Colonial Space Base

[Ray Rivers]

Well...

After being inspired by DeathWing's Foamcore Mansion of Madness I decided to have another shot at building a Colonial Outpost/Space Base/Space Ship.

My concept has always been to build the structure inside boxes (easy storage) and I have tried a couple times now and failed.  My earlier attempts used plastic card and bits which I attempted to put together and make a modular system which could be used for a variety of games of the "Space Hulk" type, but more oriented towards stuff like the Alien or Doom movies.

Thanks to DeathWing, I checked out and bought World Works Games "First Light" .pdf, which though it is a space ship I figured I could modify to meet my goal.

So far, I am still working on the first "module," but I thought folks may find some interest in seeing my progress, so I decided to post some pic's along the way.

My first module will be crews quarters and a galley. 

Here is a picture showing the startup and basic materials:



I downloaded the First Light .pdf and began messing around with scaling by printing out some of the basic floors and seeing how they fit.  Once I was happy with the scale, I copied floor sections to my paint program, printed them out on heavy 250 gram (I believe it is called) card, cut them out, glued them (using super glue) to the foam card and cut the "finished" floor section out.

I then began messing around with the internal layout and here is a picture of what I decided on:



Once I had the layout figured out, I then turned to building the foamcore walls.  I started by printing out a wall section from the First Light .pdf to use as a reference, and then with lots of measuring, started cutting out each section.

Here is a photo of where I stand right now:



Notice the height of the foamcore walls are equal to the height of the box.  The intention is to completely transform the box such that it looks both from an interior and exterior viewpoint, like a building or part of a space ship.

This is the where I am right now.  I still haven't glued anything in place yet, and I know I'm going to have to "kitbash" a lot of the .pdf graphics to make it all fit, but for the first time, I think I'm actually going to be able to pull this off.

We'll see how it comes out, and I will post shots as I go.  And BTW, sorry if the photos aren't the greatest, for the construction I'm just using a "point and shoot" digital camera.  Hopefully, if it comes out okay I'll make some nicer shots with a better camera before moving on to create some more modules.

[Luckyjoe]

Hi, Ray. Thanks for posting this interesting and helpful article. I like reading these kind of things and I hope to learn a lot. I was also inspired by Deathwing's Mansion and am thinking about making a small skyscraper for my city board. I expect there will be a lot of parallels in your project that I can draw on. It looks like you are off to a good start. I am going to be watching this space for updates.

Luckyjoe

[O gato Mortimer]

 A "surtido Martinez" box?  :PTasty!

[twrchtrwyth]

Good ideas there, can't wait to see more.

[Ray Rivers]

Suffered my first setback.   

After cutting the walls for the other side of the box, I discovered that the passageway was too narrow to put my hand inside and move my mini's.  Re-cut the wall section to place it on top of the floor section to give me more space for the passageway, but  it is still too thin given the height of the walls.  Bottom line, the box is too big, so I have to change my plan.

Have decided to cut the interior walls down by about a quarter.  This sets me back in construction but actually has one, and possibly two, good side effects.  The best thing about it is that I can cut the walls to exactly match the height of the .pdf wall images.  The appearance, however, will be kinda "sunk in" which I am not too pleased about.  However, it may offer me the opportunity to make an air vent system above the rooms for which sneaky Aliens or frightened humans can move.  Dunno, will have to do some experimenting here to see what I can come up with.

I knew this wouldn't be easy and that is why I haven't glued anything together yet.  We'll see tomorrow how it scales out.

*sigh*

[Deathwing]

Good work and I'm really glad I inspired others.  Gentlemen, back to your razors!

Joey

[bandit86]

looking forward to your progress.  good start

[Ray Rivers]

Okay...

Here is a picture to give you an idea of the height problem I have run into:



You might notice that since last posting I have now done the corridor floor pieces and so the flooring is complete.

I also have been working in parallel on some Alien 2 type Colonial Space Marines and have finished the first three today.

[Ray Rivers]

One can only do terrain for so long... 

At the same time I began my Space Base, I also dug out some old em4 Future Skirmish Troopers which I had started painting loooong ago but never finished.

I gave them a bath in nail polish remover and did my best to speed paint the Colonial Marines from the movie "Aliens" (Alien 2).  The paints I used were all Foundry:

- Flesh Triad + Spearshaft Shade for the flesh
- Moss Triad for the uniforms
- Forest Green Triad for the Armor + Black
- Royal Purple Shade and Light for the "doohicky" on the top of the dude's helmet
- Forrest Green Light + a watered down Forest Green for the pulse rifles
- Black + Slate Grey + Chainmail for the boots and rifle
- Black + Slate Grey + Slate Grey Light for the goggles

I wanted the bases to match the space station so before painting them I cut down the metal insert that goes into the plastic base into two sharp pegs.  Once finished painting, I then found a coin approximately the size of the top of the base, used it to draw a circle on a piece of the corridor .pdf files I printed out and then cut the round piece out of the card.

Here you see the setup for basing the troopers:



I then super glued the round .pdf tiles on top of the base and "punched" (more or less... it was a bit more complicated than that) the pegs through the card into the slot of the base.  To cement them in place I cut off some plastic, inserted it into the slot of the base and super glued it all together.

Here is a somewhat blurry photo of what "under the hood" looks like:



Once dried I was actually quite happy with the look it gives, although by themselves the basing is quite plain.  Here is a shot of the troopers on a length of corridor:



And here is a nice close up of my "bad ass" Colonial Marines:



Now... back to doing the Space Base...

[Luckyjoe]

That's a great idea to use the pdf for the base. I wish I had seen that before I based 22 zombies last night.  Great job on the painting of the minis also.

Luckyjoe

[Ray Rivers]

Thanks,

Yep, the .pdf works well, but make sure you print it on cardstock not paper.

The problem that is driving me crazy at the moment isn't the minis, I've painted lots of those, it's construction that I don't have much experience with.

 

[Luckyjoe]

One thing I learned from making dungeons with Hirst Arts bricks is that I had to adjust my wall heights downward so we could move the miniatures more easily. I tried just making the hallways with lower height walls, while the rooms themselves had full height walls. That works fine as long as the dungeon is spread out, but in a building or ship interior where the halls and rooms are close together, you have to lower the heights of the room walls also. I didn't like that because I didn't like the way the rooms looked with the low walls. There are work-arounds, though. You can have sections of the walls removable, or have larger rooms detachable or separate. The first option is easier to do with Hirst Arts bricks than it is with foamcore, though.

Speaking of which, have you ever been to the Hirst Arts site and seen his Starship deck and wall molds?

Luckyjoe

[Ray Rivers]

Hey Lucky,

Your advice is spot as... he swings and strikes yet again!   

Yep, the walls were just too high.  So I've gone back to the design stage and this time I think I have it sorted.  I don't think lowering the walls will be any big deal as I want it to be a bit "claustrophobic" and after thinking about it, I do indeed want to incorporate an air shaft system above the rooms.

The big lesson learned here is, if you aren't going to do the model as made, than you really have to put a lot of thought into the construction, a lot more than I initially thought.  That goes for not only planning out in detail how it is going to be laid out, but then "shopping" the graphics so that they fit neatly.

I think I'm on the right road now, we'll soon see... I've become a bit fanatical about this project...

And yes, I have seen the Hirst products and they look very kewl.  Never tried them though, perhaps one day.

[Luckyjoe]

Hi, Ray. Yeah, I know what you mean about how much harder it is to modify a pdf type model. I think its easier to just scratchbuild than to put all the time and effort trying to do the modifications. That's why I'm so interested in your thread, I'm hoping to slipstream off all of your hard work.  Seriously though, I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Joe

[Deathwing]

I'm not very good at the graphics programs, so I tend to mod my stuff physically by cutting and such. 

Joey