Return of the Retro Rocket!

When I initially posted the photos of my first Retro Rocket I promised the imminent arrival of it’s sequel, well it took rather longer than I originally planned!

Anyway, I think the wait has been worthwhile as i have two rockets to show you over the space of the next week or two.

First up we have a model that I produced on the 3D printer. I can’t take credit for the design, it is one I found on Thingyverse again, but the paint job is all mine.

Design wise I think this fits in nicely with my first retro rocket, very “Flash Gordon”!

The next Retro Rocket post will feature a slightly more advanced machine with a more Post-War 1950’s feel.

Laser Cut Fort

One of my early laser cutting projects from last year was a fort loosely based on the one seen towards the end of the Starship Troopers movie.

I have posted photos of my kit on the blog before, but I have just received these photos of the finished fort from Dave Adams, and i thought they were worth show again!

 I am not sure who makes the landing pad and watch tower but I didn't make those...

 Dave has gone for a winter finish with his fort, perfect to go along with Four A Miniatures figures (also in my lead pile...

 The snow effect looks really good here, and I like the blue camo paint job, it works really well!

Thanks to Dave for sending me the photos.

I think i will finally finish painting my own fort, but use it as an (Aegis) defence line for my W40k Tau...

Quick and Easy Terrain Part 2

The first part of this series took some toy pig shelters and turned them into Nissen Huts. Now I am going to show you how I took a couple of cheap air fresheners and made some dome habitats.

I spotted these air fresheners in the local supermarket, they were the own brand, cheap and cheerful variety (the air freshener didn’t actually work at all, so no problem with model scenery stinking of “summer flowers”). At 25 pence each I thought they were certainly worth picking up, as I immediately saw the potential.

The stand on the plastic shell, once it is lying on it’s front is ideal for the addition of a door.

This is more or less all that is needed for this project. The two domes, a couple of CDs for bases and some doors and vents from The Scene.

The first job was to stick the dome to the CD. I started off using Plastic Weld (similar to Liquid Poly – based on dichloromethane). However, the injection moulded plastic of the dome was resistant to solvent effect, so I ended up using a Z-Poxy (an Epoxy adhesive) instead.

While I had the Z-Poxy out I quickly glued the doors and vent in place to. I stuck the vent on the roof both to add a little interest  and also to hide the injection moulding nipple.

The vent and doors didn’t quite sit flat against the plastic.

I used a little Revell Plasto filler to fill in the gaps around them.

Finally I added some sand to the base and added a quick paint job. and wash.

As I write this and look at the very first picture again, I think I may have to get a couple more of theses air fresheners. They would make interesting comms stations too.

Next week I will have another instalment of Quick and Easy Terrain. It will probably be the last 15mm scale terrain for a while, as I really need to get back to doing some 28mm stuff…

Update

I haven’t had much time to post anything on here recently.

I am still busy trying to get my head around the new CAD/CAM machinery, I think I have the 3D printers running fairly reliably now. So it is just a matter of learning to use the 3D design software to actually design something now…

I have been working on some more articles in my Quick and Easy Wargames Terrain series. So hopefully I will have them up in the near future. I am also near completion of my second and third Pulp/Retro Rocket, so you will see those in the near future too.

Finally, as I have mentioned in recent posts I have been getting back into doing some actual wargaming (rather than just painting and modelling). This has achieved though a rekindling of our regular Warhammer 40K games. I have been a huge fan of the Tau and Kroot figures ever since Games Workshop introduced them. I have been following a blog called Warhammer Tau for a while now and recently Adam, the creator of the blog announced that he was leaving his Tau behind so that he could concentrate on a new Eldar project. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have taken over the Warhammer Tau blog and I will be posting my trials and tribulations as I rediscover my Tau force, and also posting any related Tau and Kroot news and articles as I produce them. So you wont be seeing any more 40K battle reports listed here as I will be directing them over to the dedicated 40K blog.

SO, please drop by the Warhammer Tau blog, and let me know what you think!