Drones and other spinoffs from my BSC build...

[Wirelizard]

In the middle of building my BSC shuttle I got distracted, started and finished a weird little project in just over 24 hours.

The angosGMBH Distraction-class Autonomous Sensor Drone is set up for planetary and space surveying and exploration, with various sensor loadouts depending on mission. No crew space is available, although the tiny cargo/sample bay on the port side could accommodate a human-sized sophont in a space suit for a very short, very uncomfortable ride. Some Distraction-class are themselves autonomous intelligent citizen-drones, although most have only limited-ML minds, and some platforms are old-fashioned remotely operated vehicles.

The front half of the top is the turret shell of a 1/72 LeClerc MBT kit; most of the rest is sheet styrene and tank bits. Most of the rounded blisters are googly eyes from the dollar store, the half-sphere ones are half-pearl beads, also dollar store loot. The whole thing is just over 4" long and just under 2" wide and tall.

Parts of it are a bit rough and honestly, I don't care. It'll do just fine as random SF scenery or a scenario objective.

Right side forward:


Underside. The ribbed cylinder is the cap off an Angosturna bitters bottle that I rescued from the recycling bin.


Rear left quarter:


This will serve as a paint and decal test for the shuttle, so that'll be next after the primer has had another few hours to cure properly.

[mikedemana]

Looks great! And a fine use of googly eyes for a miniature wargames project! 

Mike Demana

[Daeothar]

In the middle of building my BSC shuttle I got distracted, started and finished a weird little project in just over 24 hours.

I know I should not be the least bit surprised, yet I am, and pleasantly so too 

As if your full BSC build is not enough! I mean; now you're just showing off 

Seriously though; that build alone would be a respectable entry on its own if you ask me. A great and creative use of some interesting bits, resulting in (another) great model. Love the little bit of fluff too btw...

[Wirelizard]

As if your full BSC build is not enough! I mean; now you're just showing off 

Seriously though; that build alone would be a respectable entry on its own if you ask me. A great and creative use of some interesting bits, resulting in (another) great model. Love the little bit of fluff too btw...

It's more "running with inspiration while it's hot instead of trying to tamp it down" and a measure of "not letting the perfect be the enemy of getting sh*t done", but thank you, I'm glad folks are enjoying this little distraction.

The Distraction now has base colours on it, with the second coat of red in progress but interrupted by work and other real world nonsense.

One coat each of blue and red; the division lines are all freehand, no masking.


Second coat of blue done, second coat of red in progress.


The paint scheme is very, very Chris Foss inspired. The BSC shuttle will be getting something like this, possibly these exact colours and I'm toying with an extremely Fossian alternating bands of red and blue scheme for the shuttle. Second coat of red tonight, spray varnish tomorrow, decals, edge highlighting, and weathering tests over the weekend, along with resuming work on the actual shuttle!

[Storm Wolf]

The paint scheme is very, very Chris Foss inspired. The BSC shuttle will be getting something like this, possibly these exact colours and I'm toying with an extremely Fossian alternating bands of red and blue scheme for the shuttle. Second coat of red tonight, spray varnish tomorrow, decals, edge highlighting, and weathering tests over the weekend, along with resuming work on the actual shuttle!

I like it, and I like the Chris Foss reference  even more, got to love those late 70's and early 80's works of art. As I am sure this little bugger and its much bigger sister ship will be to, best of luck, keep up the good work 

[Wirelizard]

Bit more paint. Trying to keep it clean but still do some edge highlighting and having trouble figuring out what shades I need to do that with.

Here's the side profile. The ridged cylinder is the cap of an Angosturna bitters bottle, rescued from the recycling box.


Top view. You can see (maybe?) some of the edge and panel highlighting so far. Still not happy with it, will keep experimenting.


As mentioned, this little critter is a paint and finish testbed for the bigger BSC 2025 shuttle. Nice to have something small to experiment on before I tackle the big project!

[anevilgiraffe]

really nice, good to see the rest of the tank getting used.

[Wirelizard]

...and another spinoff from my BSC build!

This one started as "these styrene offcuts are too interesting to throw away, but I really don't want them cluttering up my work area anymore"... and now I appear to have built a small communication/sensor tower.

The side profiles are leftover from cutting the top or bottom skin of the shuttle; the various circular and hexagonal pieces are from the docking hatch in the shuttle roof, and most of the other oddly angled pieces are offcuts from various stages of shuttle production.


There's a few tank parts, a bunch of pieces of styrene rod or half-round, and such.


The whole thing was thrown together in under an hour while I waited for the glue on the shuttle's vertical stabilizers to cure.

The tower is about 5" to the top of the round/hex dish thing, and the base is 2"x2". I'll prime it sometime today and then decide if any putty or cleanup is needed or if it can just stay a bit rough and get painted all weathered.

Nifty backdrop from Handiwork Games in their SciFi Backdrops book.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Harrumph!  Angostura bitters…heretic! Every true cocktail aficionado prefers Peychaud’s! 

(Off to make a Sazerac now…)

[syrinx0]

Perhaps for a Sazerac.  The more savory Angostura is definitely my preferred bitter for Old Fashioned or Manhattan.

An excellent communication tower.  A great use of your off-cuts.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Ya can lead a horse to a good cocktail, but he won’t drink it!

[Wirelizard]

So Angosturna is in pretty much every grocery store up here, it's silly easy to get. Peychaud's I have to go to one of a handful of specialist liquor or kitchen supply stores to find, guys. I chug through a lot more Angosturna's than anything else, but last time I did a bar inventory, there were at least six or eight bitters in there from a whole bunch of manufacturers. My wife is fond of the black walnut bitters from Fee Brothers, and we have a couple of local outfits right here in town doing interesting stuff.

This little sideline reminds me, I need to buy another bottle of Canadian rye. There is no Yankee booze available in this province right now for entirely political reasons, so no bourbon.

Got the comms tower primed before I left for the office, not sure I'll get back to it for painting as I'm deep in finishing up actual construction on my BSC shuttle, but paint might happen in between working on the shutttle - I always find it useful to have little side projects alongside the big 'un.

[Wirelizard]

While waiting for glue to cure properly on my BSC shuttle project last night (even with solvent cement, it doesn't do to rush the stuff...) I raided my raw materials stash and brought out my last large piece of 1/8th" foamed PVC board and whipped up a 12"x12" landing pad, partly as a photo prop for the Build Something Project, but also as actual scenery for our SF skirmish games.



Basecoat in black with a bit of grey in it, messy drybrushing in grey and tan, then two quick rounds of masking and stenciling for the white and green/yellow lines.

Did a 10" long edge wall as well from more PVC offcuts and painted it the same way.

A wash of some sort next, then that's pretty much it, unless I use downtime while painting the shuttle to elaborate on this thing...

[syrinx0]

We have Peychaud for those who can't handle the full body flavor of Angosturna but I have quite a few Fee Brothers too.  Don't blame you for not having the US whiskey.  I might have to switch to Canadian Rye in support. Anyway...

Excellent landing pad. Looks well worn but properly up kept and clean of FOD.

[Wirelizard]

We have Peychaud for those who can't handle the full body flavor of Angosturna but I have quite a few Fee Brothers too.  Don't blame you for not having the US whiskey.  I might have to switch to Canadian Rye in support. Anyway...

Excellent landing pad. Looks well worn but properly up kept and clean of FOD.

If you can find it, Alberta Premium rye is worth grabbing a bottle of. It's not premium priced but it's a good, solid Canadian rye whiskey that's honestly far far more drinkable than the very ordinary price point would suggest.

Anyway, back on topic, I put together a blog post of the various spinoff projects from my BSC 2025 build - the drone, the tower, and the landing pad. I think a couple of the photos weren't shared here or my big BSC build thread, too! (as for 'clear of FOD', at one point in my life I thought I wanted to be a commercial pilot. FOD is the devil and aerospace folks are never going to put up with it, now or in some far distant future, grimdark, gleaming cyber-uptopia or anything in between...)

http://www.warbard.ca/2025/04/08/bsc-2025-wirelizards-shuttle-ancillary-stuff/