2015 - Where did it go ?

Water Tower

Well, 2015 came and went in a flash and although I didn't manage to put any  paint on any figures this last year I still feel that I did manage to a few things done.

In January, I finished off this Water Tower,

 and "Bonerippers"

 and a random Downtown building

 I managed to play games in February and March, which was a welcome break  from fiddling about with bits of scrap, foamboard and paper printouts.

Bonerippers

Downtown building

Office building

For nearly all of April and May I was ill and was unable to blog, but eventually was recovered enough to continue blogging in June with another downtown office building built from foamboard (no interior).
I did also manage to fit in another game in June too, which was a bonus.









July and August were mostly taken up  with minor scenic bits (mostly roof-top furniture) and a large composite model made from foamboard,  that had originally been intended for use as a Hospital.

Largest model to date

Container Office

 September saw me complete one of the smaller models I built during 2015, a container office 
 I'd also managed to make lots of containers at about the same time too.
I managed to fit another game in during October and built up enough enthusiasm to continue with a build I had started in 2012 - The Stree. This latter build has had to take a back seat for the moment as I await printouts for the interior walls and floors 0 and a back staircase still needs to be built.

"The Street"

And other than a few minor bits and pieces, that was it for me in 2015, which on reflection turned out much better than I thought it would. For 2016, I hope that a can maintain my waning enthusiasm to at least that of 2015.

That's ot then for this week (and for this year too), I hope you all have had an enjoyable seasonal break and are all looking forward to a prosperous and industrious New Year. 

Happy Holidays

"You're on the naughty list  - Right ?"

Nothing to report this week, but I will take the opportunity to wish everyone of my followers "Seasonal Greetings".
It's been a very strange year for me, but quite productive in some respects. more of which I'll be posting about next week.
But for all those that follow this blog and post comments I am truly appreciative. For those who have their own blogs that I also follow (many more than I can find time to comment on) I have also to thank, for their inspirational posts, their entertaining aars,, wonderful painting etc. etc.



I hope you all have a great holiday season and enjoy the break; to those of you in the painting challenge -good luck and to those in the unfortunate position of having to work over the holiday period, here's hoping it's not too arduous.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time to read.

Paint-table 2015

Another reason why I can't have nice things

The photograph shows my paint-table as it has been for much of 2015 and you wonder why I haven't painted any 28mms this year!
There are some 28mms(though not for my zombies); they're just about visible,  on the table (bottom right) that have had some paint applied, but even though they were started in January (or thereabouts ), they're still not finished ! There are other 28mm figures there too for my zombie games, but they'll need an archaeological expedition to find them.
In the bottom centre are four more 54mms that I'm currently painting for my Gladiator project, the latter having received much of my painting time this year.
In case you're wondering, I don't really use this table to sit and paint at, I tend to use an additional separate tray with the figures and paints I'll be using on it and I also have a large box of paints (of a similar size to the above table) containing mostly tube of acrylic, rather than pots.
Painting anything is more or less currently off my agenda, not for any major health reasons (for a change), but for flagging enthusiasm and other real-life issues.

That's it for this week, no progress in anything zombie-related !

Burger Joint (Street 6)

So this week I've made a start on the internal fittings for the street's burger joint.
It took a while to make all the pre-fabricated bits to align and fit into something that I was happy with.
I also had to omit a wall as I was running out of internal space to fit it - one of the problems of not allowing for wall thicknesses when planning a model.

Plan view

Here then is a general plan view of the 'woring' end of the burger joint, notice how the camera angle makes the whole thing look skewed ? - (There's a reason for that, as it is -  but not as much as appears).
The photograph below shows a larger view of the place, so, clockwise from the door*where Sid is)we have the kitchen unit, toilet (rest room for any US readers), main seating area (currently standing only), the counter area and a small store area. 

Bigger plan view of the 'important' bit

Kitchen - from a WorldWorksGame pack

Toiler entrance (notice the door to the counter area)

Counter service area with Sid in the Kitchen

Reverse view of counter 

The 'missing'  wall was a short section between the back door and  the store area, but I decided it would be too small in the final build and was omitted.

Bits

Some bits from my bits box; I'm not happy with the washers (guess where they're for) , but the kitchen unit and boxes are OK and will be usable .

Shelving once more by WorldWorksGames

The photograph on the right shows a quick mock-up of the Blue Sun store, using bits, again from my bits box, that I made several years ago. I will scratch-build some specifically for the Blue Sun store though, as I originally intended and as I did for my Superdupermart

Storage area for the Blue Sun

The store-room for the Blue Sun store will probably have some shelving added and a few extras too - the boxes came from my bit's box and were made for the storeroom (years ago too)
The most 'interesting' bit of this photograph is probably the slot that can be seen on the back wall, for the shutter door to be inserted into - hence making an opening door.
The door was made (years ago) but remains elusive  - I've a feeling a may have to make another one = ho-hum

Stairs ?

I also had an attempt at making some card stairs for the rear of the building, but as can be sen from the photograph this was a bit of a catastrophe and one of the reasons I decide to do more scratch-building rather than pure card-stock stuff as this model was meant to be.
Building in card is not as easy as some would have us believe.  Losing bits, doesn't help either One of my steps from this aborted staircase went missing too !

Soapy Waters' proper entrance

Whilst on the subject of missing bits, to add to the list was the doorway for 'Soapy Waters'  - the laundromat and centre building of my street. This of course showed up after I'd improvised a new entrance and had it glued into place!

This is why I can't have nice things

The photograph on the right shows the typical devastation to my games table that occurs when I'm building anything. I need to really clear this up for the holiday period on the off-chance that I'll be able to get a game in (I also need to clear our dining table, where my arena sits for a completely different, but probably obvious reason)



 Further work on this project has had to be halted until my printing queue is back on track and I get around to designing the upper floor layout, so that's all for this week, goodness knows what I'll have to post about next time, but I hope you've found something of interest.

Are We Nearly There Yet ? (Street 5)

The Blue Sun General store and not a front for anything else, officer.

This week has seen some signage added and the roofs given some colour (by way of print-outs)
The first building will be fairly familiar to anyone that uses any of Tommy-Gun's free printed models and is the Blue Sun  general store.
The sign sits slightly proud of the main building and doubles as a positioning aid when placing the upper floor onto the lower.

The world famous "Soapy Waters", Laudromat (sp?)

The second building is the famous "Soapy Waters", Laundromat. This sign I picked up whist randomly surfing the interweb thing for just such things. I thought it just "cartoony" enough to be amusing and not so much that it wouldn't be unfeasible as a real-life laundromat.
(Note though, I think it was stretched a bit in photoshop to fit the width oif the building.)

The third building, but "What is it ?" I hear you ask.

The more discernible will also note the change in brickwork around the front entrance after the recent famous 'lost door' incident (pass me the aspirin).
The third building has had n awning adding that extends around its other side and now maybe you can see the reason for the slight indent in the street's frontage. The awning gives an additional anchorage point too, butting on to "Soapy Waters". The original awning should have been twice the height, but faced with yet another fitting problem I cut it down as a quick fix.

The signage for the third building requires the upper floor to be attached and reveals it to be a burger joint. Once more I'm sure a lot of you out there will recognise this particular fictitious burger chain.
 The sign comes from a photograph of  a screen-shot taken from my TV screen, then manipulated in photoshop way back in 2012, when I was no more than a novice with photoshopping things. I'm pretty sure I could make a slightly better job of it now, if I could be bothered, but  I reckon it's acceptable enough for a wargame standard table-top game.

Photograph of the entire street

View showing temporary roof furniture

The street is about 23" long (about  57.5cm), including the 'indent', it's about 10" deep (25cm) and to the top of the roof parapet is  about 6" (15cm), so it has quite a large footprint, but still fits onto one of my terrain boards (as above).  The roofs were given their rather boringly bland concrete grey textures and I've temporarily added some of the HVAC units for the photograph as I haven't decided yet which I'll use.

Side view of the burger Joint

Rear view of the street.

The rear of the building still needs a lot of work to finish it off.
Blue sun has a roller door to be added (one more thing lost over the years) and there is a set of stairs yet to be made (and therein lies another tale of woe)
The photograph does show one of the few 'working' doors on this model in the rear of the burger joint.

 This close-up view of the centre building shows the three doors that give access to the upper floors - the left and right ones 'work' though I'm not happy with either.
The centre, upper, door is yet another bodged job as the two 'sides'  of the door were not the same door and a reserve door had to be fitted. The architect for this whole bodged project would surely have been sacked ? (Allowance have to made though as he was heavily drugged at the time).
There is still a staircase that needs adding; the landing will be on the left the stairs will run left to right across the back wall of "Soapy Waters" down to the ground, near the ground floor window.

Rear view of the "Blue Sun"

Side view - "Food-o-Rama" !

The only interesting thing about the final side is how few windows it has.












And that, as they say is that. Other than the external staircase to add, this model is in a playable state, even if the interiors (or lack thereof) leave a lot to be desired and as I have already cut-out the interior for one of these three I'll be fitting that together over the next week and posting about my progress next time

That's it then for this week, I hope you've found something of interest.

My other blog has also been updated and the post can be found HERE

The Street (4)

Aaarggh!

Another week and another problem, the photograph on the right shows it better than I can explain.
As I'd measure and re-measured (I always do) the dimensions for the internal floors for the three buildings, I was pretty confident that when I cut the paper pieces out for the floors, they would fit with ease and would require no more than a trim.
It seems however that printers have 'settings' which if not attended to, makes them feel unloved and so they f*ck you over by printing within their pre-set margins rather than to their maximum and can also reduce the size "to fit".

Double Aargghh !

This has happened for both the end buildings' upper floors (see left) and no matter which way I fiddled with them, neither would fit the other.
Rather than bodge the job, which would have been very unsatisfactory I've put this particular job on hold until I can get a re-print of the flooring.

Boring corner pieces

Frustrated by the flooring (or rather the lack thereof), I decided to move onto the roofs, a straight-forward enough job as the roofs are merely drop-in sheets of foam-board, cut to size.

Attaching the corner supports, using my widget.

I cut out four triangular corner supports for each of the four roofs from scraps of foam-board, more or less right angled (Foam-board is great for pressing into whatever it is your gluing it too, so it doesn't have to be 100% accurate). 


I also made a widget out of another scrap of card, this time with a fairly accurate ninety degrees cut into it. This would be used to get all the heights of the four corner bits the same.
The widget had to be cut slightly different for each of the three buildings as they varied slightly, not in height, but in what internal details I had included (or not as in the case of the third building).

Add caption

 Prior to cutting the actual foam-board I made some rough and ready templates from cereal boxes, which allowing for mistakes was far cheaper than doing the same with foam-board.
It wasn't just a matter of  measuring and cutting out four rectangles as I've mentioned previously the three building in my street were anything but 'rectangles'.

Oops

The third building's roof had the extra problem I mentioned previously, when I'd designed (read slapped together) this I omitted to include the roof parapet pattern on all four internal walls - You can probably imagine my displeasure on realising this and such words as "Oh bother" and "Deary me" were obviously bandied about.
 The slight gap you can see between the corner support and the roof parapet would be covered by the thickness of the foam-board used for the roof - just in case you were wondering.

Rear view of the roofs in place.

Having cut the templates out for the roofs, fitting the foam-board versions was a lot easier and they came together quite quickly, though possibly they'll be too tight a fit once the printout for the roof is added (they may also be coloured by hand as I haven't decided yet) and once more I'll be awaiting these being printed.
The roof will also need to have some roof furniture added, if for nothing else other than to have something to hold on to take the roofs off !
There's still quite a lot of work to be done on this model, the rear staircase (another tail of yet another disaster), the rear roller-door to the first building (on the right in the above photograph) and of course all the internal detailing (aarghh) and as I've already got some of the internal detailing "ready to go" this is what I'll be posting next week.

So, until next week, that's it and if you're reading this I hope you've found something of interest. this week,


If you wish to find out what I've been up to on my Gladiator blog you can find out HERE.

 

The Street (3)

The upper floor's floor

Having completed all the walls and glued the ground floor walls together it was time to take a look at how at how the upper floor's floor would fit atop the ground floor.
I used a single sheet of foam-board for this purpose with two rabbets cut into it to accommodate the dividing walls of the ground floor. It would of course have been a much easier task to have just cut the ground floor walls by a centimetre in the first place, but it was another one of those problems that was par for the course for this build.

The rabbets "Highlighted" with black marker

 The roof with its two rabbets cut into it was a very floppy piece of foam-board and was handled very carefully to avoid tears. (both the rips and the water variety of tear).
All but two edges of this floor also had rabbets cut into them so that the floor would sit on the ground floor walls and the foam would sit inside.
The reason the two sides were left uncut this way was that two walls of the left-moist building had slight extensions to the outside portions of their walls and would act ans an 'anchor' point for the whole of the upper floor.
Once the upper floor walls were carefully aligned with the ground floor ones (and where necessary cut  to size) they were all glued in place.

The front view.

The resulting structure can be seen in the photograph on the right
The most interesting thing that can be said about this model, so far  is that you can see through the downstairs windows (bottom right)
I don't particularly like the basic 'box' shapes of most model buildings and therefore I off-set the right-hand building by about an inch.

The rear view (fairly interesting imo)

I did have other ulterior motives too, which  I explain next time.
The rear also had to be a bit more interesting than just an plain back wall too, so as can be seen from the photograph the off-set building also juts out further than the others, whilst the centre building is much smaller than the other two with a walkway connecting all three.
There will of course be a stairway up to the second floor!

Aarggh!!!

It wouldn't be typical of one of my builds if there wasn't some major alignment troubles along the way too.
As can be see in the photograph  two of the upper walls on the off-set building's rear didn't align at all and a minor bit of modelling was in order.

And relax....

It should be obvious from this photograph just how much out of alignment the two wall were!















I

"Ooooh look , doors and stuff"

If I manage to shake the lurgy I caught whilst on my southern sojourn I'll show what I managed to do with this:  -->

Concrete and wood -- luverly

And this: -->















More "thrilling" instalments of this marathon build next week and I hope anyone reading this is enjoying it a lot more than I did building it !

My other blog (HERE) features more gladiators for the arena, this time a w.i.p. on my Velites.

The Street (2)

Wonky walls fitted.

Not much progress to show (again) this week, but at least this time it's not because I spent most of the time searching for the building pieces I'd already made.
After the various unfinished walls had been finished - involving yet more windows to cut out, I had decisions to make concerning the doors.

No great improvement once the floors had been added.

I originally started this model with the full intention of having  opening doors, but this causes problems with floor height as the door has to clear the floor  when open and leaves and obvious 'step', up into the building. I don't particularly like this idea and instead opted for an internal floor that left the doors flush with tabletop and none-opening.  In-game I see no great advantage to having opening doors even if it does give a bit more 'realism' and they've seldom been a major factor in the games I've played so far.
For the floors I've used the same artist board as I have for the walls, covered in prints from various WorldWorksGames buildings.

The right-most building, which I'm surer many of you will recognise has had a dividing wall added, about 1cm shorter than the other wallas  to accommodate a foamboard roof for the second floor. It has also had  the flimsy doors replaced with a more substantial one from another model. The door don't open and merely butt onto the floor, the internal door is however open able as I'd made this way back at the start of this three years ago!

The two other buildings in 'the street' also had their problems, the centre one was meant to have a doorway, leading into the building. This door went awol and I improvised a make-shift one from other pieces.
In the  picture the internal front wall of the left-most building was printed back to front and was cut very carefully into three parts and re-glued onto the front wall. The two cuts can easily be seen in the picture despite my attempt at hiding them.

This week's post has been a bit rushed as I've been away for the week-end and not in the best of health either, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for next week as I'll have a lot more time and will be showing the progress I'll have made on the 'upstairs'.


I've also gained a couple of followers I'd like to welcome "Monkey Lite" (for whom I can't find a blog and  da Gobbo Grotto at Dagobbosgrotto - don't miss his excellent current build

My other blog HERE  features Roman legionaries this week.