Gorillas go Banana Wars (Nemonauts and other LAF downtime projects on page 12)

[Aethelwulf]

Your ships have made me want a ship.

[FifteensAway]

Photos later but I found three plastic ship models I've had for years, originally meant for adapting for a model railroading project, that will be good starting points for a couple of tramp steamers (same model for two of them) and a third for some other sort of merchant ship or maybe another tramp steamer. 

Advice on water-lining plastic ship models gladly accepted.  I figure to start by assembling the two hull sections and glueing in place the deck pieces (probably inverted for my purposes).  Dremel tool too much?  Certainly be a lot faster.

My big hunt is for another submarine or two - though more likely to scratch build, especially one.

Have some decent ideas about making the water portion of the port.

Did a photo inventory of my various trees for my jungles which I will also post later.  There are a lot more than I thought - which might be almost enough! 

[snitcythedog]

Advice on water-lining plastic ship models gladly accepted. 

If you haven't seen it there is a specialist tool out there for model ship builders.  Quick google of "model ship waterline marker" pulls up for some under a tenner. 

[FifteensAway]

snitch, thanks for the pointer - but I suspect marking it out will be easy, I studied drafting in school years and years ago.  It is the actual cutting I'm more concerned about.



Many more photos when I get more time but here is one of something I found while trying to find my unassembled bananas - which I found.  I'm thinking those lions will make a nice decoration outside of a 'presidential palace', maybe the only grandiose touch unless I get ambitious. 

Ordered some 3D stuff from Dungeon Artifacts today to add some fun to the build - and ease my workload, too (not all for this game, though).

Time for a few more photos:



Shows stack of three ship models, the Russian spy and the fishing trawler are the same model, the other appears to be an oil tanker - as designed.  The little wooden ship is a maybe.  Track will run into the jungle from the port.



This image shows the ship's hulls.  Unfortunately, I forgot to include figures in the photo but the ships are about 14" long.



Above shows some mountains/rocks, all from aquarium supply decor.  Just add some lichen to cover the holes and good to go.



More pet store items, might have been for reptiles.  Again, use of lichen hides the holes.

More in the morning.  Need to sleep.

[FifteensAway]

Now for a flood of photos of the jungle raw materials:



This is a wire wrap tree apparently sold commercially.  I plan to get rid of the snow effect and use it for a larger jungle tree - and probably do something to better texture the trunk.



Above will be used to make bamboo, need to add some trunks, can make a nice little forest.  Not strictly for Central America though, don't think much bamboo there.



Just some palm trees - I may sacrifice these to use the fronds as ferns in my forests, jungle and otherwise.  Maybe.  They have some odd 'tire' like bits on them so probably.





Very cool fine - really nicely done palm trees - but without bases, will need to Dremel out the extruding base to be able stand properly or create bases I can 'bury' the obtrusions in.



These trees will be used to make a lot of the larger upper story trees in my jungle, obviously with much modification to greatly reduce the "toy tree" quality.



There are fantasy trees with faces on the far side, sold for use in those faerie villages found in plant nurseries and sometimes in craft stores.  I will obscure the faces and add my own canopies.  These will be larger trees in the jungle.



Another item not for the planned game, the iconic umbrella acacias I need for Africa will stem from these trees.



Forty-eight deciduous trees to help bulk up my jungle bases - may add a little more color to these trees, or at least more shading in the green spectrum.



Some inherited banana trees that need some work on the coloration.  Much too light.  Also have about three dozen more of these but in smaller scale in need of assembly.  I'm pretty sure these came from Pegasus Hobbies - both the assembled and unassembled.  The combination should make a nice banana plantation.  Given the Banana Wars setting, seems rather appropriate.





Another super cool find, these will give me a lot more of the look I am striving for.  Might make a few of the "greyer" pieces move closer into the greener end of things.



No shortage of palm trees - though I don't want to overdue them in my jungle.  I also have a lot more of these, palm trees - not necessarily the same models, created for my pirate extravanganza game back in 2012.  That bare armature I will probably paint to represent a dead tree.  And no photo, but have some very hard twigs I can use as deadfall in my jungle - and have some dead leaves I can use to add texture to the bases.



Found in craft store fake plant section.  Remove the tire on a rope and they'll work nice as larger jungle trees.  Really like their coloration.



3D prints ordered from Kobold Krafts in the UK - five of them.  Very pricey.



If I were to order more from Kobold, it would be more of these top story trees for my jungle.







The above images are of trees from Dungeon Artifacts in the US - ordered 20 of these and working with the company to get more of the larger canopy pieces to make my trees fuller.  Will still use the smaller canopy pieces but maybe not as part of trees.

Just need some more of those taller trees and a nice sampling of large buttressed root jungle trees and I'll be happy.  A lot of work to get them to look like jungle.  Hope Digits doesn't hate me for caving on doing a lot of the scratch building he's done for his jungle.  In my defense, I do want to finish my jungle before I turn 80!!!

Yes, that is a LOT of trees.  I need a LOT of jungle!   . No precise count but closing in on 200 trees including the unbuilt banana trees.  Hope that will be enough.

[Digits]

You certainly have a variety of trees there….are you intending for them all to stand individually or are you going to mix them onto area based on groups?

I still think there is room for a few scratch built buttress trees…

And you could leave the tyres on those trees…..gorillas love ‘em! 😉

[FifteensAway]

"And you could leave the tyres on those trees…..gorillas love ‘em! 😉".  . Fun idea - alas, a bit out of scale since I don't think they had tires that large, relative to the figures, circa 1935 and earlier.  Maybe Rage Kong would be okay with them - as pacifiers! 

I plan to build area bases of trees, plywood bases cut into irregular shapes and edges chamfered with a belt sander.  There will be more 'round' shapes for the interiors of the jungles and more 'oblong' pieces for the outer edges.  The edge pieces will be much more dense, the interior pieces somewhat more open. 

Both types, if it works the way I see it in my imagination, will have a triple canopy with a few tall tress sticking out, a layer below that, another layer below that, and then the ground on the interior pieces will have more open spaces for figure placement and other areas a bit dense.  Each base may have a few to maybe even a dozen or more trees, some bases will be playable and others will be purely scenery and inaccessible.  It needs to not only look as good as I can get it but also to allow a reasonable set-up and take-down time element.

Another aspect that I am going to work hard to include is to add some vertical elements to the underlying terrain, not just a flat jungle. 

I'm estimating a need to cover at least a 5' x 5' section of table but leaving plenty of more open spaces for the gaming, possibly closer to 5' x 8' of the table jungle but if need be some pretty big clearings.  Probably a couple of the oblong pieces will have passageways through them for when I want to represent jungle coming near to water's edge.

Going to have to bring some creativity to the storage challenge, too.  Actually, a project for today is building a real human sized storage-only shed to clear up a bunch of stuff around the domicile exterior spaces and secretly add hobby storage space.  Responding while taking a brief break, but won't finish today. 

I am leaning towards making the port the short edge the table, either 5' x 8' or 5' up to 16' table size - can truncate if too long, might even paint up a portable backdrop for just that purpose, 5' wide).  I think a 3' deep by 5' wide port might work out, that 3' depth can allow piers that can take 2' long ships.  If I need more than that, I can have the port 'turn a corner' and continue up one or both edges, probably both to allow for that 'secret' base - or space that down one edge well away from the main port and expand the port on the far long edge if needed.  Yeah, the latter.  Typing away can sometimes free my inner creative process.

Oh, and on order are some appropriate pyramids to plop into the jungle, some in a more ruined state and some in better condition.  For this game, those will be decorations, for other games they can greater influence.

A hammer and nails are calling my name so time to get back to work on the shed.
 

[Digits]

By the way… you do know there are no gorillas in South America right?  It is this a big fallow of artistic pulp license ?

Funny but the jungle I described from my youth in Cameroon had one feature I didn’t mention.    There was a large concentration of lowland gorillas there.   Almost every day you could hear them….but we never saw them.    Their sound carried for miles.

[CapnJim]

By the way… you do know there are no gorillas in South America right?  It is this a big fallow of artistic pulp license ?

To be fair, and I hate to break this news on this thread, there also aren't any Kong-sized gorillas anywhere.    So, from a pulp perspective, anything goes, giant gorilla-wise...just sayin'...

[FifteensAway]

Oh, bummer, dudes!  First one of you ruins my day by telling me there are no gorillas in Central (South) America.  And then the other one of you curmudgeons tells me there are no such thing as Kongs.  Way to rain on my parade. 

Or not!   

The scenario involves animals being transported from some remote island (??) towards New York City with a stop enroute where untoward things happen and then there is that secret port.  There have been many reports in recent years of large swaths of banana plantations being picked clean and no one knows where they've gone, not just the fruit but the leaves too.  And that is as far as I dare go for the moment in revelations. 

[Digits]

Bananas…..you need to watch this fella.

https://www.facebook.com/TheSingleHilarity/videos/gerald-the-gorilla-not-the-nine-oclock-news-s2-e25-1980/376026277668056/

[Aethelwulf]

To be fair, and I hate to break this news on this thread, there also aren't any Kong-sized gorillas anywhere.

They could be a giant species of gorilla that is extinct everywhere else, except on the island.

[FifteensAway]

Gerald, hmm?  Maybe an adjusted scenario one day where one of the Kong's speaks, with a Harvard Yard accent?!   

Found and ordered a 1/144 scale U-Boat Type IIB.  Cool find.   Probably have to do even more work on reducing it than the American submarine listed above in this thread which is 1/180 scale.  But unlikely they will be very close to each other and really will be 'scenery' so shouldn't be too much of a problem. 

Also found and ordered an ERTL Trevor the Traction engine which I've seen successfully converted a few times for 15 mm wargaming.  So, I can add a steam traction engine to the game - probably at the banana plantation.

Have numbers of vehicles to line the streets of the town mostly from WWI ranges but also some earlier vehicles from Peter Pig's Mexican Revolution range and some other stuff I've collected to use in my Prohibition era gangster setup.  All still needing to be assembled and painted, etc. 

Not sure that my Old West trains from Peter Pig will fit in - and not aware of any 15 mm engines and cars suitable, a bit of a hole in 15 mm really, what I have in mind would fit in for Africa, Central America, and even India.  If anyone knows of anything, let me know, steam locomotives, not diesels though maybe a small gas-mechanical for the plantation (T scale not workable based on price and availability in U.S.A.  HOn3 might work but WAY too expensive generally.).  Going to have to do a little more research on Central American trains it seems.

This is growing into quite a project, what I've jokingly referred to as my "Pulpus Opus".  Maybe it should be "Pulpum Opus"?

[FifteensAway]

With a little help from a response in a related thread I started, I find I have figures for a presidential guard for El Presidente Conyuras.  (El Presidente title is in memory of a friend who used the title for his own similar games years ago).

There is a band (maybe a composer can put together a ditty as the national anthem - remember, bananas are central to the theme):

I was never in marching band or any band for that matter so I am uninformed as to how to properly line them up so feel free to enlighten me!

There are three marching armed units:


Even a figure for the guard commander mounted with a sidekick:


The odd bit out is the officer figure in the right hand unit, these are not cleaned enough to stand up for the photo:


The full guard:


These figures will be British marines and an American marine and sailor (even if not designed as such) who are tasked with staying close to El Presidente and, if his life is in danger or of being captured, they are to whisk him away to safety if they can do so without danger to themselves:



I've decided the presidential palace will have to be next store to a movie theater, perhaps sponsored by the Germans, and called Teatro Marioneta.

And the main banana 'monopoly' in the country is run by a company called Carmina Burana Miranda - or CBM.  Perhaps their spokesperson will be a very young and quite 'flamboyant' Juan Valdez - or maybe Javier Valdez.  I have a spare pack animal I will have to modify to be carrying bananas! 

Now I need to find my El Presidente figure.  A portly gentlemen would be great if he fits in 1930's.  Welcome ideas.  15 mm, please (or 18 mm).

No idea of the provenance of the guard figures in the photos - maybe Scruby or Mike's Models but I really don't know (the odd officer is Minifigs).

[FifteensAway]

Rummaging about 'spare' figures and found my Javier Valdez and his mule - mule will be modified to carrying bananas:



And decided a candle holder from a late gamer's collection will make a nice homage to a certain island that isn't central to this game, Javier and mule for scale:



And now off to look for some figures that just might join this fray.  Temptation is a terrible thing sometimes.  Other times it's lots of fun!