MWO hunchback for sale - Make the most of the drop of £ Sterling against the Dollar/Euro

Some of you might know the UK is having a vote to be in or out of the EU. This is making the £Sterling dropped against the Dollar/Euro so its a good time to buy from us Brit's.

I used up some left over resin to make a few spare Hunchbacks. I'm asking £180 + the shipping for those interested reversedisabled@gmail.com

Zombicide Cars finished

Zombicide Cars 

A bit more of a marathon then I expected but I found myself adding and adding things I wanted to the list. But I'm very excited to finish them. I know some of the stuff isn't historicity accurate like the old NYPD paint scheme on modern NYPD cars etc but I took some artistic licence to get what I wanted.

They scale dead on to the scale of the models and the cars cards although with out a base to bring them up to foot hight they some times look small so I'm thinking of adding some clear plastic bases. The OSL effects were tricky/frustrating my airbrush isn't a fine detail brush and for objects this small 1mm is way too much, my inexperience with free hand shows in lack of paint control, but I managed through a lot of swearing to get something I'm happy with.


Printed Decals were;
NYPD Badge (sides), Orange roof lights
Sheriff: Badge (hood, sides)
NYC taxi: Advert, Taxi number (advert board), fares (sides)
All number plates

Painted decals used custom made stencils;
NYPD: NYPD Stripes and text, Police front, Police rear, 911, car number
Sheriff: Sheriff Text and strips, County Sheriff rear
NYC Taxi; NYC logo, Checker stripes
Challengers; Tire lettering, Stripes (black version)

Buying

If any one wants to buy some I could probably do a run of casting if I had enough interest. I really haven't sat down and worked out costs but I'd hope something like £10 to £20 a car or maybe a pair of cars. Don't hold me too it I see what the interest is, email below

Also have a few spare hunchbacks for those interested

#zombicide #32mm #cars

Spend a penny do some planning save a pound of paint later

So lots of OSL (origin source light) in the Zombicide cars. Unlike mechs where any OSL would be passive there for quite subtle, on cars esp police cars the light are there to be seen so the OSL is going to be a big part of the character of the cars.

With so many cars its a complicated to work out what goes where and in what order. Especially the case with the police cars because they need both a subtle diffuse light for regular lights and  flared light for the emergency lights. And tbh its hard to remember where the fork everything needs to go went you have an airbrush in your hand.

So for this one a drew out a lighting plan. It'll help me masking up for stage 1 the lights glowing and where the OSL and flares goes for stage 2. Also what I'm looking at in terms of base colours which I have read you should make pretty much as dark as you can and all the colour comes from the highlights. I also have to remember to sparing use pure white which is going to be a pita for all the white lights :/

At this point I need to start offering my racing car driver excuses it really my first time painting anything that's meant to be a clear light, this much OSL, this many colours on models this small and (according to the google gods) red is meant to be the hardest colour by miles to look right. So no pressure then o-O

Zombicide car paint progress and some Gundam for good measure

ZOMBICIDE
I've been hopping from car to car the most complete its the green challenger. Trying to get them all the the same stage. Makes it less of a head scratcher to work out what to do. I'm really digging the cop cars painted decals. For most of these it's blacking out details and trim and you start to get a sense of what the finished model will be.

I'm looking forward to making all the lighting effects or OSL (origin source light) for the cool kids, but at the same time painting a red lighting effect is by far the hardest to do. So I'm worrying about that some and reading as much as I can about how to do it. I think before doing any OSL I'll lay down a clear coat so I have the option to wipe away any mistakes.

GUNDAM
I also bought my son some Gundams. He seen me building my 'robots' since he was born and one day really sweetly asked me can I build one with you daddy. Since resin for 4 year old is out of the question and painting would be a critical wife error so I looked for one of the Japanese kits.

I found two really cheap on Amazon (the joys of mass-production)

And this one

Funnily enough this triggered a childhood memory I remember making a red Zuka that had a scorpion tail on its left should pad, probably my first mecha. Never really got into it too much space ballet dancing and constipated looking anime characters for me. (I preferred battletechs grit, blocky mechs)

These are really great they snap together so no need for glue. The articulation is brilliant, you can tell these guys have their kits dialled in perfectly, hardly a flash line is sight. I look at their production with great envy lol. Was my dream to bring something like that to MWO but I don't think players are willing to sign away the rights yet maybe they're holding out to do it themselves one day.

All in all I think it was about 2hrs putting it together with my son not so easy with is baby bro doing a car alarm impression. He's a bit young to do it him self but hey didn't stop him ordering me on what goes where (it must of been taking notes from the wife). For good measure I used some plastic cement just to make sure it didn't come apart in little hands or an accidental drop.

By bed time we had this happy chappie;

Along with some farther son colouring just because well robots!!;

A parking lot of Zombicide cars :D

Its a nice change to finally cast something that I can get everything done in a day!

2 cruisers, 1 sheriffs, 1 taxis and 2 challengers for myself and a set cars each for my boys.

One of the C'Vics wing mirrors broke whilst taking it out the mould. so rather than bin it going to smash it up some more and make some scenery out of it

There also a spare challenger which I'm sorely sorely tempted to turn into this;

I really enjoyed playing APB for a while (before things got bad) and many good memories rocking up in these mad max interceptors.

Some WIP pricutres of my scratch built Zombicide cars

Top left: Challenger - Top right: Crown Vic 'sheriff' - Bottom left: Crown Vic NYPD - Bottom Right: NYC Taxi

The new grey spray primer arrived today that allowed me to put on a uniform coat on the cars. I still have to re-do all the fine sanding/polishing using putty paint that was lost when I had to strip them because of the bad primer (painful).

Airfix CDC landrover 1:48 scale for Zomibicide

Wow its been a loooooong time since I painted anything made by anyone else. This Airfix Landrover 1:48 almost scales perfectly to 32mm (tad too big). I gave it a CDC scheme one of the back doors is missing because I painted that fecking interior and you couldn't see it with both doors on :P (we'll pretend an abomination ripped it off). It was a bugger to paint you basically part paint it during assembling it which is odd and frustrating. I bought AK chipping and weathering pots to try out on this. They work well and I'd recommend them.

The CDC stencil was hand made, the siren was painted using blue wash and added the tucked down ariel with chopper wire. I wanted it to feel like a old UN peace keeping jeep pressed into service at the hieght of the outbreak. I considered adding more custom touches like red signs saying "If you approach this vehicle you will be fire upon" but I have 71 zombies to paint and 2 cars to finish and cast so decided not to side track myself (at a later date maybe).

Oh right and I forgot I made a card for it too;

That sinking feeling...

Gah nothing worse than getting to the finial step and something gone wrong.

I'd buffed and polish my Zombicide cars for a few days just one last top coat need to make it look tidy and make sure I didn't miss anything. But I ran out of Mr surfacer 1000 my fav base coat goes on really smooth doesnt build up but blah it ran out.

So #savetime go to the local gameworkshop and buy some grey primer #howmuch?!andmysoul. Remember something about swearing never to use GW paints again... but i wanta cast this weekend lighting can't strike twice right :/

Wait till next day nice warmish and test spray seems ok. Proceed to paint the cars hmmm looks patchy lets wait till it drys. Fast forward 25mins surface is chalky and rough as fork #expressiveuseofthebestqueensenglish claim down ok I'll just colour sand it. fastworward 1hr nope still pitting.

Accept the loss toss the load into the sonic cleaner and organic orange degreaser (this stuff is an excellent way to safely remove paint for minis). 30mins later back to bare plastic /start again

£12 and 1week of wasted time thank you GW

Zombicide cars

Last week I machined out the crown vic cruiser and some variant top lights

First 2mm finishing pass, 1mm, 0.64mm passes to go

The Crown vic came out nicely.

I machined out the mirrors and a V shaped light boom. The mirror where tiny really tiny like 1mm x 3mm for the challenger so I took some artistic licence I trimmed down stalk so the mirror sits almost on the door them puttied it in its a small change you can't really tell unless you a super buff but it means they be cast with the body and should be allot stronger. The crown Vic mirrors also need so reworking since I broke my smallest bit I couldn't quite machine the slot to the right dimensions on the body. It was a PITA to file them down given my fingers were 5x larger than the piece i was holding but I got there in the end.

Lastly the light bar didn't sit right it was too far back and too skinny and appeared under scale (although it was perfectly scaled in CAD but miniature means you have to interpret what looks right). But that's the good thing about making your own stuff I had another go. 

Left to right:Taxi Boom, Arrow Lights, Light boom

Above is my improved version. I took the time to do some google research into real lights. I also decided add some variants options. So we have the Taxi cab advertising boom, proper looking arrow styled lights and the Boom light that I want to used on a 'sheriffs' version.

I did want to get out some fancy shots of the cars together and base coated but typically kids bought home something plague like for Easter that's knocked me out. I did get the CDC jeep painted looks brilliant and that'll be my next post once I set up the studio.

Zombicide Challenger progress

This is the 1st version it ending up being scrapped it because the roughing cutter was damaged so it left tool marks in the body. So i did it all again and this time make some edits to make life easier like deeper panel lines door groove and matching the head lights on there own. I don't have experience on making stuff on this scale things that look right in 3D end up too small fine on the model  almost have to make it comical size for it too look right. But its a great learning curve.

Then I did the wheels simple design since I wanted them to work for both cars. The only real design flare is they have sag/bulge on the side facing the road to impart a feeling of weight.

And a quick snap of WIP first time fitting everything (horrid colour clash I know; salmon pink and teal). The grey you see is Mr surfacer sandable filler/primer. The whole car gets a coat. It fills in any low spots/scratchs/toolmarks and i can buff it off with 1000grit and not have to work the model risk loosing its shape. Makes it looks like carp but feels smooth and with a coat of primer it'll be perfect. But I haven't glued the wheels on yet because they have just be cut off the spru to take this picture.

Those with a keen eye can see but the cutting mat the car is about 9.5cm long which is a measurement taken from the Zombicide car cards.

I think this one is pretty much there just needs a wipe down of the body and the wheels need a quick once over before gluing into place. But that can wait till I've started the police car machining which then leaves the final spru with all the small details mirrors and police lights.

I also have a few spare hunchbacks left over from my last casting run if any is interested in them email;

Zombicide - scale cars

I needed something different from mechwarrior for a bit.

I picked up the Zombicide board game seemed like good value for 70 figures, tiles and the game itself. The wife likes walking dead and the rules are straight forward enough for a non table top player to enjoy and its co-op so no table flipping .

Only thing missing imo was terrain and cars. I'll put aside any ideas about terrain for now. But I really wanted some scaled cars the thing is no one seems to makes cars in 32mm size other than Airfix's small range of army vehicles

Airfix make this A06301 British Forces Land Rover Twin 1:48

(google image/not mine)

Which is bang on but this is the most civilian looking of the range so I have bought that. I wanted the cop car and the 'pimp' mobile.

Some die-cast could work but they will either be a tad big or small since they are scaled to fit the box not strictly to any 1:1 scale.

At this point I should point out graveyard cars fan. And I luv 70's muscle cars, so this was the prefect excuse to make a 32mm dodge challenger to replace the pimp mobile card.

The details are super small (the car is 95x36mm) so i have no idea if it'll work.

I also reworked crown Victoria into a police cruiser to replace the cop car card

Any zombicide fans about?

PGI Hunchbacks complete - Mechwarrior online, 1:60 scale resin models

PGI Hunchbacks from Mechwarrior on-line,

Specs;
Machined on a Roland MDX40A 4axis mill
Cast in resin
And painted by your host (camo ref: original release screen shot)
Photographed by one who still learning what does what.
Digital to physical
1:60 scale
Standing at just under 17cm tall

Humps swappable

Elbow in action and below a video of that

All in all I never want to see another hunchback again lol. (but I still have mine to paint at some point)


Also took the time re-photo the MWO mechs I've done to date;

Making up the finishing touches

I finished paint on the HBK's today and just making the last few items such as these hip rails. They get made last because ultimately they're are hard to see and easily squished.

I use 1mm brass wire then made a simple jig 4 holes and 2 grooves to hold everything in place while I soldered them together.  I then file down the solder, tweak everything straight before they get a rusty paint job. I've learnt the best way to get the rails nicely seated is to use a temporary spacer so you can just push the rails in and the spacer ensures an even gap all around.

Hunchback MWO paint (work in progress)

I've laid down all the main colours and most of the decals/details. I just need to add a few more touches before weathering.

Sorry for the small picture, I took it free hand and this was the best of a blurry bunch.

Using the original hunchback scheme as base for this one. Only half way there lots to paint in to do to mostly weathering, blending, shading and highlights. That will turn it from plastic looking to something fresh from combat.

oh and heres a action shot all masked up I found on my phone

Vallejo chipping medium test

Did a test piece for the Vallejo chipping medium (shortening it to chipper from here on). Good job too turns out it needs to be thinned for airbrushing, neat it spat instead of sprayed.

Black base coat, teal, one yellow stripe (small) and one yellow stripe over white (larger)

The results:
So masking tape doesn't pull the paint +1
I can use multiple layers of different paint +1
Paint comes off clean so I can now put down a pass of white for weaker colours like red/yellow +10
I need to thin the chipping medium so it sprays even and not speckled -1
I went back 24hrs later and I could still chip the paint (not shown).+1
The teal needs to be toned way down to match the MWO original screen shot

Going to give the test another go with the chipper thinned. Better safe than sorry

In other news I have little masking left on the two PGI mechs and the kids are back at school/nursery so hopefully I be able get through my to-do list in quicker fashion.

Happy New year