" sign? :)

This was a fun little project that I just sort of slapped together. I had printed out all of the paper textures a while back so I just had to glue them on. The box I used for the building had some dents and areas where the cardboard was different thickness. I could have done things to fix that, and did, a little, but there are still quite a few obvious flaws. However, for a quick job, it'll do. And, because it was made from an actual "big box", I can use it for storage. :)

That's it for now. Thanks for looking.

Filling Station

Hi, friends. I'm posting some pics of my mostly finished Filling Station from Demo's Laser Cut Designs. This is a wonderful model with lots of excellent features. It comes with a playable interior, furnishings such as gas pumps, sinks, toilets, store shelves, even a big beer cooler. There's a nice weather shield over the pumps, and a huge marquee sign with the gas prices. There's a big 11.5" x 11.5 " mdf base upon which to mount the model. There are even free pdf graphics you can download for signs and cash registers. And it was all dead easy to build. The major pieces of the station are mdf, the furniture is on taskboard (kind of like thinner matte board. I made or downloaded some additional signage. Here's pics.

Here's an overhead shot featuring the marquee sign, weather shield, and gas pumps. I didn't use the big mdf base sheet and just set the models onto my city board table. I chose to use a blue background for the Station's signage and changed some of the wording.

Shot from a different angle. You can see a little of the building front.

The opposite side. The closest end of the building has two public Restrooms. I closed one door and left the other open. The doors are perfectly sized for the blue door frames. They have two hinge pieces that slot right into the frame so closely that they stay in place, even without glue. But because they are not glued, I can still open or close them. I really like the doors!

Here's a shot from the front of the station looking under the weather shield canopy into the store front. There's a WorldWorks Games ice machine and newspaper machine I made fresh for this build. The trashcans by the pumps are simple scratchbuilds. One is a plaster cast of the inside of a cover for a disposable plastic water bottle. The other is just a plastic cap from an empty tube of toothpaste, painted black and then drybrushed silver.

Just a different angle view.

View from the side along the front of the store.

View of the back from the side. There's an Employee's Only door that opens into the area behind the cash register/clerk station.

A view of the restroom side. The doors have the little male or female signs on them.

Speaking of restrooms. Here are the sinks and toilets.

An interior view. The floor tiles are from Stoelzel Structures Modular Urban Center Kit. The building is based on a vinyl floor tile. Against the far wall is one of the bookshelves that come with the Filling Station kit. In the middle of the floor is a 2-sided sloping shelf unit for merchandise. I need to make some stuff to put on the shelves. To the upper right is the big cooler cabinet, just below it along the right-hand wall is a paper ATM machine from WorldWorks Games. The long "L" shaped counter is part of the furniture that comes with the Filling Station kit. I have placed a couple of Hirst Arts bits on the countertop to represent a cash register and control for the gas pumps. To the left of the counter along the bottom wall are 2 video games from Stoelzel Structures kits.

 Another view of the interior layout. Even with furnishings in place there is still plenty of room for minis.

This shot shows the restrooms a little better and you can also see the video games slightly better.

Here's a shot of the front of the store with the weather shield removed.

This shot shows the awesome beer cooler and the ATM machine a little better.

The pic above shows some of the furnishings better. It also shows an Ohio Lottery sign. What's a convenience store without Lotto. The Lotto sign is also being used to cover the spot where the tab from the restroom divider wall shows on that back wall.

Pic above shows the two video games from the Stoelzel Structures Modular Lair Expansion 2. I screwed up the one on the right a little but I'll still use it.

This view is looking out through the store windows under the weather shield.

Looking down into one of the restrooms. Plenty of room. The toilet and sinks even have drain holes in them. How cool is that?

Here's a shot of one of the gas pumps. The blue graphic with the keypad and display is part of the free pdf download from Demo's Laser Cut Design webstore. I added the No Smoking symbol and the advertisement signs for the top of the pumps. The hoses for the pump handles are made from black wire from the Hobby Lobby jewelry section.

A view of the pump from the side. The pump handles fit into slots cut into the casing. The hoses and pump handles give a very nice 3d effect.

I just thought this was a nice scenic shot showing how well the filling station fits in on the table.

Well, that's all for now. I had a great time building this model. I hope you like it and will consider giving Demo's Laser Cut Designs a try.

Minis I painted on Vacation

Hi, friends. It's been a while since I posted. The family and I went on vacation to Geneva on the Lake, a nice little resort town on Lake Erie. We had a great time, swam, relaxed and generally just chilled. I brought up some minis and got some painting done, too. Here's what I got done.

Pic above is a few GW Catachans I'll use for Survivors or Gangers in ATZ. I tried to paint them in the U.S. Navy's new Aquaflage uniform (just the pants, the shirts are just one of the colors from the aquaflage. They're based on black sand and some have road line markings to represent asphalt.

Pic above is a few Clix repaints. Nothing fancy, just a few more guns.

A few more Clix conversions or repaints. Chainsaw guy had a head swap from the Defiance Games United Americas Marine Corps. The two suits had a repaint, and one had his pistol arm repositioned.

These are "Get Some! 28mm Science Fiction minis from Sgt Major Miniatures. These are the rest of the crew and cast of Joss Whedon's Firefly series. From the left, the Doctor, Simon, his sister, River, Caylee the ship's mechanic, and Shepherd Book. I just realized Inara was missing, I found her hiding on my painting table. I used sand from the beach the bases on these minis, as well as a few others. The sand has lots of differently sized particles for a nice, irregular texture. I'm using these minis now for "terrified civilians" for encounters in All Things Zombie by TwoHour Wargames.

Pic above shows the last of my Hasslefree Minis which were waiting in my painting queue.

Pics above are 6 Defiance Games United Americas Marine Corps (UAMC). These are excellent plastics with great detail. I made a slight conversion on a couple in that I used a couple of torsos from GW Empire Militia. Each UAMC sprue has 3 leg sections, 6 heads, multiple weapons, but only 2 torsos, so you can only build 2 figures from each sprue. By using the GW torsos, (which fit perfectly btw) you get 3 troopers from each sprue. Can you see the ones with the GW torsos? The nice thing about using the GW torsos (which I had in the bitz box) with the UAMC parts is you can make 36 UA Marines from 1 $30 box (83 cents each), instead of 24 Marines ($1.25 each). 

Pic above is my crowd of mostly unarmed civilians including recently painted ones. I'll use them for "Terrified Civilians" in ATZ encounters. They're a mixture of Hasslefree Minis, Sgt Major Minis, Clix, and game figures from the boardgame "Last Night on Earth.


I've got a project underway which I think you will like, it's the Filling Station from Demo's Laser Cut Designs. Scroll to the bottom of the page. I saw their 28mm 4-pack of shops on PapaSpanky's excellent Geek in the Basement blog.


Also of note, I finished reading "Karl, Birth of Mystery" by D.J. Kettlety, a fellow blogger. A great read, I think I finished it 3 days while on vacation. He already has plans for books 2 and 3 of the series, which I will certainly be reading, too. 


Well, thanks for stopping by. Comments and criticisms welcome.