Mega Block Attack Action Warship Conversion to 28mm / Heroscape - Updated

[Rocktroll]

Hi everyone, this is my first try converting a MB ship into a 28mm ship.


I found inspiration for this project reading some really good threads on this board by Astor, Uti, Sinewgrab, Warren and a few others. And I was lucky to get some extra advice from Sinewgrab on where to order some of the materials I would need to start.


I am new to the boards, so I hope I am posting this in the right place.

After reading over 30+ pages on what other people had done on these boards and a few others to convert their ships I made a quick shopping list of what I thought I might need and looked for a cheap ship to start with.

I ordered some cannons, wood planking plasticard, ship anchors, ship wheels, windows, and not sure what else. I live in Puerto Rico, so since I was ordering all these items from the UK I knew it would take a while before they showed up.

I found on ebay 2 ships really cheap, one was a very cool Mega Bloks Man O War, I got it for $12 + 10 shipping. I couldnt wait for this ship to arrive so I could give it a shot.



2 weeks later it arrived with a smashed box, and a apology note from the USPS that they box "might" have suffered damage. The entire box was smashed, the ship was missing and there was less then 10 tiny bits left inside. I contacted the seller and will be asking for a refund but still sucks because getting another one of these ships will be over $40 from what I have seen on ebay in the last few weeks.

I did manage to buy an incomplete Mega Bloks King Arther Attack Warship from ebay for about $16 total shipped.
This one arrived with just the hull and nothing more.


It showed up as a pile of pieces so I had to download the manual to figure out how to assemble it to see what was missing.


It was actually pretty complete except for the sails, the oars, the figures, the mast and a few tiny odds and ends but nothing that wasnt going to be replaced any way.

I had not seen this ship converted before so I was not sure what I would do with it. I loved how it had a figure head and tail that looked like a viking long-ship even though it was the mother of all long-ships because it looked to be 2 decks high and much wider. It even had the motor that worked for rowing 4 oars.

I knew I would try make some sort of viking -warship hybrid.

Now to figure out the deck, It had 3 levels,


First one was too high, the side ( railing?) was about knee high, the middle deck was up to mid chest and the last one was pretty much covering the whole mini I used as a test. I decided to keep the mid-chest level for the center and for the bow and stern of the ship I would leave it knee high. I loved the ballista or crossbow looking thing on the ship but it was huge for 28mm and looked like a siege engine or something to hunt dragons with.

The figure head looked too big and kinda goofy so I decided to replace it with a mega blok dragon head from a dragon I should receive in the mail in a few weeks.


The two halves of the eagles heads did look like something that could be salvaged to decorate a bigger ship, maybe a Black Pearl.

The game I play is called Heroscape, the figures are placed on a hexagon map, so I had to figure out how I would mark the hexes on the deck after the ship was done. I first wanted to see how many hexes I could fit on to the deck. 15 hexes if I cut off half of the base that connected the figurehead. Also I wanted to keep the cage to hide an item to use in a scenario during a game. So I painted red everything I would cut and black for everything that would stay the same height.


As soon as I tore apart the motor and removed the batteries I regretted it, I could have left it alone and made 4 new oars and had a "magic" viking boat that rowed it self, didn't know if it would look cool or goofy on a game board but it was too late since I had already ripped off the pieces and the button. I was using my dremel to cut off all the pegs and cut off everything that I had marked red to create the 2 decks. I spent at least 2 hours cutting and grinding and made a huge mess in my room, I should have done this outside.



Heroscape figures are about 28mm to 30mm
 
I knew I wanted to fill in the holes in the railing where the oars had been on the original toy, so I made some quick molds using instant mold and cast a few pieces using Aluminite casting plastic. They came our more or less decent but it wouldn't matter I thought because I would cover them with a line of shields to make it look like viking type long-ship.



I finished gluing on the railing , now I need to greenstuff all the spaces between and then sand them down to make them look like one solid piece instead of a jigsaw. I spent a while with the dremmel sanding sharp corners and all the pegs to try to leave 2 flat surfaces for when the plasticard planking arrived. I made a template of the decks first to have them ready for the plasticard. Also I double checked to make sure the 15 tiles would fit.





I imagine a boat this size should have more that one sail, but all the viking ship pictures I have found online all show a single mast and sail. In fact the bottom bar on the sail might be removed just leaving the top bar and the main mast. I forgot the sizes of the dowels I used as I was lucky to find a $10 tube filled with 6 dowels of each size, I am not sure yet how I will secure it to the hull, either cutting a hole into the toy motor and placing a magnet on the mast and hull, or making a fitting for it. Not sure yet.



Also I was able to find some shields on ebay for under $10 shipped for 32 of them.




I plan on running a line from the base of the figurehead to the top of the mast and both corners of the sail to the rear of the ship. Also I plan on making a tiln I think its called? a type of rudder.



As you can see I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to ships, just what I have learned from watching pirates of the Caribbean.

I still have a lot to do on this almost viking ship, but I am looking forward to some packages arriving to start painting and decorating this ship once I am done finishing the hull.


I know it doesn't look like much but it has been fun to work with and as my first ship I hope to be better at it when I try my next few conversions.

[Christian]

I'm not familiar with the system, but that's going to look gorgeous!

[maxxev]

Nice work so far.

Is Aluminite casting plastic cold cast? (i.e does it not melt the instant mold back into goo?)

Cheers.

[Rocktroll]

I can cast small pieces, or figures, but anything bigger will heat up and melt my instant mold.

If my plastic planking sheets done show up soon I will try the popsticle sticks from starbucks to make a deck with

[Rocktroll]

Sorry for the delay in updating, here it is

Been a few days since had a chance to update.
 
I have recieved a few other ships to convert to 28mm but I plan on finishing this viking ship first so I can figure out the best way to customize the other ships.
 
I used a dremmel to grind off the pegs, or cut them with a cutting disk, but after I spent a while finishing this ship, I found out it was much easier to use clippers to remove the pegs then just sand down the rest. I spent about an hour and a half doing this with the dremmel but with clippers it might have taken me like 20 minutes.
 
 

 
 
I coated the ship with a dark brown, wasnt sure how I was going to repaint it, but I decided to do the same color as it was originaly, a dusty tan, or kind of the same color as the popsickle sticks
 
 

 
I could see the edges and all the imperfections now that it was a dark color from the peices I had cast. I filled up any holes with greenstuff and didnt worry to much about the outside as I knew I wanted to make a row of shields on the outside like the original viking funeral ship that has been used as a model for most viking ships in movies.
 

 
When it comes to materials, I bought the for sale signs instead of plasticard and a few peices of balsa strips for making door ways, ledges and windows. On the viking ship I pretty much just used 2 signs, the really thick one ( House for sale $2.50) to make the deck and the very thing one ( Office $.79) To glue the coffee stirrers and make removable floors.
 
 

 
First, I did it the hard way I used crazy glue and kept glueing my finger tips. Also I had not first sorted out the bent sticks.
 
Now I know in the future, to use very tiny amounts of crazy glue , or better yet use UHU, it gives you more time to adjust the sticks, you can use a very tiny amount and it doesnt keep gluing your finger prints off.
 
So I cut up a bunch of sticks about 3 inches, and when I glued them on my templates I made sure to stack them.
 
 

 
I made 2 templats one that I would glue the sticks too and another to save just in case I ever do another one of these ships again. I started in the middle and worked my way out.
 

 
Once I had finished covering my entire template, I just trimmed the excess off with scissors, and test fit on the ship. This was a pretty easy step to do.
 
 

 
Using an hobby knife I just trimmed any corner or edges I needed to make a decent fit on the ship.
 

 
I made sure to keep a spare set and place directions on them its easy to mix them up and turn them over.
 
I liked the look of the popstickle stick pattern, its kind of messy and not as pretty as plasticard wood plank sheets, but this cost me about $1 and the sheets each cost me around $7 each, thats why I have not used them yet. I could have sanded down these popstickle stick deck to make it smoother but it did not occur to me untill I drybrushed them and saw how irregular they where.
 
Also another mistake was I thought I could keep the wood grain look by just painting with dark brown wash, I tried several times and ended up just painting over the deck and using dark brown, light tan, then very light almost white tan.
 

[Messyart]

This is relevent to my interests..

And pretty damn cool!
Sorry to hear about the first postage screw up D:

[Rocktroll]

Second half of the update

I test fit the decks a few times to see if they where flush. I have seen a few threads by other people who decked their ships straight to the ship, but that seems like way to much work, this way I could just overlap the sticks, and trim off the excess, if I would have done it right on the boat I would have had to make a ton of precise cuts.
 
I didn't take a picture of it but first the ship was decked with the thick plastic from the outdoor FOR SALE sign. Then I cut out templates ( exactly the same as from the thick plastic ) But with a very thin plastic sign ( OFFICE) and once the sticks where glued on them I just glued it on top of the plastic deck once I was done working on the inside.

 
Once the deck was done, I know this would have looked tons better as a simple wood deck but since Heroscape uses hex movement, I decided to add the hexes. Kind of kills the boat to be used in other games but next time I might do a second removable deck, or maybe paint the hexes on the main deck. This time I wanted an elevated hex base. So first I tried to fit as many figures as I could on the deck.
 

 
I enjoy using magnets so I wanted to try and use them here. I cut some of the thin metal strips of metal you find in file folders in half and measured it the length of the middle of the ship. I glued 2 small magnets on the hull so I could glue the row of shields on the sides and be able to remove them when I stored the ship to avoid them being ripped off.
 
Shields on the original funeral ship are a straight line and overlap, but since this boat is so big in comparison and the 28mm shields are tiny, I was going to do 2 rows to help cover up the patchjob on the gunwhale. I spaced out the shields on the thin metal strip. Later when I finish painting them I will glue on the second row. Plus I plan on making a set of oars sticking out, also pin them to a thin metal bar and place them under the shields and I can remove them when I dont want them in game.
I made half an oar with a tiny dowel and popsickle stick.
 
I used a tongue depressor to make the rudder. I looked for tons of examples online and more or less came up with this imitation. Also I attached it to the ship with a magnent, they are pretty strong and helps store the accessories.
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
I wanted a mast that didnt wobble. I didnt have the base that came with the original mast so I installed 2 items into the motor of this toy before I glued on the deck. First a bolt on the bottom so that the mast would sit snugly inside ( Plus an over kill, wasnt not needed but I glued a magnent to both the dowel and one to the nut. ) It was tight enough that the magnets made no difference. Also just under the deck, there is a washer that lines up the * mast* with its seat on the bottom. They are very cheap and fit the dowel perfectly. The mast slides in and out of the hull very snug and does not wobble at all. First try so kind of an over kill.

 
 
 

 
I greenstuffed all the corners, next time though I will not waste this much greenstuff. Tons of glue, or superglue or GOOP. Sand it down then either order online some magic sculpt, fix it sculpt or apoxie sculpt or ANYthing other then sticky expensive greenstuff. ( worked great on the outside for connecting the celtic looking knots).
 
 

 
When I was drilling the middle of the toy motor to install the mast it cought on something metal inside and shot my drill to the side where it went right though the boat. Im glad it didnt destroy the side wall ( Oh and that it didnt go through my leg too)
 
 

 
I could have sworn I did a good patch job, untill I primed it to look for imperfections.
 
Wow... just wow. why did I even try?
 
I am sure this wasnt the best fix but I used WOOD filler , and just rubbed it in with my finger to give it a pretty flat surface. Painted it again after it dried to double check the finished effect.

[Rocktroll]

 
I plan on making a bar of oars so I can remove all 6-8 oars per side, just like the shields depending on how I want the ship to look, I decided againts drilling holes into the side of this ship.
 
Part two of my update
 
 
Once that was done, and I was satisfied it didnt look like a frankenstien ship, I decided to try and start painting
 
Also I am dying for the mail to arrive to see if I got my megablok dragons so I can rip a head off and make my replacement figurehead!!
 
 
I wanted a dark color for the trim, so that what ever color I used would stand out. I did a few coats of tan on the rest of the body and lots and lots of brown washes to try and get the original toy's sandy color ( and to look like the popsickles all over it ).
I know I will mod a few more ships and I wanted those to be really dark so I want this one to be light and stand out from the others. ( Plus shes my first ship!!)
 
 

 
Before and after picture, and testing out the mast. What I really want to do is get a toy I can destroy for a figurehead AND start playing with the rigging. I cant do the rigging untill I finish painting so that I can give it a clear coat, and If I start adding the rigging the clear coat will ruin it.
 

 
I want this ship to belong to one of the generals in the heroscape game, his main color is blue, with the very dark background I chose a  bright blue to stand out. I first started doing this via drybrush and it was working great, but the background had a lot of blueish dusting and it didnt look sharp, so after an thirty minutes of painting, I gave up and re-primed it dark brown and this time decided to try it the old fashion one.
 
One line at a time.
 
 

 
I liked how it looked so much better, doing all the lines took me just under an hour but the effect turned out pretty cool. I really like how the blue stood out.
 
Also while I was at it, I gave the finished hexes and deck a light tan coat, a dark brown ink wash then a very very light drybrush.
 
I guess vikings didnt holystone their decks and there wasnt a need to make it lighter, but I wanted to really make the hexes stand out. Not sure if I will keep it this light or darken it later. Like I said this is really my testing ground so playing around with several ideas so when I start modding the other ships I wont waste so much time.
 
So far in this ship I think I have put well over 10 hours so far, 8 of it was wasted time , or if you prefer, my learning curve ( still wasted time but fun wasted time)
 
 
 

 
I liked how the from and back looked ( bow and stern?) Cant wait to get that figurehead dragon!
I used boltgun metal for the trim, I might make it look faded with a black ink wash later. I read some viking ship models that people did tin bitz for their metal parts but I didnt because I cant find my tin bitz paint
 
 

 
Sorry for the crappy shots but some of these where taken from my phone and I am working under a desklamp 80 watt daylight bulb here at work.
 

 
I tried those cheap $1 craft store magnets and I will never use them again, instead I will keep using my ebay magnets , although not too cheap they can be used for almost anything. I needed space for one more hext so I cut down the base for the tail by half, it only had 4 pegs to hold it and it kept falling out, so I trimmed 2 pegs off, glued a tiny plate from the metal strip from the file folder and added a magnet. Now it sticks on very well and is easy to remove.
 
 

 
The front I left as is, since it had the whole section and felt pretty secure, if it ever becomes loose, I am not sure what I might try here
 
 

 
 
This is a cool trick I found out. I am replacing mast with dowel rods. I wanted to give them texture so I just slid the blade of my hacksaw across them several times, at first I was timid with it then I found out the deeper you carved the lines in the better. ( Also the better the chances of causing some nice bodily harm, since when is a hobby supposed to be so dangerous???)
 
I had to sand the dowel rod with some very light sandpaper to get rid of the slivers of wood from gauging the dowel, but after priming , base coat and a wash, I liked the effect, it was very easy to do.
 
 
 

 
I know there must be a lot of threads that can be bought from model kit online stores, but I wanted to try this twine to give it a very rustic rope look. I cant wait to start working on rigging so I just did a test set up first. This mast has already been clearcoated and I used the little circles you find at the very end of the guitar strings to make a little pully so I could have a main mast that I could raise and lower. I placed a * pully* on the top and bottom of the mast. Also I will wrape them up with a section of twine to hide the shiney metal bits.
 
 

[Cadet13]

Some great work here!

[Rocktroll]

Part three
 
Here the guitar string loop has not been hidden yet, I'll wait untill I get home where I have hidden some black dental floss i will use to wrap some of the rigging sections with to break the same twine colors.
 

 
The bar that runs across the top of the sail is called a Yard ( I think) and the one on the bottom is also a yard or a boom ( not sure if boom is for a different type of sail)
 
Either way on all the viking ships I saw on google, none had a bottom yard, the sail was always being blown in the wind and had ropes keeping them back. I got rid of my bottom yard and replaced it with a peice of wire to give the sail a curved look, like if it was being blown.
And on the page are the sizes of the dowels used for the yard and mast.
One thing about the multi-purpose twine, after you wrap it around what you want, you need to burn it very quickly to get rid of the stray threads.
 

 

Here is my first mock up. The rigging is temporary. I want it to run in such a way it doesnt keep figures from fitting on the hexes. Also the Sail can come up or down depending what the scenario is. Also I saw every single viking ship on google had a stay? ( the rope going from the top of the mast to the front of the ship, or bow)
 
I added a fore stay and a aft stay in addition to a rope to bring up the sails, another rope going across the top of the sail, and both ending up to where the rudder is and two more on the bottom of the sails to pull them back. I opted not to place 2 more ropes on the side of the mast as that would have just been to much in the way of moving the miniatures durring a game.
 

 
This ship is still missing alot, oars, painted shields, second row of shields, A FIGURE HEAD, and of course a decent looking rigging. I need to work with a better quick release system for the rigging for when I want to remove the ropes and remove the mast, I am thinking of using hooks, I have loops right now but I have to thread the rope through it, I think a hook will allow me to have pre-tighted but adjustable rigging I can just hook up and remove quickly with no fuss.
 
 

 
Looks messy but thats because the ends are not tied down, will use black dental floss to make the rigging stand out, and make the ropes adjustable.
 
Here is a picture of the mast down, all I did was release the ropes from their loops, folded all the ropes ( that are still attached to the sail) In the middle and roll it up, I like how this looks and I migth use this when I deply the oars.
 

 
And the key feature is that this ship fit into a toolbox or something similiar for when I need to pack it up and not worry about it breaking apart.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Still have alot to go on this ship but its starting to take shape


Any advice is always welcome. Any one have any ideas what I can improve?

[Rocktroll]

This is a repost from my thread over at heroscapers.com

Thought you guys might get a kick out of my improvised docks;


Posted 4 days ago

***************************************************************

Need to make this a quick post since I am late taking my fiance to Sams club ( Which I dont mind to see if they have coffee stirrers , sticks? little stirring sticks? dont even know what they are called or spelled)
 
Short short short version
 
 
Big mess in house we are doing spring cleaning,
 
Me " yes baby go to your appointment, I will move ALL these boxes outside, mow the lawn, AND empty out my game room"
Her " sure.. we will see"
 
I swear I was going to do all of it, even though I had just gotten the new star wars kinect for xbox, I Was going to wait till everything was done...
 
Then the mail man arrived.. 2 huge boxes. 2 HUGE ships.
 
I swear.. I was going to do it all, I really was. so..
 
Nothing got done, I downloaded the instructions online and put them together, ooohed and awwwed them for awhile. My fiance Z shows up and laughs about it. Saterday it is then.
 
She did ask me where I would place them since I had no room in my game ( hobby) room and I hadnt emptied it out yet.
 
So a hurricane hit my room, 4 boxes later, everything on the table and under it has been removed, alot of it still needs to be sorted out but the table was now clean!
 
And my fiance is awesome, she bought me blue cloth to make a map for the ships, and some linen cloth to make sails with.
 
Good thing this was the short version right?
 
So it was 3 AM in the morning when she told me to go to bed but I had finished THIS!!
 

 
 
It was her idea, she said I would need a dock to place all the ships, since it would take me at least a few months to convert them all
 
And now I had a place to put my first incomplete ship, the hybrid drakkar, dragonboat, longship, banana boat looking viking ship!
 

 
It was 3 am so I had forgotten to put on the flash. I dont have a name for this dock / pier ( whats the difference between a dock and a pier any way, must google it later)
 
South Guard house

 
Middle Guard house
Might make a light house on top of it
 
North guard house and smaller pier, needed something lower to the water for smaller skiffs, rowboats and smaller craft, so made a kind of rock outcropping

 
One of the two boxes that arrived today had my Ebay Weapons and Warriors Pirate battles. Brings 2 ships and 2 boats, they can be turned into skiffs and rowboats.

 
Dread Eye's Phantom showed up today, looked like a hurricane had hit her bad, was missing second top half of the mast and rear deck is missing the corner. And missing 3 of her sails.
 
Sails are really thin material and move and wave with the fan so it looks creepy!

 
Shes a big ship, took up most of the table / dock

 
Captian Cutlass's Stormrunner, a beautiful ship, she will take a lot of work to turn her into a 28mm ship. But she looks great as is right now. She had some broken mast, missing second top mast, missing sail and a few tiny bits. Nothing major as I was planning on replacing the mast and possible the sails too any how.
 
The Captain cutlass stormrunner, has the same hull as Redbeards Predator, and the Fireskiff. Taller but lower in the water than the Dread Eye's Phantom.

 

 
And my incomplete but almost there Viking wanna be , think I will name her Odin's spear or something. Not sure yet, she looks TINY now compared to the other 2 monsters that arrived.

 
And here are the ships at the dock / peir ( seriously I need to learn which is which).
 

 
I dont know how many castle sets I have, but I do know I have 8 doors. Most of my castles have been trades. It took almost all of them to make it but I still have a lot of pieces left over to make the actual docks that will go inbetween the ships, might make them out of wood though. and just shuffle them to the side as more ships arrive.
 
There isnt much room yet and I only have 4 tiny boats and 3 ships, and I have at least 4 more in route. Plus I am watching 3 more on ebay to convert for friends. I will break down each ship and how I convert it and upload the templates for making the decks if there is interest in that.
 
 
Good thing this was a short short post right?

[Doomsdave]

Looking forward to developments in this thread.  I bought the same Viking boat when it was on sale at Toys r Us.  I have been stuck on it for awhile. 


How many Castle kits did you have to use for that Dock?  4?

[Dave Knight]

Very impressive

Keep posting

[Rocktroll]

I am not sure about the viking boat but I believe there was 2 versions to it.

The most work was filling in the sides where the oars slots where. If I did another I would look for an alternative that didnt mean recasting the sides. Also, I am looking forward to receiveing some mega blok dragons so I can chop one up and use the head as a figure head.

I think I have around 8 castles, most have been from trades so I am not sure. I am looking forward to start making the rigging for this ship, any advice or suggestions are welcome.

I am still waiting on the decals for the shields, and I need to make the oars and mount them on a bar.

[Sinewgrab]

Addictive, isn't it?  You do one ship, and then you buy another, and then another...

Looks good, what you are doing.  Keep it up!