Miniatures starting kit

 I had a friend start in the hobby miniatures painting and I put together a basic list of simple items that they should think about having in addition to paints and brushes.  Some seem quite obvious, and some less so.  I share it here with you.

Good brush set - you don't really need a lot of brushes.  You can get by with three good brushes - a 1, a 000, and another brush for dry brushing.

Good paints - find a few that you like.

Liquid model glue - for styrene figures and models.  I use Plastruct but Tamiya is also nice.

CA glue - for metal and resin figures and moddels.  I used to buy Zap-a=gap but it always dried up before I could finish half a bottle.  I'm currently using Gorilla Super Glue in regular and gel.

PVA glue - for basing.  Most brands are fine. 

 

  

Emery boards – for sanding.  You can get a bunch in a pack at the dollar store.

 

Cheap brushes – for glue or terrain.  You can pick up a pack at the dollar store.  

 

Cheap paint – for terrain or bases.  The Apple Barrel or Americana type paints at Walmart, or dollar store.  At least a black, brown, and two tones for you bases.

 

Ziplocks bags – different sizes.  

 

Reaper (or similar) dropper bottles with a medium mix - for thinning paint.

 

A few slick mats for gluing on.  Like the kind stickers come on.

 

A few thick newspaper – for a drop cover to protect you r table from spills or splatters.

Plastic gloves - useful when priming.

Chip board sheets - like the back of a legal pad, or a cereal box.  Useful for crafting terrain or bits.

 

Paper towels or facial tissue - to remove paint from brush when drybrushing, and to clean up spills.

 

Possibly also get the following:

A craft knife and cutting board

Toolkit - or pencil/shoe box.  For holding your tools.  A container or spot for your paints is also handy.

Small holders for tokens/bits - the dollar store has many different types.

 

Also needs:

more brushes - larger, smaller, extras.

Small wire cutters - for cutting models, sprue, and wire for bits and pinning.

Side/flush cutters – for cutting sprue.

Dedicated water holder - for cleaning brushes.  Distinct enough to avoid drinking accidentally.

Tweezers - I don't really use them but some people really find the useful.

Clips/clothespins - for holding some pieces while the glue dries.

Toothpicks - for applying paint, glue, and for crafts in terrain.

 

Optional:

Wood rods/skewers

Silicon popit – for mixing paints

Bandages - have handy for when you cut yourself

Stir sticks, craft sticks (popsicle), wide craft sticks (tongue depressors)

Dollarama jewelry chains

Christmas hooks (instead of paperclips) - much easier to cut for use in pinning pieces together, or to replace hoses for the figures or terrain.

 

Later:

Figure holder – or blutac and cork or bottle to hold figure while painting.

Helping hands device - to hold pieces when gluing.

files - a flat, round, and half round.

Sharpener for craft knife - to extend the use of your blades.

Spare blades

Used blade holder

brush cleaner

Flashlight – for finding pieces that fall on the floor.

Nail polish remover – for fingers that get stuck by CA glue.

Cork sheets - for terrain.

Clip boards/hardboard - for bases for the terrain.

Foam core

Work tray? - to be able to move your setup easier if you don't have a dedicated spot to work.

Notebook – for marking down your paint mixes to match later.

This is only a start.  You may find other essentials as you work.  Good lighting is always helpful.

 

New printer and papercraft

When our printer needed more ink back in July, we looked at the cost of replacing ink, and the cost of buying a new printer with ink.  We finally took the plunge, spent a bit more, and upgraded to an ink tank printer. 

Not being so concerned about saving precious ink, I printed some things from a few papercraft sites.

 

I started with the sample saloon from Hotz ArtWorks.  It looked too small against the Reaper and Knight Model figures so I didn’t assemble it.  I have since gotten some Dracula’s America figures that seem closer in scale so I probably will put it together.

 

Disney Parks Blog had just come out with Paper Disney Parks.  They have four so far in the series.  The first two were both for Main Street and the Magic Happens parade, the third was for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, and the fourth was for King Arthur’s Carrousel. 

I printed off all of them at 25% to save space once done and have finished the first set.

 

They haven’t printed any more in the series yet, so looking for a Haunted Mansion led me back to Haunted Dimensions.  They have papercraft for three versions of the Haunted Mansions from the different parks. 

They also have the houses from Amityville Horror, Psycho, and Adams Family as well as facades from the movie theatre from The Blob and some others.  I have printed off the three houses and the movie façade and am mostly finished the Amityville house.

 

For more hyper detailed versions of papercraft about the Disneyland signs, train station, and castles there is also The Disney Experience.  I haven’t started on any of these yet as I am not sure if they will be too large once finished as well as too complex if shrunk. 

 

Some of the buildings will be used to fill up a table for wargaming, and some will be used for our Halloween display table in our new spare bedroom.

Stairway!

At my wife’s work, each department is decorating there area in different themes for Christmas. Her department was originally going to do a Die Hard theme, but decided to change it to Home Alone theme instead. She said that I could make the staircase – five feet tall, out of cardboard.

I mean, of course I can. But I didn’t have enough large cardboard, so I asked if I could make it out of foam core, which she was okay with. The key requirements would be that it had to be at least 5 feet tall, and it had to be transportable.
I worked out the dimensions and told her it would cost about $20 - $40, which she was again okay with. I would not add a railing, would have very fiddly to make in sections, and have added another $10 - $40 depending on what I made the rails out of.


It had worked out to 12 sheets of 20” x 30” foam core, which I got at Dollarama for $1.50 each. I picked up 14 sheets, in case I needed more or messed up, so $21 for that. I ended up mis-cutting the second sheet I worked on the other side of the first set of stairs. I used a lot of the scraps for reinforcing seams and adding supports.
I picked up 2 rolls of wood grain flooring stickers, which I also got at Dollarama for $4 each, so another $8. I only used it on the stairs for the part that shows on the sides of the runner, so only ended up using a bit more than 1 sheet. I have plans for the rest of the second sheet.
I found 36” square pieces of red felt for the runner at Oomoomoo, a Japanese dollar store. They were $4 each and I picked up 4 of them. I only ended up using 3 of the squares but I bought the extra so as to not have to worry about matching the color if I needed more.


Using the plans, I cut out the sides of the base. I had to glue a second piece of the foam core behind the first three steps to give them the proper depth. These first three steps are normal size. The first two steps have a rise of 6 ¾” and the third has a rise of 6 ½”. This way the first three steps fits nicely on a single with of foam core. The steps have a run of 10 ½” which leaves a ½” overhang and allows these three steps to fit together on one length of foam core. The steps themselves are 20” wide, the same as the width of a sheet of foam core.

The upper piece is 30” deep, but 50” high. The upper section has 7 steps using forced perspective. The rise of the next three steps remains the same as the first three, but the next four on the next sheet are 6 ½” high. The steps get progressively smaller – 8 ½”, two at 6 ½”, 4 ½”, and the last three are all 2 ½” deep.
I cut out all the steps and risers. Using white wood glue, I glued the risers on first to allow some time for them to dry. I put some braces across the backs to help support the sides.
Then I cut the wood grain into 4 sections – 3 at 5” wide and the remaining one at 4.75” wide. I cut each piece an inch longer than the step it was going on so I could fold it over the exposed end. I put them on 4 ½” inches from the sides, again allowing overlap. The narrower ones I put on the left side of the steps as that would be against the wall.
I glued the steps on next, pinning through to the foam below to help hold it while drying. I later went in and taped all the steps from behind.

I switched to tacky glue and glued on the felt runner. I was careful to line up the pieces under the overhang of the lower steps, and at the back of the steps on the upper ones.
I then went back and used hot glue from the inside to tack the corners of the steps as well as to strengthen the supports. The finished stairs are 20” wide, 60” deep, and 70 1/8” tall.

Straw Holder

With the push by many communities to ban or phase out plastic straws, a lot of people have started using glass straws. While this is great for the environment, carrying around a hollow glass rod is challenging. We have tried a few options but nothing has been the best yet.
There doesn’t seem to be a good product, already in place, that could be used as a transport case that is not too expensive, not too big, and rigid enough to prevent damage to the straws. I keep thinking that a chopstick holder might work, but I have not been able to find one yet.

The first thing that came to mind was to use a toothbrush holder but it was not long enough to fit without modification. We ended up cutting the ends off of two holders and butting them together and duct taping them to extend the holder. This works fine, but my daughter tends to hold the ends when she opens it so it slips from the tape.

While I fix that one, we found another solution to use. We found this dustpan at Dollarama.
The pan end removed easily and it was cut down to length. The grip holds well enough while still being removable. It is too long so not a perfect solution. Plus, it looks a bit like an electric cattle prod. But it is solid and does work for now.

Facelift

I had used the remains of two cans of spray foam when filling some holes in the outside of the house to fill in the chicken wire on the tree.

I tried painting it to see how it would look and decided that I definitely need to give a coat of monster mud. This is made from patch filler, glue, and paint mixed together and used with torn-up pieces of cheese cloth just like paper mache.

After this dried, I painted the eyes and mouth black with spray paint.

I followed up with a mix of brown paints to cover the rest of the face.

When that dried I went back with drybrushed with a lighter brown to make the features pop.

Tron - Disc game - figures

There are two sizes of Tron figures that would work for the Tron – Disc grid game. Both the poseable 4” figures as well as the 3” figures would work. You could conceivably use the 6” or even the 12” figures for added realism, but you would need a lot more space. The rules will scale upwards without too much trouble.

While the 3” figure sets never made their way up here I did get one through the mail in a pack with a light cycle. The figures (and cycles) in these packs come on 2” hexes. I did pick up a bunch of the 4” figures at Dollarama when they appeared for $2 each. Now that I want more I can’t find them anywhere. Although after checking 4 stores I was finally able to find two more Clu Sentries that I can repaint for the Grid. These 4” figures also come with a stand that is 2” in diameter.

Since I plan on making zone-of-control discs to put under the figures, the same ones will work for both the 3” and 4” figures. You could even use counters if you wanted to. I suppose I could always make a 2” counter to replace the figure if needed – like the pogs in Heroclix or Crimson Skies. But, since any figure that would fit on the disc could be used, you can use Star Wars figures, superheroes, or even the small GI Joes.

While I could use the discs that come with the 4” figures for the game discs, I will probably end up making some out of either layered styrene or even cardboard. If I was more proficient with molding I could make a gang mold of them and cast up discs to use.

Tron - Disc Battle - first thoughts

Because you never know when an idea will strike you, I keep a small notebook in the car. This way when I am out and about, I can jot down notes. Case in point, coming home on Friday I got stuck in the traffic who had forgot how to drive in the fresh snow. While waiting I came up with a foundation for a Tron disc battle game.

Whenever I come up with a game the tipping point is usually how the movement works.

In this case, since I already have to make a game grid for the Light Cycles game I am making I was thinking about how it would work for figures on a disc battle – especially with how the discs would move. The figures could move on hexes or squares (or even triangles like my Jugger game) but the discs would need to be more freeform.

I was thinking about how they would move on the grid when I realized that they didn’t have to move on a grid at all. They could move independent of the board which would allow the board to remain in a nice grid pattern.

To interact with the figures I decided that the figures would be placed on a separate base that would define its zone of control and that the discs would be on their own counters. Movement would work by putting a new zone of control marker touching the current one and moving the figure to the new marker.

This is what I started with:
Tron – Disc battle

Disc
Thrown – return after 10 spaces

Move – 5 spaces per turn

Can catch own disc

Dodge

Can Block if have disc.


Actions
Figs – [move up to 3 bases?]

5 actions per turn

Move, Throw, Catch, Attack, Block, Dodge

If Dodge and no actions then prone.

I also had drawn a little sketch of a figure on a round base and a disc on a bent wire attached to a rectangular base.

Renovation-less

So the bank came back and renovations are out for now. Even though the appraisal for the value after renovations came back at $270K (and they had said we needed at least $250K) it was still denied by CMHC as it would eat up all the equity that we currently have in the house. Since we have no plans to move in the next two decades we didn’t see it as a problem but they don’t see it that way.

We had to notify our renovator again. He was quite understanding about it. We look forward to trying to proceed again with this at a later date. We’ll give it a few years and try again. In the mean time, we’ll have to move D3 into the basement – which means that I’ll lose my room (which, since it was cubically packed, I wasn't getting too much use out of anyways).

So the plan now is to move a bunch of our boxes from storage in the basement to off-site storage. Then we’ll move everything out of my room into either the space created or into off-site storage. Then D3 gets moved into my former room and we'll have to reconfigure the downstairs as needed. Then we’ll also have to reconfigure D3’s and G’s room into being just hers.

It’s going to be a busy summer.

How many Daleks do you need?

I dunno. How many Daleks are there?



I’m on a list for the Dr Who Miniatures game. They had mentioned that the Doctor Who Adventures magazine had plastic Dalek figures coming. The magazine is targeted towards kids and usually has a neat add-in each issue.

I checked around and was unable to get it locally but was able to get someone over there to buy them for me and send them over. The issue came with 17 of the new Daleks in fabulous technicolor! There were 5 red, 5 blue, 5 orange, 1 yellow and 1 white. The following issue came out with a pack of 8 Cybermen and 8 Judoon. While these weren’t as nice as the Daleks, they’ll do nicely to bulk out the forces in a game. So I got three of the Dalek issues and two of the Cyberman/Judoon issues.

Of course, they’ll need a touch of paint to complete them, but even without they look pretty nice. They’ll look nice with the old Citadel Dalek/Cyberman boxed set I have from decades ago.

What am I going to do with 51+ Daleks and 16+ Cybermen? I’ll probably paint up one as a stone Dalek and a few as the Ironsides Daleks. I may even be able to run the War of the Daleks from the Salute site.
The rest? Someone on the list suggested that they could easily be used as a Necron force in 40K. Now that really gets the mind churning. It’s definitely being added as a project.

need zamboni

I put some more water on the rink this weekend – about another six buckets. It seems to be working okay. Some parts are fairly smooth and others are quite bumpy. I am hoping that more layers will even out some of the less-bumpy parts.

We got Gee’s skates sharpened and she actually went out on the rink and tested it out. She was able to skate around a bit and we didn’t have to drive her anywhere so it’s certainly been worthwhile so far.



Hmm, I wonder if I used a mop and hot water would it smooth out some of the lumps. I may have to add a few more rounds of layers before I try it. It may be one of those proof-of-concept ideas that may or may mot work.

Ice to see you

When I checked on the rink on the weekend, I was pleased to find that the part I had done had frozen relatively level. Inspired by this I had finished wetting down the other half and pouring a few more buckets on top of the back half. It's not going to be a huge rink - only about 12 - 15 feet around, but it should be sufficiently large enough to practice on.

Now I am concerned that we may actually get a warm day tomorrow. It's supposed to rise to 1 Celsius (about 274 Kelvin). Ideally, it should remain cool enough to remain frozen but warm enough to even out the surface.

ice weather

I poured about a dozen tall ice-cream buckets of water on the pool area. This only managed to wet down about half of the depression left by the pool. This will take a lot more water than I had thought. It wet through the snow and slushed up on the mud. I am hoping that it will freeze up overnight and allow my second and subsequent coats to fill in the area a bit more evenly.


If this doesn't work as I thought, I will stop without doing the entire area. I can now see why they usually flood the rinks with a hose. If this does works, maybe next year I will bring a hose inside to thaw the ice and use that to flood the rink.

That is, as long as the use of the rink outweighs the annoyance in making the rink.

snow fun

The weather held until last week. We have had a beautiful November so far and then got hit by a blanket of snow - 42 cm of snow in fact. Our entire snowfall last winter was only 80 cm. (For those of you who don’t understand metric, we had about two and a half feet of snow last winter and have already received a foot and a half so far.
Even though most of it has fallen in a little over a week, it hasn’t been too bad. It has been the light, fluffy snow that is easy to shovel instead of the wet, sticky that is a pain to shovel (but great for snowmen). It has come down in dumps of less than 10 cm a day – which means it didn’t overwhelm us. As long as we shoveled, we were able to keep on top of it.

My daughter has started building her ice-slide in the front yard. She did one last year as well. A three or four foot rise was enough to slide her the length of the front yard. She even had a few bends and a landing area.

Also, after the first dusting of snow, I moved the pool to the side and put away the other tarp. This will hopefully allow us to create a small rink in the depression in the back. Then, when my daughter feels that she must skate, we can just send her out back instead of going to the park every time. I’ve been toying with making one for a few years so we’ll see how it turns out and how much trouble it is.

Pre-Christmas

Just like that we are now in pre-Christmas. Halloween was as busy as usual with the costumes and decorations, and then the undecorating.

Then we had to set up the lights before the snow comes. We set up the Christmas tree last weekend – it’s a bit early but we’re getting pretty booked up for Christmas already and have to find the time when we can.

I hate to start any big projects during this time – as they usually need a fair amount of space and everything is all cozy right now. I still want to try to paint something this year and maybe work away at assembling the 40K bits I’ve bought so that I could potentially paint them as well. I also want to try using the Hotz western town files to put together some 1/35 scale buildings but that’s a bit more involved.

Lego boxes - gang aft agley

With a bit of cleaning, I had a bunch of Logo boxes to use. The Lego boxes have a nice small corrugated cardboard that makes them great for projects. I was going to use them as the basis for the upsized western buildings based on the Whitewash City set.

Unfortunately I was going to wait until after the Halloween projects were done before starting any new projects. My wife (the same one who pushes me to start my costume projects much earlier in the year) gets twitchy if stuff gets left around for any length of time - which is the other reason I wait until the last moment (the main reason is the kids don't make up their minds until almost the last moment).

Quick ending – she crumpled up most of the nice big boxes into the recycling on October 29th. Not even folded so I was only able to salvage two smaller boxes. We’ll see if I can still make use of them.

dejarik - pieces acquired

Dejarik is the name of the holo-chess played on the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars (New Hope). With their last set of miniature figures, before dropping the license, Wizards of the Coast put out the figures in their final set - Masters of the Force.

I picked up a set of the figures. They are a nice size and weight. I don't know if I'll ever get around to making a Dejarik set, but at least I have the option now that I have the figures. With a set of fan-made rules online, it may be worth a try.

Prêt? Allez! - notes

My game is Prêt? Allez! – which is the standard phrase to restart a bout (basically it means ‘Ready? Go!’)

My game simulates a fencing bout with foils. I had planned to create the rules for all three fencing weapons (foil, sabre, epee) but only managed to get the rules for foils down enough in the time frame. I will continue to work away at the differences for the other two. Since foil is the main weapon most people start with, I decided to pursue the rules for that one first and use that as a basis for the other two. The small target and priority rules do help to translate well to the game format.
I did know about the game En Garde but haven’t played it. I am very familiar with the Highlander CCG though – having been the Canadian National Director for several years. With later expansions to that game though it moved away from actual swordplay and most games became more about the Events and Situations as well as deckbuilding. I wasn’t sure if I could come up with a game that is distinct enough from those two but I feel I was able to achieve this.
I am a big fan of swashbuckling films from when I was a child. Having actually taken fencing, I wanted to make sure the game simulated both the footwork as well as the flurry of attacks and counter-attacks. I also wanted to help expose people to some of the fencing terms from the sport. Of the three weapons, foil is actually my least favorite – with epee being my favorite and sabre as a close second.

Have at thee!

So our final project is to fully design a game. The challenge part was to not have a roll-and-move mechanic.

My three main ideas to pursue were:
- a spaceship race game - giving energy each turn to speed/shields/weapons. This would involve a board or set of tiles to make various boards. Each player (2-6/8) would control a craft. They would have a control panel that they would have to adjust each turn that would affect how much they could move. They could also assign points to either front or back shields or weapons to try and damage the other crafts.

- a giant robot battle board game (having read a bit of MechWarrior and Battletech - plus being a RoboJox fan). The giant robot game (2 – 4 players) would be a very simple version with the robots having various weapon types and being able to damage each other. Enough damage would render the various weapons inoperable and finally destroy the robot.

- a gladiator-type board game. The Gladiator game (2 – 6 players) would allow you to equip with various weapons that could do different damage. Armor would be minimal. There would also be the capacity to be pitted against animals – lions, tigers, boars, bulls, wolves.

The giant robot and the gladiator are based around similar concepts. With a board for the arena and the players controlling 1 or 2 figures. I was thinking I could use the battle mechanics as a test bed for my Jugger game rules.

I had also toyed with a western gunfight card game (which seemed to play too fast) or a fencing/swordfighting game (but would have to make different from En Garde or Highlander).

After further thought, I decided to pursue the fencing game. It would involve a board for the piste, markers for the fencers, and cards for the target moves. Being forced off the end of the piste would score as would an attack to an area that the opponent couldn’t defend. The various weapons – epee, foil, saber would all have different target areas.
I have solidified the rules, and had a few test games to ensure it works. The game has the flow I was hoping to achieve as well as capturing some of the unique terms (balestra, riposte, etc).
I have focused solely on Foil fencing to start. After the course I will come back to it and finish sabre and epee.

I have arranged some blind testing - I just have to get the rules from my head to fully realized on paper before that can happen though.

Bone - Daddy

In cleaning out older emails, I found this one I had sent to Doombuggyproductions.com (when they were still active). It explains how we made the Jack Skelington (and how to make similar figures). It never made it on their before they were lost so I'll post it up here.



For the body of Jack - we used pvc pipes - the grey ones are electrical conduit ones - they were cheaper than the water ones. The joints are all pvc fittings. The chest was bulked out with layers of 1' foam and bubble wrapped to soften the edges.





The costume was cut from scrap material and hand sewn. The limbs were covered in black foam pipe wrap and the legs and arms were glued together after the costume was attached.
The head was sculpted in plasticine and a copy was made in paper mache. Blank newspaper was torn into thumb-sized pieces. Instead of fiddling with dipping them into glue and applying them, slightly thinned (with water) white glue was painted on, a few pieces were applied, and more glue was brushed over them. The teeth were more fiddly, so facial tissue was used there. After about three good layers were applied, the head was flipped and paper mache was applied the same way to the back of the head - not quite overlapping. The two halves were gently removed and the plasticine was removed - using a plastic spoon and fingers mostly. Two small squares of foam with holes for the neck were paper mached to the front piece and then the back was paper mached on. Once the two halves were joined by more paper mache the face was painted - primed black then off white.




The hands were wire around a foam palm. The fingers were wrapped in masking tape and the entire was painted - primed black and painted white.

The suit still needs the pinstripes painted on and the spider bow-tie needs to be made. All told he is about 8' tall.

Short for a trooper?

So, even those I had lost my camera, I was able to find some pictures of the kids in their Clone Trooper armor from the Valleycon website.