Nobel Prize for Extraordinary Achievements in Workbench 2010: gamer Mac, AndyM

[Hammers]

The Academy of Workbench are today awarding brothers AndyM and gamer Mac for cranking out a real stonker, step by step, here on Workbench. It is really amazing how quickly we all came to the same decision over here at the Academy. It's like we have one brain between the eighteen of us.



The Academy's motivation goes like this: it's a well known factoid that genius and madness are close and in this hobby, building a scale Zeppelin fitted with everything from scale sugar cubes for the scale tea set to aerial lunched biplanes is as mad as it goes. Therefor gamer Mac asnd Andym must be a geniuses, do you follow?

Anyway, here's a compressed version of the step-by-step, edited  for all the ooh! and ahh! comments.

[Hammers]

Zeppelin
Well I thought I would post some pictures of the board we are building for a pulp game. Me and my young brother are building it between us.
We thought we would try something a little different. We are not even sure if it is going to work but we thought we would try anyway.
My brother started a while ago and has got a lot further with his bit than me but I will show you his photos after I show you my progress.
It is all made out mounting card so far.







Started gluing it all together which is a pain, keeps falling apart halfway through.











Now I have shown the amateur version here is the professional version.




























Loads more to do.
We are going to try a mock up and a .45 game tomorrow to see if it is all going to work.

Put the bits we have so far together to work out the size of the whole thing and what else we need to build.











Some detail

Not much done but I thought I would post a few more pictures of what I have done today. I am away working for the rest of the week so there will be nothing else done.
Started work on the cargo bay and two walk ways on either side. Going to cover the flat area with balsa wood. Still to make cargo hatch/bomb bay doors on the square hole in the floor. I am thinking of some kind of crane over the bay as well.







Started cladding the outside.



Thanks for all the good comments guys. Great inspiration.
I am not totally to blame for this mad idea, blame my brother for that as well.
As I said earlier he is doing half of it as well. His bit has the only detail so far.
The idea is for the Zeppelin to be used for .45 games. We have a couple of ideas for games that can be played on it. The intension is to make the whole thing quite generic so that it can be used for various different owners. It’s not in the pipeline at the moment but I can also imagine having different modular sections to change the whole internal arrangement.

I have been away working all week so I haven’t done anything to my sections but going through my emails I have some updates from my brother.

Some more updates
My brother has bought some 1/48 scale furniture.









I have done some work on the cargo bay

My brother is starting to show off. He his getting well ahead of my efforts

Basic construction of the hanger section built.
Built up the plane I have at the moment. Not sure if it is going to be the final one used.
Anybody got any ideas for a plane











Tail section to build next

A mock up of the trapeze. Just to get the sizes right.

Sorry even more pictures

More of my brothers detailed stuff. A store room and a sickbay













Part of the store room is going to be an Armoury. Stiil to try and get hold of some guns to stock it though.

Not much been done over the last few weeks been away on holiday, so has my brother. We are both just starting to get back to it.
Done a bit more work to the engine pods.

Engine inside


Support struts to attach it to the main body


In place




Crew man for scale


The engine inside one has been painted


and I have built the other three


My brother has done some work on his bit including outside skin and some glass on the front windows but I don’t have any photos yet.

[Hammers]

Small update
Four engines complete
Neil the exhaust is just made out of plastic tube, bent at one end.



The engine housing


Propellers



Front



Engines in place


Still got another two to complete

Have started painting but I am not convinced what colours to paint it. I am going with a grey.

Another update from my brother.
All starting to come together.

On to the really fiddly bit. Trying to construct the tail section.










Whole thing so far. I will try and get another picture with my brother’s section added later


Drooping a bit at the moment but should be OK once the construction is finished.



Need to fit a few ideas into this section.
Controls/machinery for the tail fins.
Crew quarters – hammocks
Parachute exit area
And as it is a pulp airship we are putting in a rocket pack landing area

Busy day at the zeppelin works today.
My brother came over with his bit to see how it all goes together.



The wee black dot in the centre is a 28 mm figure. The whole thing is now 140 cm long (4 ½ feet in old money). But I am afraid that the smallest member of my family will not fit in it. His has grown to 5 foot now.

We had a small problem when joining the two bit together which had been built by different people. The weight in the bottom of my brothers section had affected the profile so that it did not quit match my section. So we had to add in another small section to cover the mistake.



Doesn’t look great at the moment but it will be fine once the skin is glued on to hold it all in place. Not sure what to put in the extra space though.



I completed the structure for the tail. I am passing that bit on to my brother to do the detail. He started work on the tail fins and the landing bay for rocket troops.





I have also started building the plane for the hanger. Henschel He 123. This is going to lead to problems as well because it is significantly bigger than the original plane I was going to use. And I will have to mod the current hanger.
But the new plane fits in better with the current owners of the zeppelin

The full structure of the new hanger section


Plane in place



Mock up of where the walkways are going to go.

Can't loose the will Grimm I have to get this finished for BLAM or I will never live it down.
All going well you may be able to see it at BLAM if you make it?

Had a couple of productive days.
Finished building the plane and started working out my colour scheme.
Put together a lot more of the hanger bay, including various walkways









Started the skin as well.



I have also built all the pieces I need for the other two engines. I need these fitted before I can cover the outside and build the walkways in this section.

We had a little get together last night to discuss how we are going to run a game on the monster. It is really starting to look like a zeppelin when it is all joined together. This project has literary grown arms and legs during the build. With all the extra bits we have had to add it has grown from 4’ to an inch under 6’.



We have just about sorted out what is going into each space now and how the areas are going to affect the game.
I now have a good idea of what is left to do.
The biggest job is to cover the whole thing. You can just about see how it is going to be done in the first picture. Tin foil glued over the cereal box cardboard skin.















We worked out a few scenario ideas.
We have also worked out what figures we still need to paint. Busy couple of months ahead.

Been covering the outside of the cargo section





The grey rectangle is the bottom of the things I have used to fill the extra section I had to build to join my bit to my brothers.
I didn’t have the room for a disco and anyway I decided we need a way for passengers to get on the Zeppelin and we also needed some crew quarters.
So









Mock up of two crew quarters and the passenger entrance







There will be three sliding doors. One to each room and one through to the cargo area next to the control for the stairs.

My brother had a busy weekend. He managed to finish the Zeppelin
Sorry the pictures aren’t very clear but he used his phone for the pictures and had trouble getting such a big thing into the small lens of his phone.
He also decided to build the top section as well and mount it on a stand.





Only kidding (you may have guessed)



It was a silly idea that I had for the window ledge in the mess.

He has gone a bit zeppelin crazy because he built this as well

Don't think there will be any fires on board. Hopefully

Done some more work.
Added some sliding doors in the crew area and some other bits and pieces
Doors open


Doors closed


The crew quarters fit under the overhead walkway.


Bought some bits of the web

MG’s
The only one I could find were aircraft ones. So they needed a bit of work.




I recently purchased an airbrush so I built a small test piece to try it out on





We are going to cover the whole thing with tin foil. We think it gives right sort of texture and covers a load of mistakes.

[Hammers]

Done some more yesterday. The outside of my two sections are about ¾’s covered just the fiddly bits around the engines and the gun ports to do. Not much to see on the outside but I think a picture of the inside shows that it is starting to come together.





Some stuff was removed for this photo. Rooms, stairs and walkways that are made but not glued into position yet.

Been trying some more with the new airbrush. Trying to work out the paint scheme for the inside. Couple of pictures of my test piece. Ignore the bottom panel I had a bit of a problem with to much water in the paint at one point and I have yet to fix it. It is a bit raggedy around the edges but this is only a test piece the finished version will be better, I hope.


I now notice in the first picture there is some metalic over spray at various bit as well  ignore those too.





Not sure the paint scheme works. The grey and the aluminium are to close in colour. Not enough contrast in the metal parts. Any ideas?

Why a tan hue James

Finished cladding the cargo bay section in card board

This is not just a pile of junk (though the Mrs might think so) . This is the bits of card getting held in place while the glue sets



Glue set


Only this bit on the hanger to do.

Will need to force feed the kids more coco pops as I have run out of card that is the same colour.
Fiddly bit around the engines


Access to the engines.


and a final picture of what the inside looks like now

Some pictures of the tail end.
Parachutes for an emergency



Tail section with the landing strip for the rocket troops. Well it is a pulp Zeppelin

My brother brought his section up today and we done a bit more work on the thing!






Tail looks twisted in the photos for some reason. Dosen't look like that in real life

A few little bits of detail added.
Machine gun positions



 

All the ladders and stairs are built now and all the walkways cut to size


My brother spent the time adding some stuff to the tail section

I have just bought an airbrush so hopefully that will help with the painting.

I haven’t taken a picture of it yet but all the outside card board skin is now complete.
Next job on the outside is the tin foil covering.
We have both been doing little bits of detail for the inside.
My amateur efforts for the bomb bay. May not be historically correct but I have been unable to find any information on how this would have worked so I came up with this.

in position


Opposite side

You can also see the bomb trolley that I have had to convert as it was two big to manoeuvre around the hold.


My brothers efforts at some more boring detail. Yawn Yawn.



  A spare engine for the plane

Finished the main bits of cargo bay now. Added all the walkways, railings and stairs.







Finished all the crew cabins. Taken out the beds for painting.



Also started building the crane over the cargo bay



Talking of painting, I have started –

White primer



Then some pre shading with black



Well back to more painting

Sorry if I kept anybody waiting.
Not done much still learning how to use an air brush. Took me ages just to do some grey and some lighter grey on top.





The pictures don't show all the mistakes either

Not quite WI (yet) but I have had some interest

Thought I had better keep you up to date.
My brother is off skiving in Tunisia this week so nothing from him. He has more or less finished making the tail section. It is nearly ready for painting.
I have been trying to paint the cargo section and it is taking a lot more time than I had hoped. It is no where near finished yet. I am not to happy with it yet either. I keep noticing bits I have missed. It's that big that you forget which bits you have and haven’t done.  







Before he went on holiday my mad brother has even started thinking about what he wants to build for next year. He is wanting to build something big but I think I will stick to small things, 28mm, as I never want to see such a big project again.    
Another one on this scale would fill my garage, games room.

Not much to show for my recent efforts. Painting is taking a lot longer than expected. As the saying goes “ a change is as good as a rest” so I have been painting the crew over the week end. Still WIP though so no photos.
My brother has sent me a couple of photos. He was off work yesterday so managed to get some useful work done.

The tail section is now built. On to painting it now.



The outside of this section is also fully covered

My last post I said I was painting some of the crew. Four are old figures shown before

Still WIP. Went on to more important things



Hook on the top of the plane


Trapeze


Winch for the trapeze


Some of the detail for the hanger bay


Two spare MG’s for the plane and an oil can

In position




 

Have now covered the outside of the cargo bay




Built some bits and pieces for the MG positions but no pictures yet. Did make three more MG’s and some spare ammo cans

[Hammers]

Sorry I have been a bit busy and have not been keeping you up to date.
We have got past the panic stage and we are now in the severe panic stage. Really starting to run out of time so any spare minute has been spent painting and building.
It all needs to be finished by next Wednesday or my brother will be painting on the way down to London in the car.
Anyway some photos.
My brother trying out the airbrush


Painting progress






A jet pack

A storage area for jet packs

The other one

In place




First attempt at the plane was not to good just hand painted it


So I thought I would try airbrushing it


Some of the bits and pieces painted by my brother














That all for now. There has been some more painting since these photos. All of the main bits have all there base colours. It is just painting the smaller details now.

The Zeppelin is now finished. (Well enough to play on. There were a load of things we never finished or were not finished to the standard we had originally wanted)
First off I needed some boxes to protect it all during the trip to BLAM down in London.
First two

All four (The stencil idea was Oldschoolrebels)

A major test required was to see if it all fitted in my boot.


We have been trying to play test for a while and we managed it on the Wednesday night before we took the whole lot down to London on the Thursday.
Painted some more of the crew. I tried to finish the rest in the hotel on Thursday night


A few pictures of the action
 
Struggling to get a decent picture of the bridge



The captains cabin, Radio room and the brig, where the characters start the game.

At the start of the game all the rooms are covered over.


The PC first objective is to find their weapons in the store room

General overview of the passenger area.

Kitchen

Mess
 
Extra statue supplied by 6milphil

Cargo bay

Hanger area

Maintenance area

Pilot ready room

Overview of the tail

One of the PC’s ways of getting off the Zeppelin, Rocket packts

Via the landing pad

The whole test play went very well. A couple of tweeks were work out in the car on the way to London. After a 7 hour journey we arrived at BLAM to set up our first game on the Friday morning



I will post a report later on how the games went at BLAM.

[Hammers]

Full thread here

Finally, on a personal note, I'd like to add that it has been a true joy to edit the thread so its growing complexity and art comes together a bit clearer! We are spoiled with talent here on LAF but I think I wont hurt anyone's feelings if I say we have not before had a project of this magnitude , conceived with truly inspired originality and with maintained attention such detail despite it's size.

In the US, at conventions, I saw quite a few game extravaganzas but they very often focused on size and masses of miniature and just as often put together as prestige displays. Reading these posts you see none of that. Gamer Mac and AndyM seem to be fuelled by the pure joy of tinkering.