I know I'm probably trying to teach Grannies to suck eggs but just in case
you don't know what HVAC stand for , it's Heating Ventilation and Air
Conditioning. HCACs are mostly to be seen in films involving roof-top chases and are both ideal cover for figures and help break up the boring expanse of flat roofs. The top photo shows two of the card air conditioning units I've made. They're from either WWG, Twilight or Fat Dragon, but I can't really remember which.
The second photograph shows a homemade HVAC unit shown against the commercial one
My unit is about the same size as the commercial ones at approximately 2cm x 6cm x 3cm high.
The original idea was to use the base of a plastic pork pie tray to substitute for the wire mesh, unfortunately this had many disadvantages. Firstly being see-through didn't help and secondly the glue I used seemed to have a very strange melting effect on the plastic.(I later found an exceedingly good cake tray packaging in red that would have helped). Other materials used were scraps of card, coffee stirrers and some boxes which were the "body" of the units, something akin to a normal matchbox could easily be used.
The actual construction was simpleI glues a frame of strirrers around each on the long sides of the central core box and then added the mesh. Each end has a couple of cardboard bits added as does the tops of the unit. The vertical panels are once more stirrers cut to fit.
This last photograph shows the end view of the HVAC's and the card panel. The tops, as well as the fronts do have some variation as i was mainly using up scraps of card.As usual, for some reason the photographs don't show the true colours of the pieces, it's not just my crap painting !
This week's blog post has been a bit of a filler as real-life events caught up with me last week, but next week I should have at least one or more of the four buildings I've been working on at a stage where I feel comfortable enough to post pictures. The internal walls and fixtures are however another matter, as I continue to chop and change my views about the buildings' purpose.
Finally I'll welcome my latest follower "Zed Monkey" whose blog can be found here and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.
Very nice work. Any estimate on build time?
ReplyDeleteThanks Pulp,as in most of the "little" stuf I do i really don't keep track of how long any particular task takes as it's normally done in-between other tasks. I had done four intially using the plastic things and they seem to take much longer than the eight I did using mesh. Overall I'd say no more than a couple of hours cutting out card and gluing and maybe another hour fitting those pesky vertical bits. Add my painting time (a bit slap-dash tbf) of about another hour, for a total time of maybe just on four hours for the eight mesh ones.
DeleteMaking another eight at the same time wouldn't double the time though, mass production is always quicker.
Nice job on these Joe, Very nice for blocking lines of site as well. I Can imagine some Batman miniature and Pulp City players interested in making some of these.
ReplyDeleteThanks Brummie, never thought about lines of sight, but you're right and add a few roof-top billboards too and you'll have quite an aerial jungle.
DeleteAnother little thing for me to have a go at some point, nice job again Joe
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave, I do hope others try little things like this so I can copy their's too.
DeletePerfect for those rooftop and fire escape shenanigans.
ReplyDeleteYou're right AL, though making simple fire escapes has, well, err, escaped me.
ReplyDeleteGreat work, very clever too!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ray
ReplyDeleteDo you have shares in coffee stirrers manufactures? I really like the idea of a roof top chase with Fast zombies. Very filmic. Exciting because the players would need to move fast enough to escape the zeds but still be cautious enough to not fall. What an excellent idea of yours.
ReplyDeleteThanks Clint. I doubt I was thinking of roof top zombie chase scenes, but more in the line of roof-top shoot-outs.
DeleteI've been using tapers (for bunsen burners rather than stirring coffee) for many many years to build models. - From have ship decks planked in it to the beam effects on Tudor buildings.
These are very good, Joe. However, I can't help thinking that making the HVAC units provided by card modelling companies would be a lot easier. After all, they are just simple box shapes. Plus, they come in lots of colours, sizes and designs. By the way, the two card models you showed at the start were by Micro-Tactix from their Twilight City sets.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bryan, if you look back at my attempts at card modelling you'll see that they're not that much easier for me and I have all these spare box shapes lying around too. I also find that printing out the models, cutting them and sticking them together then reinforcing them with card (as in the two above) a pain and really not that much quicker - after all we can't all be Vampifan's when it comes to card modelling.
DeleteThanks Joe had no idea what these were based on the title of the post, B-U-T, now I know, cool idea and your right great for roof top shoot outs
ReplyDeleteThanks TE, always glad to help
ReplyDelete