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.

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.

Interiors of the Neighborhood

Hi, friends. One of the things I really like about the Stoelzel Structures buildings I've been making is the beautiful interiors. Carl Stoelzel, the artist and designer, has done an excellent job on the interior textures of these buildings. So, without further yakking, here's some pics of some of the Stoelzel neighborhood house interiors.

The Cape. This pic shows the second floor (first for our friends across the pond). 

The Cape. Ground floor. 2nd floor has been removed.

The Farm House. 2 floor. Some of my walls are rather wonky. I love the different textures Carl used on the floors, especially the bathroom (lower right) and the kitchen downstairs.

The Farm House. Ground floor. Kitchen along right side with old linoleum and checkered wallpaper. Even a rug in the living room.

The Split Level. Upper view. I haven't finished the 2nd set of stairs.

The lower portions of the Split Level. I made some crude stairs with Hirst Arts bricks.

The upstairs of the LJ house. Still need to make the stairs to connect the floors. Master bath and bedroom to the left, Man Cave to the right.

The main portion of the 1st floor. Family room and bath to the right, garage, kitchen and dining room to left.

The kids' portion of the house. 3 bedrooms, bath and rest of kitchen. The wooden texture to the left edge is the outdoor deck.

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for looking. I hope you take the opportunity to pick up some of the Stoelzel Structures buildings. They are beautifully done with playable interiors and furnishings.

Mr. Stoelzel's Neighborhood

You ever notice how a project always gets bigger and bigger? If you remember, I posted a Day One scenario for All Things Zombie a while back. The first destination was an ATM. That went like a breeze. Then my second destination was home. I was getting ready to do that scenario but realized I didn't have enough suburban houses (I live in the burbs of a small town). I had one Plasticville house I was planning to use, but no other suburban houses.  This is the house I was going to use. You may have seen it from an earlier ATZ batrep.

 It sort of resembles my real house in that it's white with black shutters.

My real house.

Anyway, I was going to use the Plasticville house and make some paper houses for the rest of the neighborhood. I chose some Stoelzel Structures paper terrain houses. The houses are very cool and come with playable interiors, and even furnishings. Unfortunately, the paper houses were much larger than the Plasticville house. So, then I had to scratchbuild a loose replica of my house as well as build 3 Stoelzel Structures houses, in order to play the next scenario. I built a Stoelzel Structure Cape Cod style house, Split-Level house, and a Farmhouse. I also bought the Raised Ranch house, but haven't built it yet. I'm using a 3x3 board and a Zuzzy Ruined Forest latex mat for the base of the terrain. That meant I needed roads. So then I had to make roads to place on the mat. I took a page from Morbious's website and made some roads. Instead of using hardboard like he did, I used my cheap vinyl floor tiles, painting them black and adding lane and edge lines with paint pens.  Really quick and cheap and they came out pretty good. I named this post "Mr. Stoelzel's Neighborhood" because 3 of the 4 houses are from his kits, and the last one is a scratchbuild using some of his textures as well as textures from WorldWorks Games.

The Mean Streets. 6 inches wide, 12 inches long. 3 sections traverse the board.

Pic above shows a little of the Stoelzel Farmhouse in the left foreground, the white scratchbuilt house on the right foreground, and the Stoelzel Cape house in the background.

This shot shows the Stoelzel Farmhouse and Split Level on the left and a little of the white scratchbuild on the right foreground.

Here's a shot of the back and side of the scratchbuild LuckyJoe house in the foreground, with the Stoelzel Cape house in the background. The balcony is made from a piece of foamcore with toothpicks (cocktail sticks for our cousins across the pond), and coffee stirrer pieces for the top rail. I use that balcony to spray paint minis and such in real life. Could also prove a good vantage point to cap Zombies in the coming Apocalypse. I'm just sayin'. :)

View from a different angle, showing at least some of all 4 houses.

Yet another angle. The Cape house in the foreground has an upstairs. I may kitbash it to make a Ranch-style one story house. One of the really cool features of all of these Stoelzel Structures houses is they have multiple colors of exterior walls. Usually a yellow, green, red, or blue. You can get a great tabletop variety from just one kit. 

This shot is primarily featuring the Split Level in the foregound right and the Farmhouse in the background. The Split Level was made using one of the alternate color schemes. It also has a chimney which I chose not to use. I did use the chimney for the Farmhouse. That chimney is solid, made with 5 layers of 5mm foamcore cut to size. I like my terrain tough.

Another view down the street. The window frames were made from 1/2" square chicken wire painted white and inserted into the window openings. The shutters were printed and mounted onto mattboard (a technique I learned from Vampifan). Each of the Stoelzel houses has a page of 6 different  colored shutters with 12 shutters of each color (Brown, Green, Black, Blue, Red and White). I really love the variety of builds you get from each kit. For example, the Cape house in the left foreground has five different exterior color schemes, has optional dormers (having 0, 1, 2, or 3 dormers means 4 different houses) and an optional rear roof extension. When you consider all of the possible combinations of colors, dormers, rear roof extension or no extension, you can make a lot of houses from one $4 pdf. 

This shows in the right foreground the red Split Level version I chose, featuring the side and the rear. The little black (asphalt) driveways by the houses are made from pieces of vinyl window blinds painted black. I really like the design of the Split Level house. It makes for a nice change from 1 or 2 story buildings, though I had a hell of a time making the interior stairs between levels. Could have used more detailed instructions. In the background on the left is the white LuckyJoe replica house. It's not a perfect replica, but it's close. I stole the windvane from the Plasticville house for the replica.

This shot shows the back of the red Split Level house. The stairs are my usual kitbash of the Stoelzel Structure stairs. I used his very nice brick texture for the sides of the stairs, mounted onto mattboard ala Vampifan, then used coffee stirrers painted white for the stair steps. The gaps between the stair steps allow you to slip the slotta bases of the minis into the space between steps, so minis can be placed mid stair, if you wish. Across the street you see the LuckyJoe house. Note the red door. My wife and I painted our front door red recently. It gives a nice splash of color against all that black and white. 

Well, that's it for now. I've now got a suburban terrain board to use, and can now proceed to do destination 2, home. Next will be a big box store, and then a Supermarket. Hey, Dave Stoelzel, can you please make a Walmart-ish kit, and a Supermarket? :) Thanks for looking, everyone. Have a great day or evening.