Andy's Pulp misadventures...

[Cat]

Nice construction work, and the cop car is sweet!

[Andy in Germany]

Nice construction work, and the cop car is sweet!

Thanks; there will be a couple more to join it soon. I have a bit of a thing about making everything fit so the other cars in the game will eventually receive their own repaints.

[FramFramson]

You've got to glue the blue light back on the cop car siren though! 

[Andy in Germany]

You've got to glue the blue light back on the cop car siren though! 

I got interested in this, and looked it up. It turns out that according to the lore of the Ascension Chronicles, blue lights wouldn't technically exist in this world. According to Wikipedia (Original article here):

Early emergency lights were often red lights mounted to the front or roof of a vehicle.

The use of the blue emergency light originates in Germany during World War II. As a result of the "Verdunkelung", a black-out measure for aerial defense from 1935, cobalt blue was regulated to replace the red color used until 1938 in German emergency vehicle lights.

Ascension is set in 1937-38 for various reasons. In my version of history, Germany imploded in 1917, and went back to being a lot of smaller states. As such they would not have been acting aggressively to their neighbours (The Austrian Corporal is in Vienna demanding Austria take over Bavaria). Without this aggression the need for a 'Verdunkelung' probably wouldn't arise, so Blue lights may not even have been tried.

It's remarkable how one change in history causes ripples going out to affect so many unrelated aspects of life...

Of course this may be ignored if I feel like adding a blue light to another police vehicle later on, but I found it interesting...

[Cat]

Ascension is set in 1937-38 for various reasons. In my version of history, Germany imploded in 1917, and went back to being a lot of smaller states. As they would not have been acting aggressively to their neighbours (The Austrian Corporal is in Vienna demanding Austria take over Bavaria). Without this aggression the need for a 'Verdunkelung' probably wouldn't arise, so Blue lights may not even have been tried.

Miniatures gaming modelling is so great for building esoteric knowledge!
<3

[Andy in Germany]

Meanwhile, with the power station ready for painting, I've started on another project. Why is this? Because I've noticed I need to do creative stuff every day to regenerate, but I find it hard to start new projects when I'm tired. this can lead to a vicious spiral of not getting anything done and feeling tired, so not doing anything the next day, and so on...

There's a busy period coming after Christmas; I want to get several models started so I can have several "easy" projects to continue which don't require too much use of an already sluggish brain.

With this in mind, I've been thinking about the next buildings for my "Ascension Island 1937" project. Ascension is a transfer point for rich airship passengers, as well as a centre for vice, smuggling, and as a result, money launderers.

And what do rich people and money launderers need? Casinos.

So I started making a Casino.



It is probably the first Casino built on the island, with some very dodgy funding and lots of cash being handed around in brown envelopes. I want the front and the inside to be pretty glitzy and a complete contrast to the warehouses and power station.

White stuff is filler, and bears witness to my apparent inability to file a straight line at 45°. Live and learn. It's supposed to be an art deco plaster frontage anyway, so that'll be hidden.

[Andy in Germany]

Miniatures gaming modelling is so great for building esoteric knowledge!
<3

Indeed, people with a social life just don't know what they're missing.

[Cat]

Indeed, people with a social life just don't know what they're missing.

I have something of a social life. 
 
Also a penchant for late-night rabbit holes on the internet and a wee dram of whisky.
~ , ~

[Andy in Germany]

I have something of a social life. 

Gosh, what is it like?

[Cat]

Gosh, what is it like?

Went out to see Godzilla Minus One three times last week with different folks each time.
=^,^=

[Andy in Germany]

Having repainted the police car, a getaway car was the next project. The car in question had already had a few adventures but it was time to make it look a bit less “Soviet era staff car” and more like something a self respecting gangster would use.



So I took it to pieces, and discovered it had ambitions on being a jigsaw puzzle...

This meant that assuming I could put it back together, I could make a few changes without resorting to a hacksaw, so the rather distinctive radiator was replaced with some plastic and wire mesh, which reduced the red army factor, and I decided to push it a bit more by making a two-tone colour scheme. A bit of research found a combination I liked, and the first attempt to reproduce this created something that looked like a clown car, before being heavily weathered until it was little more respectable.



Reassembly followed, which proved as awkward as expected. It wasn’t helped by yours truly whacking the pot holding all the little parts by mistake and sending screws and clear plastic bits scattering across the floor; it took a good ten minutes to find the rear window…

Eventually, the jigsaw became a car again…





Of course, now I have a proper getaway car, I probably should have an appropriate gang of criminals to use it…

[CapnJim]

Nice wheels!  Great job on that...

Got any figures of guys with Tommy Guns hanging off the running boards?

[Andy in Germany]

Nice wheels!  Great job on that...

Got any figures of guys with Tommy Guns hanging off the running boards?

Funny you should say that...

The Forty Elephants were a real gang in London with an almost entirely female membership, they were mostly shoplifters and were generally the scourge of the expensive and fashionable shops of the city between the turn of the century up to around the Second World War.

In my version of reality, with the rich and famous travelling to Ascension Island, at around the same time as the gang would become familiar to the managers of the London shops, they have decided to expand their horizons...

[Doug ex-em4]

This is a fascinating campaign and this latest development bodes well; looking forward to seeing how it goes. And the car is an excellent bit of work - good stuff.

Doug

[Andy in Germany]

Many thanks to Donna at Eureka Miniatures, who has been able to sort out post Bre*it customs and VAT arrangements, the rulebook for Maximilian 1937 has arrived:



Unfortunately it arrived at my 'work' apartment near Freiburg, as I thought I'd be back long before it was delivered, but it gives me something to look forward to...