Barrels

I'm totally counting these cause they worked out so well.Which brings me up to 88 painted miniatures!

They started out as part of a set like this. Not this one but a cheaper version that I grabbed at Walgreen's or CVS.

Anyway, I sprayed them with a Krylov gun metal spray that, I think, is now discontinued. I can't find it anywhere. Next I "rusted" them up with some orange and brown paint. Then I printed out some poison and biohazard signs on sticker paper. I cut them down and stuck them to the barrels. Viola!

Here's a shot with a mini in it for scale.

Mars Attacks! Martian Replacement Helmets

Somewhere along the way a few Martian helmets went missing. They're small and clear and easy to lose. Mantic is pretty good about giving you extras but, even so, I managed to be about 8 short. No big deal as I happened to have some extra clear plastic lying around. 

Start with a dowel. I'm not sure how big this one is, probably 1/4".

Sand the end until you have a nice round tip.

Like this.

Then grab some clear plastic. This is from a used salad container.

  

Apply some heat to soften up the plastic. Not too close or you'll burn it!

Then, slowly, push the dowel into the heated plastic. Make sure you go far enough into it to make a good helmet. I'd say about 1.5 inches. Let it cool down a bit before you remove the dowel.

Then clip it off with some scissors.

Here's shot of a martian with my homemade helmet.

Here it is with the original helmet. Or is it?...

Mars Attacks!

I picked the Mars Attacks! Miniatures game with my points from using the Bing search engine. The core game was free, then I purchased another box of martians and soldiers on clearance from an online shop. then I grabbed the Big Stompy Robot on ebay, and I picked up the flying saucer using more Bing points on amazon. I also decided it would be cool to have some older era soldiers to play around with the actual Mars Attacks cards as a game idea. So I bought a pack of 30 Wargames Factory WWII soldiers. I'm painting 15 as actual WWII army soldiers and converting 15 of them into a 60's era Army uniform. I'd like to get some trucks and tanks for both eras as well. I'll post on that when I get them done.
So far I've only managed to get 20 martians painted. Which I'm counting towards my painting goal. Bring me up to 65 of 120. I'm working on some soldiers now and hope to have them done soon.
Someday, I'll get around to finishing everything for this one. Someday...

Here are some with helmets

And some without.

Miniature Storage Idea

From time to time I find old wooden silverware boxes at yard sales and thrift stores and if they're under $5, I grab them.

I have to say that I had other ideas in mind when I grabbed my first couple of boxes but, ultimately,  I decided to use them for miniature storage. I know it's not the most practical solution. The tool box type containers are more practical but this is cooler looking. :)

To start, I grabbed some 2" thick foam rubber at Hobby Lobby. Remember to grab your 40% off coupon at their website!

Alternately, you could grab some of the 1" thick foam and lay out a bottom piece, then cut a second layer and add whatever size miniature spaces you'd like.

Remove the silverware holder insert thingy inside the box. There are usually only a few nails holding it in place.

Next, cut the foam to fit the space inside the box. Measure a tad small and things will fit much easier.

Then, I recommend making a template for cutting your spaces out. 

I went with a piece of cardboard and cut mine at 1" x 1/2".

I cut the foam with a "sawing" type motion. Meaning I "saw" into the foam, pull it up and move it slightly forward before going back in again.

Here's a shot of the finished piece. It holds 42 miniatures.

Bonus: The "loops" that hold silverware on the inside of the lid can be used to hold pencils.

I can't really imagine a game where you would require a dozen pencils though.

All that's left to do is to give the box a light sanding and then apply some stain to it. It'll look (almost) brand new! 

UPDATE
Here's a pic of the sanded and stained box.

 With some miniatures

6446

ERTL Farm House Set

I picked up one of these online. The ERTL stuff is listed as 1/64th scale (same as the Machine Shed. See that here, here and here) but I think it runs a little big.

Here's a repainted Heroclix mini for comparison.

 and

It's a small-ish house but it works for me. Well... it WILL work as soon as I finish it. ;)

How will I finish it? 

Well..., I started by cutting down some left over illustration board to fit in as interior walls. They measure 1-7/8" high. The short walls are 4-1/16" wide and the longer walls are 6-9/16" wide.

Next, I cut them and placed them in the house to make sure they fit. Adjust/trim as necessary.

Next, I grab a knife and "score" into the board from the outside using the windows as my guide. You could use a pencil or pen here too, I just went in with the knife.

Then cut the windows all the way out.

Place them inside to see how well they work. As you can see in the picture below I also measured out the floor space and cut a piece of board to fit. Right now, since I haven't decided if I'm going to glue the walls in or not, I recommend cutting the walls first, then measure for the floor. This way when you place the floor in it helps to hold the walls in place. My idea is to be able to swap the walls out so that I can have different color walls or paneling or things like that.

Next I grabbed a bunch of coffee stirrers and started laying out a floor. The more narrow the better as far as I'm concerned.

I started by laying out 4 sticks and measuring them for the width of the interior floor. Then I started glueing the floor slats to the support sticks. I had to add extra support sticks periodically to help keep the sticks close together and to keep them from bowing or warping.

Next time I'm going to vary the pattern a bit more, this is a little to "patterny" for my tastes. It should look more like a hardwood floor.
Yeah... nitpicky... I know.

It does look pretty cool when placed inside the house.

That's it for now. Coming up I plan to:

  • Create another hardwood floor for the second level

  • Create the attic

  • Create a basement space

  • Paint the exterior of the house

  • Figure out how to make some better shutters
  • Make it so that the door can be opened. Maybe.
  • Make some interior walls that can be arranged in different configurations.

  • Create a stairwell

  • Make or buy some furniture

  • I'm sure there's more but I can't think of anything else right now.

Painting Goal for January. Complete!

The goal: 10 miniatures a month.
Here's January
5 zombies. It's hard to tell from this picture but the zombie cop on the left kinda looks like Burt Reynolds. The little girl zombie is still clutching her teddy bear and on the containment suits I added some clear plastic visors to them.

The cops are Heroclix (Aaron Cash with new hands) miniatures and the other 3 are from the Zpocalypse Hospital Horde set.


5 Survivors (yes, I am including the motorcycle).
It's hard to tell in this pic too but the blonde detective has a bloody bandage over her nose. The miniature was damaged and it looked weird as I painted it, so I flattened it out a bit more and gave her a busted nose.

The survivors are all repainted heroclix miniatures

Life and stuff...

With the added expense of daycare my wife and I decided that we could no longer afford our studio space. We gave it up in the fall and I moved everything into a storage space. The goal was to have enough room in there to be able to go in and do a little work now and then.

Sadly, that goal was not attainable. It starts with properly labeled boxes and the intent of having an organized space and it ends with a mad dash of cramming everything into whatever available boxes you have and throwing it into the storage space.

The new, altered, goal was to just be able to find stuff so I could bring it home to work on. That goal has been met. So far.


Speaking of goals, I have decided to try and paint 10 minis a month. Or 120 miniatures by years end. I'd also like to include building a few IHC Homes of Yesterday and Today model kits. Lets say 4 of those (I have 6 or 7 of them).

 I have all 5 of the storefront buildings.
     300-14 Second Hand Rose

     300-15 South Street Smoke Shop

     300-16 Rita's Antique Shop

     300-17 O'Weeds Greenery

     300-18 Grant Cary's Apothecary

And 2 of the Gingerbread houses:
     300-2 The Queen Anne House
     300-3 Steiner House

I will take some pics at another time (and detail my plans for them), until then these ebay pics will do.

All in all it seems like an attainable goal as I have already painted 21 minis. So, January and February are basically covered before February starts. Though I suspect that at the end of the year I'll have about 50-60 painted and maybe 1 IHC kit put together (I have already started on one IHC kit as I type this so that should get finished). I have to add the ERTL farm house to this list.

Game Board

Awhile back I realized that I would never get anything done if I didn't figure out a way to focus on my projects. I start on a project, get about 1/4 of the way into it and think of how I could make something else. That would then draw my interest into the new project leaving the old one sitting on my desk. Repeat that thought process about a 100 times and you can paint a picture of what the studio looks like. I have an area of "to paint" miniatures, and an area of "to convert" miniatures, some random 1/48 scale cars to weather, a few 1/48 scale motor homes & ambulances to convert, a pile of white plastic fences that I'm building a gate for (that opens, of course), there's some mesh to make chain link fences, a box of o-scale train tracks, 4" card board tubes and fake brick to make some subway boards, some black grout and plastic strip that will eventually become a paved road set, boxes of 1/48 scale city building models to put together, and on and on and on...

So... my idea to focus came to me as a game board set. I figured I had most of the parts to set up a farm house and surrounding area.
I had made some wood fences .
http://confessionsofaminiaturemodeler.blogspot.com/2013/10/making-fences.html
I had bunch of trees and I had made the fields already.
The silo was painted.
http://confessionsofaminiaturemodeler.blogspot.com/2013/10/thrift-score.html
I had my Machine Shed.
http://confessionsofaminiaturemodeler.blogspot.com/2014/04/ertl-farm-country.html

And I found an Ertl farm house (which I had started working on how to add some interiors to). Most of my grass boards were in pretty good shape and I felt like this was my best shot at getting something done. There is a TON of stuff to do to it still but it's coming together.

The ERTL Machine Shed conversion Part 2

I built up the area around the door and added some side supports.

Then I sprayed the interior pieces with the metal spray. I'll have to write it down next time I go to the studio so I can post it here. I really like the look of it on the structures.

Some miniatures for scale purposes.

And the door pieces (again, I forgot my camera so no step by step pics).
I glued a thin piece of plastic down to the inside of the door, then added some strips of plastic to give it some depth.


Next I will add a black wash to the inside to give it more depth, then add some rust spots.

After that,  I have to mask off the interior and spray the exterior of the building and the roof.
And finally,  I have to create a poured cement floor for the interior.
And since nothing is ever really finished. I might add an interior office type structure, or some work rooms on one end, or along the side maybe? Dunno. We'll have to see what happens when I get closer to finishing.