Sci-Fi Dice Tower

While we were working on our Space Dungeon, my 13 year old son Mark started planning another dice tower. This time a science fiction one. He was inspired by a cool Sci-Fi dice tower that Outpost Eagle posted over on the Ganesha Games forum.

http://ganeshagames.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=painting&action=display&thread=261

Mark made his from Hirst Arts molds pieces, primarily Starship wall mold and Industrial Edge though others were also used. I always do extra casts when I'm casting for a project because the pieces are so cool everybody wants them for a build of their own. :) Mark even added in a little electronic tea light under the diceroller's roof that oscillates through a cascade of colors. The lights look really cool coming through the opening for the dice and the vents on the roof. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of the lighting effect. Maybe in another post. Anyway, it's based on MDF, and he used a little bit of plastic canvas for cross-stitching (granny grating) for the dice landing area. It still needs a little touch-up for the painting but overall it's pretty good (said the proud father).

More pics of the Sci-Fi Dice Roller:





If you haven't seen it yet here's a link to Mark's Fantasy Dice Roller he made previously.

http://ljshobbyspot.blogspot.com/2010/06/marks-dice-tower.html

Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe

Space Dungeon Finished!

Woot! Finally finished enough on my son Bob's Space Dungeon to call it finished, even though our projects never really are. :) I'm already thinking of new rooms and getting ready to make a smaller version for me in 15mm. This one is for 28mm and made with Hirst Arts molds following Bruce Hirst's excellent tutorials. We plan on using it for 40K Kill Team, maybe Space Hulk if I can get the rules and missions off Ebay. This project was great fun to build and turned into a real family affair with me doing the casting, my son Mark and I doing the building (Mark built all of the Advanced set). Painting was a group effort with my sons Bob, Stephen, Mark and I all working together. Toward the end of the casting I started casting the 2 HA Machinery builder molds to make equipment for the various rooms. Once again, Mark shone and built and painted all 16 of the main projects from the Machinery Builder tutorials Bruce produced. Painting of the Machinery is still WIP but I included them in the pics.


Power Converter machine in foreground. You can also see Mark's new Sci-Fi Dice Roller in the background.

That's part of the Death Ray in upper left.

Foreground shows Cryo Tubes.

Flight Deck with one of Stephen's Space Marines

Wide shot of the layout. There are over 120 separate pieces of hallways and rooms, not counting 37 doors, 15 ladders, and a bunch of fans and grates. The overall size of the layout pictured is 6' x 5' and there are another 20 pieces I didn't use because of lack of space.

If you're interested, the molds I used for this build were the Large Catwalk Mold #276, Large Grate Mold #277, Large Grate Accessory Mold #279, and the Industrial Edge Mold #325 for the Space dungeon, and Industrial Accessory Mold #326 and Machinery Builder Mold #327 for the machines in the rooms. They were all cast in Ultracal 30 using the wet water method and a simple homemade vibration table to help cut down on air bubbles. All of the rooms and hallways are mounted on 1/2 inch pinkfoam.

In case you've never seen the Hirst Arts website, you should check it out.
http://hirstarts.com/

Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe

15mm Scratchbuilt Sci-Fi Terrain

Hi, folks. A while ago I saw a cool thread on making sci-fi buildings from yogurt containers on the Orbital Barrage blog.

This inspired me to try something similar. A while back my sweet wife got me a single serving Keurig coffee machine. It uses little little sealed cups of coffee grounds (called K-Cups), similar in appearance to a yogurt container, though smaller. I thought those would make good 15mm terrain and decided to test it out.


Also made a slightly larger version from a container from a Snack Pack Lemon Pudding. Had to eat the pudding first to get the cup. Oh, the sacrifices we make for the hobby, now if I can just figure out how to make terrain from beer cans I'd be in heaven. :) Anyway, back to the article.

I cleaned out the 3 containers and primed them a darkish grey with Rustoleum spray primer. The color looked good for some kind of drab, prefab military or frontier habitat. I then did a wash with Magic Wash tinted with "burnt sienna" craft paint to give a rusty appearance. The cups would still be kind of plain without some external detail so I had to come up with something alog those lines. Fortunately I have been megacasting some of the Hirst Arts sc-fi molds for a Space Hulk board for my son Bob and had plenty of spare bits that would work well as detail pieces.













There are some Rebel minis and Khurasan minis pictured for size comparison. Thanks for looking and thanks to "Kelroy Was Here" from Orbital Barrage for the inspiration.

Luckyjoe

More 15mm Dungeon stuff

I made a few more dungeon pieces for our 15mm Hirst Arts fieldstone dungeon. This time I got a little fancy. :) I recently got the cracked floor tiles mold and used it for the first time. I really like this mold and was very pleased with the way the floors looked, even with minimal effort and talent :). I added a couple of little barred sections with torches for the hallways, a crypt room with some bonepiles, and an altar room with some torches and a skull idol with "jeweled eyes. Plus some coin piles. Here's some pics.






Thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

18mm Eureka Minis Wood Elf Warband for Song of Blades and Heroes

I got my Wood Elf Warband painted. I've been looking forward to painting these up. They are 18mm Eureka Minis from Eureka Minis USA. They have some very dynamic poses and are nicely detailed, and were a joy to paint up. I also added a "treeman" from a HorrorClix starter set. I was fortunate to have a painted example of some 18mm Eureka Wood Elves on Lead Adventure Forums from Andy. Looking at his Elves was a big help in painting my Elves. Thanks, Andy.

Here's some pics.







Thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

Easy 15mm Farm Field

I was at a home improvement store this weekend and grabbed a couple of free outdoor carpet samples. The carpet had a nice earthtone color and it had some variably spaced rows on their surface. I thought it would make nice garden patches or fields for 15mm terrain. Took it home and drybrushed the closely spaced rows to look like wheat. The "ground" was already a nice earth color so nothing needed there. My son Mark suggested I paint the more widely spaced rows blue to look like some cabbage rows we had seen earlier while driving in the country. (Rural Ohio is a great place for inspiration to make farm terrain).

I also painted up some Hirst Arts fieldstone wall sections to go around the fields. The walls are 3/4 inch tall. They work better scale-wise for 28mm minis. I may make some more 1/2 inch high for our 15mm minis. That's a Splintered Light Minis Dark Elf in the gateway. Here's some pics:

The plain carpet sample



After drybrushing



Fieldstone walls



Thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

300 pt Human Warband for Song of Blades and Heroes

Got a few pics of my latest Warband for Song of Blades and Heroes. These are all 15mm Rebel Minis. The Female mage is from their Cultist and Minions set and the archers and warriors are from their Mighty Armies Barbarian Warriors and Archers sets. I really like these guys. Good detail and they paint up pretty easily. Plus you can't beat them at the price. And customer service from Rebel Minis is excellent. Almost every single order I've made with them I've received in just 2 days. Anyway, back to our reguarly scheduled programming. :) Here's some pics:









Thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe