STARGUARD! (Finally!)

[grubman]

And the gang’s all here!  Well, those are all the minis I have to paint until my mega-order comes in.  That’s just as well, because it will give me time to work on the tabletop and terrain.  Hopefully I’ll have a decent play surface ready to go when the rules get here, so I can read rules in the day, and paint some minis at night.  I’ll post pictures of the table and terrain as I build stuff…hopefully I’ll be able to turn a bunch of cheap junk into a cool looking table top.

[grubman]

Well, I don’t know how it is for other people, but, for me, the first thing I do when I get ready to build terrain is look for free shit I can turn into something.

My wife just purchased a new paper shredder.  Can you believe she was going to throw away the packing material without consulting me first!  Luckily I saw her hauling this to the recyclables when I yelled, “NOOOOOO!” and rescued it.

Good lord, this was almost too easy!  Trim it, base the thing on a piece of cardboard, add a few doors and windows (with an old used USPS envelope), give the whole thing a loving paint job, and instant alien building, outpost, laboratory…or whatever!

Fortunately for me, I picked up the material to build a gaming surface today, so this lonely piece of terrain will soon have a place to sit.

[Ray Rivers]

 

The is a fantastic building!

Super catch on the packaging... I'm always looking for stuff like that as well.

[Ramshackle_Curtis]

http://www.tin-soldier.com/sg/imperium.html

Hmm, reminds me of soethign else, cant quite put my finger on it...

[grubman]

Christ on a crutch, when you get rolling you roll man! A squad of figs and terrain in less time than it takes me to paint 3 figs!

Well, like I said, I'm not a eavy metal painter...but I'm fast!   However, these were particularily easy, only a couple hours work tops.  The building only took me about 2 hours (not counting some down dry time).

When you don't have a lot of "spare time" you learn how to make the best of it.

The table top is the monotinous work.  That type of thing tends to take a bit longer.

[grubman]

http://www.tin-soldier.com/sg/imperium.html

Hmm, reminds me of soethign else, cant quite put my finger on it...

Yeah, I plan on painting mine a different color...so they don't look like Stormtroopers

[dodge]

Beautiful use of something that was going to get thrown away.

good results too,

looked on the website and although its not my cup of tea, I really like what you have done with those dreenoi. 

dodge

[raskal]

Despite the fact that I have no opponents to play I started to paint my Repcom

[grubman]

YAAAARG!!

While waiting for the final coat of paint to dry on my play surface I decided to get started on the mountains and hills.

On the first hill I was cutting my Styrofoam cutter blade snapped!  Now I can't work on this all important step until I take another trip into Green Bay.  That won't be until the weekend for sure. 

Oh well, I'll have to work on other terrain.

[Doc Twilight]

wow those repcon dont look like the total crap the website would have you believe they are!

Yeah, the Reverisco figs actually have a lot of charm/character to them. It's just that the ones on the site were mostly painted up quickly for photographing. It's a nice idea, so that you can get an idea of what the fig looks like with color on it, but I think it's turned away a lot of potential customers.

I can't say this enough - Reverisco's figures are really much better than they look. Definitely a case of miniatures that feel better and paint better than they have any right to.

-Doc

[Cosmotiger]

That electronics packing stuff is great, I used some of it to make Tatooine buildings a few months ago.

I like the Dreenoi, they do have a ceratain retro charm.  I agree that the slapdash painting of the figures on the Reviresco site doesn't do them any favors.  I've occasionaly run across their figures in person, and they may not be up to modern standards, but I like the raygun sci-fi look.  I would certainly consider them useable for wargaming purposes.

[Argonor]

That electronics packing stuff is great, I used some of it to make Tatooine buildings a few months ago.

I have a bunch of HP printer toner packaging I have salvaged to make a LotR Mahud settlement 

[grubman]

Time has been tight the last couple days, but I got my play surface done, and am happy with how it came out.

I decided to let fate determine how I build the surface.  I had a lot of ideas (both tried and true and some new ones) but just went to Fleet Farm browsing.  I looked at wood, foam, and about anything that might be good for something.

I was happy to find some sheets of white Styrofoam already cut into 4’ x 14.5” (3/4” thick).  Not sure what these are used for, perhaps filling in those plastic window shutters?  While Blue or pink Styrofoam is good for a lot of things, I figured white would work better for this because it is more porous.  Since I wasn’t going to flock the tiles, I figured this would give the surface a different dimension.  ¾” thick is generally a bit thin, but, I was looking to conserve as much space as possible, so these were just the ticket.  At $.71 cents a sheet I purchased 8 (4 for the tabletop for a surface area about 4’ x 5’…big enough for my first skirmishes and easily expandable at a later date when my battles get larger).  I had a $25 gift card for Fleet Farm…so it was all free



Whenever I work with Styrofoam (tiles or entire tables) I always put masking tape on the border.  Not only does this firm up the whole thing, but, it protects the edges and corners from breaks and chips.  It also looks a lot neater and cleaner IMHO.



I purchased a pint of latex paint from Wal-mart for the project (about $6).  I painted up the tiles, and sprinkled on some sand while the paint was still wet.  Let it dry overnight and then gave it another coat of paint.  Needless to say, my wife wasn’t real happy about all the purple crap laying all over the living room and kitchen…but she still loves me.



Once the paint was dry I was able to do some drybrushing and splattering with a lighter purple, and then did some spotting with the multi colored static grass I’m using for all the terrain (to help unify the entire thing).  I’d like to seal the whole thing with some spray finish because the surface is going to see a lot of “wear”, but one of the downfalls of white Styrofoam and those pores I told you about,  is that even after it is painted, aerosol spray will still get into those pores and melt the thing from the inside out.  So, no spray sealer.  It’ll probably be fine for many years anyway, I’m just a bit compulsive when it comes to stuff like this, and knowing it’s not sealed will bother me to no end!

[cccrkl] blblblblblblb master, we’ve landed on the planet [cccrkl]

[zzzzzzt]  GOOD!  WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE? [zzzzzt]

[ccccrkl]  blblblblbl…er…blblblblb…not much! [cccrkl]

   

[Argonor]

my eyes hurt! 

Very alien planet. Have you checked out Matakishi's site for alien plants and other scenery?

[Torben]

Although there's still very little in regards to terrain, it's looking very interesting!

Keep posting about this project; I'm getting rather intrigued by this whole Starguard thing. Especially seeing that it's something else than "dark gloomy gothic sci-fi"

P.S: Would it be possible for a Starguard "The GAME" review at some point? What's the rules like and so on?