Gunbird travels the Wasteland (17-8 Changes!)

[Hupp n at em]

Well, I post on the Dutch Wargamers FB group cause I might demo the game at a event in 2017 (IF I can keep my focus) and a chap mentioned the Marx cars as being great for me. When I countered that with the high cost per car on Ebay (and on this forum - 15 dollars per car!) and me having a monthly budget of 25 euros he said he had bought 80 of them for 150$ years ago and could spare me 8 for a tenner. Can't say not to that, cause that plus the Cars cars I'm working on should be enough for my max sized board (won't go bigger then 122 square for this, 90 square preferred)

  Holy crap, 80 of those suckers! That's crazy.

[Gunbird]

Holy crap, 80 of those suckers! That's crazy.

My thoughts exactly. Sadly, the wife vetoed the purchase, saying I can buy them when I the kids leave the house. That will be about 18 years from now  So back to scrapping Cars cars it is....

[Gunbird]

New year, new ideas, trying out new things.

Remember this?


Well, 5 sheets of A4 foamboard and about 7 hours of planning, cutting and glueing later I have this:








1 evening and 1 afternoons worth of time, 4,5 sheets of A4 foamboard, about 50 toothpicks and a handfull of coffee stirrers, and a small strip of blue foam with plenty of woodglue and some scrap cereal box. I know sort of know what can be done and can't be done, what to look at when planning something big like this and how I have to make the open areas, though the right side first floor is harder to reach then I had planned, I'll find a way to paint it. This is also the max size my cupboard can hold (base was 1 A4 sheet of plasticcard, cut down to fit snugly around the base.

Next step is to use thinned down wall filler and cover all of the exposed foam, cut out 3 cardboard doors to stick in the openings, fill the corners with bigger stones and debris, give everything another coating with thinned down wall filler and sand/rubble the base.

The template I made was a godsent and thanks to it the rest of the large buildings will fit with eachother to create 1 long or closed structure.....or it should be by the time I'm done with it!

Now to review the tutorial about using the thinned down wallfiller......

[rollawaythestone]

Wow, seriously impressive! Anytime I attempt foam board construction I am left underwhelmed. Might inspire me to pick up the hobby knife and try again...

[DELTADOG]

Hell Yeah thats nice!
Please take some extra time, go back to your Coffeestirrers and add some texture to the boring flat Cerealbox Doorblockers :-) PLEASE 

[Sinewgrab]

Damn, son, that is a beaut!

[zizi666]

Please stop being so creative.
You're making a lot of us look bad 
...
Nah, keep 'em coming. Way too awesome not to share this with us. 

BTW : would be nice if you could specify on your do's and dont's. Spare us from finding out ourselves should we ever start up such a project.

[Hupp n at em]

Wow, that looks great!  Job well done.    Will you be posting the template you used?

[Anpu]

Sweet!

[pocoloco]

Great work! Will be grand to see rest of the buildings as well

[Gunbird]

Not to many do's and don't.

Do use a cutting mat. Not only does it prevent from ruining your table, the lines help with lining up your cuts.
Do use a metal rules. Don't use plastic ones. Your knife will slip and jump across your fingers. Been there, done that.
Do start with a fresh scalpel or knife blade. I've done 99% of the cuts with it, and the 1% where I used a old blade the foam ripped
Do plan ahead, even with a basic drawing. You can change to taste while building anyway, no need to make a full architects drawing!
Do pin stuff while drying. Don't worry about the holes, they are easily filled later.
Do plan your cuts (at least at the start). I picked up 60 sheets in one go from a online dumpstore so I'm set for a while at rockbottom prices, but I put all of my offcuts in a box to keep for later. Now, at the rubble stage, I can cut those apart to make rubbleheaps from that can be covered with debris and filler, wasting less.
Do a test first with something simple. Not my kind of simple.  

Don't worry about little gaps and stuff not meeting up correct. Filler will cover any sin. When in doubt, glue a sheet of paper over a part where many joins akwardly looking and use filler over that.
Don't fret when it does not work like you want to. You are learning a new skill. Rome wasn't built in a day. Learn from your mistakes.

Foamboardbuilding is a simple and inexpensive hobby and creates sturdy and durable scenery for a very low cost. And since time is what I have enough, and money not enough by a mile, that suits me just fine.

And above all, just have fun. During the past few days I've walked away several times when I could not solve a small problem with the building and had to think it over. Heck, I even had a long chat with my wife and she was the one who suggested to change the left side into what you see now to make it more symmetrical and to give a jump off point for a walkway, as well as another door to spawn ghouls from.

Last nights filler seems to have dried nicely, so let's see how far I will get today. I'll try and grab a pic of the template when I go downstairs. It's a really simple thing like the one I use for my 20mm stuff.

[zizi666]

Very much the rules I follow except the pinning, but that's probably because I use a rabbet cutter to cover the joints with excess card.

[Gunbird]

Well, I do remove the pins after it has dried, just woodglue plus the fact I like to make things box shaped makes it strong enough I think.

[Gunbird]

Feck me, I have not held my concentration like this in a long while. This is a good thing.

I've stuccoed the ruin all over(well, except the ceilings I just noticed) and started rubbling them up a bit.






Problem is that I ran out of rubble almost straight after I started. I only have a kilogram box of normal basing sand with some coarser elements, but nothing like big grain and small chunks of rock. A quick check of the online stores pulled up tabs around 15 euros including shiping for just a single bag of stuff, and at the second hand Marktplaats they still charged me 6 euros for small rough gravel, 100 grams, shipping included. Well, that dog don't hunt, so I set the building aside.

I had to report at work this morning, to discuss getting back in the saddle (starting again on monday, 4 hours a day - funny thing, my boss is on crutches cause he broke his leg 4 weeks ago....and he is coming to work every day) and after that I decided to park up in the city to have my walking excercise there. I ran into a discount shop full of, well, crap, but in the back was a big table with discounted stuff and Buy 2 get 1 free. And what do I spy with my spectacled eye?



My wife tells me they use this for adding to potted plants and candles to make it look rustic...something? Whatever, I just bagged 3 pots for a total of 1 kilo of grit and coarse bits of ghastly coloured rock. I'll paint them over anyway so who cares. Grand total, 1,70 euro. Happy camper, problem solved.

A few weeks ago I put out a request to the kit trading post for surplus 1:35 scale ammo cans, and found the replies to be most unhelpful ("Go buy aftermarket resin stuff" was the main comment) but 1 chap offered me 2 sets of 1:35 Italeri Modern Battle Gear for a tenner or a 2 engined bomber. Well, better then nothing I thought. So I got two sets of these:



Next to 8 useful ammo cans, there are also a load of boxes and cans of various types, and 1 oild can, on its side and with a circle added in the middle is a dead ringer for a Fallout safe so yes, very happy with these. The 1:35 tank shells I'll try and trade to a 40K IG player. The gas canisters are nice too.



While making a feeble attempt to clear my desk (failed that) I found my mines again, so I glued tose to my painting sticks and basecoated them.



Also made some more progress on some Cars cars.



Final highlight of the week was trading these online for some Cars cars that I had spare.



I just need 1, so 2 of them I'll offer up for trade. Not sure if I wil do that before or after giving them new Nuka Cola labels. They are about 8 cm's tall and will work perfectly standing in front of a building I think. They are actually glass and 2 of them contain liquid!

That's it for today, I'm off to fysio for some knee work.

[DELTADOG]

Nice progress! That italieri Battle supplement is on my wishlist as well. Especially the Roadinforcement Metalplates are extremly cool!

Hope to see the sentries in paint soo as well. Can´t wait to see them painted, but have no time to paint mine atm.