I decided to take my time with this build, I'm surprisingly impatient when it it comes to modelling projects. When I get bitten by the bug, it's hard for me to not just dive in.
Building the Keel, Frames and Fitting the Deck
The first part of the instructions are probably the best part of the instructions and it was just a simple case of popping out the numbered parts and supergluing them together.
The first thing to build is the cradle / display stand. disappointingly this does not have a name plaque in English so this will need to be designed and printed.
I did make one change to the order of operations in that I left the frames unglued until I had laid in the deck. This was a lesson I learned from my earlier 1:30 Naxos Fishing Boat build as the frames do not always line up with the cutouts in the deck. If you force them to conform you will either snap the horns of the frames or the delicate deck.
Deck Fittings
Cannons - the laser cut frames of these cannons are perfectly acceptable at 1:100 scale so I proceeded to glue these together. The cannons provided in the kit are flat and definitely not good enough for this model. You can buy an upgrade pack with brass cannons but as I have a couple of 3D Printers it was a trivial task to find a suitable model and print them out.
I will document all the 3D printed parts including the links in a seperate post.
Capstan - I thought I would try out the capstan which was provided. After building it I am in two minds as I think it would possibly look nicer in resin, but it's a crazy shape and will likely test my modelling skills. There were also a distinct lack of arms on this capstan which might be historically acurate but it looks kinda weird on a masted ship.
I have bought some scale chain to go with this capstan and so I will need to check out how it meshes with the webbing to see if I want to continue using it.
Locker - Again this is borderline acceptable at 1:100 scale although the roof of this locker is way too thick and will need to be sanded down
Anchors - I liked the laser etched detail on the anchors so I thought I would give them a try. They sort of look okay at the top but the buisness end of the anchor looks awful. I will have to mull this over.
In the Part Three I will look at planking the hull.
I immensely enjoyed my recent foray into wooden model boat building, learning new skills and working with unfamiliar materials so I thought I would have another go with another cheap chinese kit from Aliexpress.
This is another kit from NTJK Models and comes in a little plastic bag with all the basic things needed to make a passable model. Five laser cut sheets of varying thicknesses of wood, some lengths of dowel for masts, a sheet of linen for sails and a reel of cotton for rigging.
At the super low bargain price of £5.99 (that's cheaper than a Big Mac) there literally is no downside.
The History of The Halcon
Doing a bit of research turned up some interesting documents:
A 1933 court report documents that on February 15, 1932 the Spanish Honduran registered ship The Halcon was found off the coast of New Orleans with a cargo of "intoxicating liquor". She was escorted to Mobile Alabama and seized by US Customs.
Model Research
Building my last kit from NTJK models taught me that the assembly instructions are somewhat lacking in the actual instruction department. Nothing has changed with this wooden boat kit and there are some pretty critical instructions missing including:
Sail Plans - How big are the sails and what shape?
Mast Dimensions - All those dowels need to be cut to lengths but how long do they need to be.
Rigging Plan - What ropes need to go where and what blocks and dead eyes are needed.
Some intense internet browsing was therefore required.
Ships of Scale - This build log has a number of great pictures and also illustrates how there can be differences in the kit supplied and that an accessory kit is also available containing brass cannons and fixtures. These I will of course be replacing with 3D Printed parts. Also useful is a set of deck and rigging plans showing the routing of the anchor chains and various other deck accessories.
There are a few other builders on there who have documented their builds of the Halcon, so this was a must community to join.
HIS Models - There are plenty of different models of the Halcon and companies supporting the model making fraternity with accessories. One such company is HISModels who provide a set of CNC wooden blocks and deadeyes. They illustrate the content of their kit with this extensive rigging plan.
Best Ship Models - is another great resource site for model boat building and they have another set of plans.
Tune in for the Part Two when I actually start building this boat.
In Part Two of this mini series we managed to get the boat sanded, filled, painted and wired. In this episode we finish the model
Fitting the Accessories
Replacing some of the awful laser cut accessories has been a primary goal and now we get to fit those to the deck. In the photo below you can see the life preservers, anchors and vents which have all been painted and glued to their respective positions around the boat.
Some additional accessories were necessary though:
A deck winch - Cults 3D - This is apparently the upper deck crane winch for a Liberty Ship, but it looked suitably mechanical for my needs.
A light housing - Thing:6007577 - Not perfect but do you know how hard it is to find these sorts of objects from a description
Rigging the Mast
We are almost at the end of the build and this is where the quality of the instructions once again fails to clearly indicate what you are supposed to do.
I need a little bit more instruction given the limited amount of wood we have left. So I spent an hour or so studying the other Naxos fishing boat model reference photos I had collected and drew myself out a rigging plan.
Given that I had used some of the thin length of dowel for my prop shaft, I did not have enough left to do both the Spar and the crane Jib. I grabbed a BBQ skewer from the kitchen drawer and used that for the crane Jib. I chucked both lengths into my drill and game them a sanding, adding a
taper to both ends of the mast to ensure that it fitted into the deck
hole and also that it came to a rounded point at the top.
With no hardware (I believe is the appropriate term chandlery?) attaching these together was going to reuire some ingenuity. I grabbed the thin aluminium florist wire I use for pinning my miniatures and bent up a couple of hooks. I then drilled a hole into the mast and one into the end of the Jib supergluing the hooks so that they act as a rudimentary swivel.
Four more hooks were also made. Two fit into the gunwhales on either side of the mast and two in the rear corners of the transom.
I then laminated some plasticard and created a trapezoid shape which would act as a place to anchor the Jib Pulley.
Talking about Pulleys, I could have used 3D Printed parts for these but the kit actually came with some wierd figure of 8 shaped pieces of wood which may have been for the deck winch that I didn't end up using. These would do nicely as pulleys.
Some thin "straps" were cut out of the plasticard to add a little believeability to my scratchbuilt fittings and it was time to glue in the mast. I wish that I had spent a little more time on this as my mast ended up a bit cockeyed and listing to starboard. I tried to rescue this with the mast rigging on the port side but it was a little more adrift than the thin cotton thread could muster. Chalk that up to experience.
With the mast rigged it was a simple case of adding a length of thread to the end of the jib and looping it through a pulley and down the mast. This is when I realised I needed to tie it off somewhere and so I drilled a second hole into the mast for a tiedown. I left the end of the thread long so this can be the end of the rope used to raise and lower the jib.
The final part of the rigging was to add a length of thread between the the two aft hooks and wrapping it around the end of the jib. All the threads were superglued in place to stop them from ever coming undone.
And with that it's done, or at least as done as it can be for now. I will probably tidy up the paint and maybe add some more accessories some time in the future.
I was really impressed with what I was able to do given the limited nature of the materials and it was a real challenge of my modelling skills.
I really enjoyed my nautical adventure and it has spurred me on to try another more historic vessel and another cheap Aliexpress wooden boat kit.
As I mentioned the hull is made of straight ply planks and there are a lot of gaps and seams which require filling with wood filler. I bought a tub of 151 wood filler which I thought was going to do the trick and I was dissapointed that it was more like wall filler than anything else. Still I persevered and ended up slapping on a ton of the stuff.
In hindsight I would do this totally differently. The filler oozed between the planks and ended up inside the boat hull trapped between the frames which then dried and fell off. I have in effect created a boat shaped maraca.
This necessitated opening up the deck under the wheelhouse in order to release the now rock hard filler. This might sound like major surgery, but as the deck is so thin it was easily acomplished with a sharp craft knife and a steady hand. I made sure to keep the offcut as I have plans for that later.
The way to tackle this is to use the old superglue and baking soda trick to fill up the gaps. This of course only works if you are painting the hull. If you are going for the natural wood finish then you are going to have to get better at laying the planks.
Painting
Painting the boat in sections is unavoidable at this stage. I carefully masked off the deck and gave the now smooth (ish) hull a spray coat of white primer followed by a couple of coats of white gloss.
The airbrush then came in handy for painting the decks with a Vallejo Burnt Umber wash.
The remaining wooden pieces for the wheelhouse, deck covers and the gunwhales were then extracted from their boards and sprayed with the same Vallejo Burnt Umber wash.
Adding Some Colour
I imagined the boat a sort of tri-tone with a red top stripe white hull and black or red hull bottom. In the end I just gave it a stripe of red on the sheerstrake plank and continuing around the transom. Masking this off was a tricky exercise as I only had some really nasty cheap painters masking tape. I will have to come back and do some tidying up by hand later.
Trial fitting the wheel house accents and deck hatches really makes the boat come alive.
You might beable to see in the photo above that I managed to glaze all the windows with some clear acetate from some recycled packaging. I glued this in using my now favourite hobby glue UV Resin which I picked up in my Wish Hobby Products 2024 experiment. This stuff is amazing.
Adding the Lights
Last year I picked up some micro LED lights for another project (which I have yet to start). These are incredibly tiny and come pre-soldered onto super thin magnet wire. I quickly soldered a couple of these together with a CR2032 coin cell battery holder and a latching push button and stuffed it into the hole.
I will probably tidy this up with a piece of perfboard at a later date as the circuit is tiddly. I am also undecided if I will add any navigation lights. For the uninitiated this mean a RED LED for the left (Port) side of the boat and a GREEN LED for the right (Starboard) side. I have some 3mm LEDs from another side project but these might be too large, we will have to see. Adding them to the circuit should be no problem and might even add some much needed resistance to bring down the brightness.
The LEDs were then routed up through the floor of the front wheelhouse and up one corner. One LED illuminates the interior and is bonded to the roof with the UV Resin and the other goes outside in front of the cabin as an exterior deck light. I will need to find an appropriately nautical shroud for this exterior light as they are suprisingly bright for their size.
Oh did I forget to mention that I added a salty seadog to steer this fine boat across the treacherous seas?
He is one of the many 3D Printed accessories I covered in part one of this mini series. A fine free model although he is now sealed in his cabin for all eternity as I have glued on the roof and floor.
In the next, and final part of this mini series we will add all the accessories masts and rigging.
My recent foray into the Index Card RPG system (ICRPG) involved a lot of DIY card making, which I love.
However, during play this presented a problem in that all my card backs where blank and indistinguishable from each other. What I needed was a simple stamp which I could apply to my card backs.
I find it useful to categorise my cards into one of 4 types:
People - NPCs, Villains, Bio-forms
Places - Locations, buildings, Landscapes
Objects - Things, weapons, loot, traps and trinkets
Monsters - Stuff that wants to kill you
This would help me to keep my ICRPG cards organized and reduce seek times to a minimum and thereby make me look like a great DM.
Tinker Cad to the Rescue
My experiments making a plaque for my Cowboy Bebop Swordfish II model taught me that this was going to be easily achieved.
Step 1 - Make a black and white image in GIMP where black is what you want stamped and white is what you don't want to stamp. This image is then reversed and saved as a JPG or PNG.
Step 2 - Use convertio.co to convert your JPG or PNG into an SVG which can then be imported into Tinkercad.
Step 3 - Import your SVG into Tinkercad and scale it to fit inside your stamp pad. Make sure that the stamp is at least 4mm high and that you create a backing plate at least 1mm high to connect all the pieces of your stamp together. Position the stamp so that it intersects with the backing plate and then group the objects together. Export this as an STL for your 3D printer.
Step 4 - Make a wooden backing plate and handle for each of your stamps. If you get into ICRPG you are going to be making a lot of cards and doing a lot of stamping so this step is essential for long lasting stamps. I made mine out of some scraps of hardboard I had laying around and I glued some pieces of old broom handle onto the backing plates before supergluing my stamps together.
You could of course model the whole thing in Tinkercad.
Step 5 - Stamp Away!! - I bought some cheap stamp pads from AliExpress less than £1.50 each and they have lots of different colours to choose from so you can have a different colour for each card type.
Buy Me a Coffee
I have shared the stamp patterns on Thingiverse, so if you like them, download them and print your own card backs. Support the channel and please leave a tip in the jar or use the paypal tip link.
In my recent foray into buying modelling supplies from Wish.com I mentioned that I had ordered a little wooden boat kit but that the order got cancelled.
Needless to say, I found a different seller on AliExpress and snapped it up.
This is a fun little kit and my first foray into making a wooden boat with a planked hull. I made a balsa wood sailing yacht from old model engineering plans, decades ago with a lot of help from my dad, but I can't remember if we ever finished it.
The NAX Fishing Boat or should I say NAXOS Fishing Boat
The inspiration for this model is clearly that of a mediterranean coastal fishing vessel of which there are many models. The kit is made by NTKJ Model and sold through various etailers.
This is plenty of inspiration for me to commence making this kit.
Meet the Parts
The kit comes as a set of 6 laser cut wooden sheets, a couple of dowels for the mast and a reel of cotton for the rigging. A set of pictorial instructions with quite well translated text completes the package which cost the grand sum of £5.94 which in 2024 money is less than a Big Mac meal.
Steps 1-4 - Making the Deckhouse
Whilst the first 4 parts seem fairly self explanatory and involve removing the deckhouse parts and assembling them, the parts are not numbered. There is a disparity in the plans, in particular the inner bulkhead seems to have a large notch behind it which intimates a part fits into it but the instructions offer no assistance as to what goes in here.
The wheelhouse fits to the deck with 6 pegs and matching holes. Dry fitting the parts to the deck helps keep the wheel house square and stable whilst gluing the instrument panel back wall and the top visor.
I left the roof unglued to enable me to paint the inside and out and to glaze the windows and doors with acetate.
This model is ripe for replacing some of the clumsier laser cut parts with 3D printed ones. In particular the boat has some cowl vents which are made of laminated wood but they look awful and it will be so much easier to find some on the web or even scratch build. The same can be said for the portholes and life preservers.
Cowl Vents - Cults 3D - A collection of vents of different shapes and sizes. The two large vents at the front of the boat are 20mm tall and the one on the rear of the wheelhouse is 10.3mm tall.
Life Preservers - Thingiverse - A good looking life preserver model. You will need to print six, two at 10.5mm across and four at 12.5mm across.
Boat Anchor - Printables - This anchor seems to have the same shape and dimensions as the wooden one. However, the model is huge and will need to be scaled down to fit.
3 Bladed Screw - Thingiverse - This will need to print this on a resin printer at about XX scale The original prop is about 11.5mm in diameter.
Steps 5-8 - Laying down the keel
Now the serious work begins. The frames are all numbered and from 1 to 10 and are slotted into their corresponding slots in the keel. Be careful when removing theframes from the sheet as the protruding sections are prone to breaking due to the orientation of the wood grain.
The diagonal slot at the stern of the boat I thought might be for the stern tube but there was no mention of it on the plans. The kit comes with two diameters of dowel. The thin one should be for the stern tube and it is a good idea to add a 1¼ inch length at this point as the keel is relatively thin and likely to snap as you insert the frame 8. Ask me how I know...
You could add the rudder at this point but the stupid thing has one mission in life and that is to snap. It is much better to leave this until after you have planked the hull and either fit it or replace it with a 3D printed part.
Once all the frames are fitted you can add the deck plate. Before you do STOP!
Take the time now to add some cardstock or a thin piece of styrene to the back of the deck plate. It is incredibly thin and the laser engraved planking makes some of the edge planks prone to detatching. The slots that the frames fit in are also too thin and not in exactly the right places for the frames to slot into so you are going to have a whale of a time gently coaxing them into place and you will probably snap a few. Don't panic. Take some time out to put the stand together and have a cup of tea.
The next step is the one I've been both dreading and looking forward to in equal measure.
Steps 7-8 Planking the Hull
That kettle you just boiled is going to be handy. We now need to steam the first couple of planks. These are the wide ones with the little oval holes on the planking sheets marked IV. The holes go at the bow (the front) of the boat and you will need to hold the end of the plank in the hot steam to soften it and then gently put a curve into it.
This is incredibly fiddly so be patient. With these straight planks being made of plywood they really aren't made to go around these curves. I glued 8 planks down from the sheerstrake (the wide one) and then the remaining planks up from the bottom. These all had to be shaped at both ends to fit.
There will be lots of gaps. When we shape the hull planks by sanding we are going to use some wood filler to fill in the gaps. Real wooden boats have caulked seams and they are designed to swell when they get wet and thereby get tighter. The hull is going to be painted so you won't be able to see the seams.
Earlier this month I blogged about my experience buying hobby products from AliExpress in 2024, this time I turn my attention to Wish.com.
104pcs Simulation Static Grass Tufts Model Mini Grass Cluster - £4.06
My basing game has been pretty weak of late. Trix Robot Rider needed some desert vegetation to add a little va va voom so I chose these mini grass tufts. Herein lies the problem when you are buying stuff from Wish, you are entirely reliant on the chinglish descriptions that the vendors provide. They often list multiple pack sizes or products in the same listing and sometimes it's hard to know what you are buying.
The upside is of course at these stupidly low prices you can often order multiple different options all for less than the price if you were to go to a big box retailer like Hobby Craft. If you want to try out a hobby product for not much outlay the online vendors on Wish.com are a fairly safe way to do it.
These tufts are quite small and measure 5mm in diameter. This might be what the number 5 on the box refers to. In their defence it does say mini...
I added a few of them to Trix's base and I really think that they add a certain something.
Perhaps on a smaller miniature base they would have much more impact. I will try to buy some bigger ones in future.
I had seen GroundAffected suspend his resin parts for priming on these alligator clips so I bought a bag of 50. To be honest the clips are not really strong enough to safely hold larger parts but for small 32mm miniatures they are going to be a godsend.
There are obviously 2 parts to any painting jig, the thing that attaches to the bit you are painting and the thing that that thing attaches to, lets call it a base. Having a sturdy base is just as important
Wow this is great value considering a similarly sized bag of grass from a well known retailer is 3 times the price and only comes in one colour. I now need to build a static grass applicator like Luke Towan
I have wanted to try out some of this clear UV resin for a while. I have a large bottle of the stuff for my 3D printer but it doesn't set quickly enough when making things like pools of lava or green ooze. This little bottle was cheap enough that I don't care if it works that well.
I am glad to report that it works really well, just 5-10 seconds under my pretty weakass UV torch and it sets rock hard. I have a big lava base project in the works and this will be just the ticket for greating that glossy flowing lava.
A DIY Funny Wooden Sailing Boat Model Kit 1/50 Scale Ship £5.42 - 0/5
I would love to say that this is an amazing model and a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon, but I can't. Sadly the vendor cancelled the order unilaterally. This happens from time to time on Wish.com, often when the price is too good to be true.
I've seen this kit on AliExpress so maybe I'll try another order... ooh a stirling steam engine!
I have been playing Wish and AliExpress bingo for a while now. It can be a dangerous game, but if you've got a few quid that are burning a hole in your pocket, there are worse ways to spaff it up the wall.
Now this isn't one of those exercises. I genuinely needed some specific items and thought I would put each store to the test.
HobbyMio Sci-Fi Decals (maybe a bit of a Gundam theme here) - £1.83 - 4/5
You may have seen my recent print of Trix Robot Rider on these pages. I'm really happy how she came out but the robot hand is crying out for some decals. I had a look on AliExpress and was stunned by the sheer volume of waterslide decals that are available at some extremely good prices. Most of these are replacements for specific Gundam kits but there are some which are just generic.
I chose the HobbyMio Model Decal Vol 1 set and I'm really impressed with the diversity of symbols warning signs numbers which come in the set. They are a mix of black, white, red and yellow with plenty of variety to sticker up your robot. I'll update this post when I've used some to let you know how they come out and how easy they are to lay down.
When I painted the wings of my Ulimate Radical Centrist B'lakor Demon, I used an old orange bag as stencil mask to get a diamond pattern. It was okay, but very fiddly and I had seen some of the AFV modellers on YouTube using some splatter masks so thought I'd try one.
I think I ordered the wrong thing as these are considerably larger than I expected. With 12 different patterns to choose from these are still very useable for bigger models. In the set are a:
Leopard Spots - each spot ranges from 1 to 2cm
Waves - 11 different wave patterns should look good for water effects or Chris Foss inspired shampoo bottle spaceship patterns
Bubbles - well I don't know how to describe this stacked bubble design.
Large Tiger Stripes - again very useable if you are doing a tiger striped camo theme on a vehicle.
Voronoi - small holes measuring 1 to 1.3cm across. Very useable for dragon hide or interior wing patterns.
Square Cells - an irregular collection of 4 sided holes with rounded corners. This is going to be an absolute must for that cracked earth look.
Large Zebra Stripes - same as the Tiger stripes
Lizard Skin - a tighter mesh of diagonal holes. Great for any large lizard (wink, wink)
Squished Lizard Skin - a mesh of varying sized organic shaped diamonds large on the edge to tiny in the middle. this is going to get a lot of use I can tell.
Rust Splatter - that collection of irregular shapes which the AFV guys go wild for
Swoopy Curves - this is less useable in my opinion and will probably see action when I just want to define a swooping curve in much the same way you might use a french curve.
Large Irregular Cells - again this is likely to see use in large base texture shading.
I will give them a whirl on my next 3D printed mega project which is currently staring at me with it's five fearsome heads.
Hobby MS Small Wet Pallette Set - £3.59 4/5
I've always wanted to try out a wet palette, but they are kind of intimidating and come in at around £20 or so. I thought I'd try out one of these little travel palettes to see how I get on.
The box measures 21cm x 7cm and has two compartments, one for the palette and the other I am guessing is a water supply section. Included are 10 sheets of "baking paper", two absorbent blotters, a thick white foam pad and a strange square metal grill.
I will have to learn how all of this goes together and how to use it as it did not come with instructions, but I did find this video on how to use it.
I'll report back with my findings...
Postage Not Included
The total I paid for all three items was only £15.83 so that was £6.20 for flat rate shipping and delivery took just shy of 8 calendar days.
Given that a pint in a london pub in 2024 is about £10 these days I think I'll try this again. Tune in again soon for a review of some Wish.com model making goodies.
I have been resin 3D printing for almost 2 years now and here are a few of the bits of kit which I have found to be invaluable.
Plastic Razor Blade Scrapers
Nothing gets a blob of resin off your LCD screen better than a plastic scraper. They don't damage the surface and they are cheaper than actual razor blades. You can also use them to pry your prints off the build plate and they are disposable so no need to clean them.
Once you have these, you will find they have a multitude of uses around the house for all those DIY projects that they were actually designed for.
Spare FEP film
You never want your printing to be sidelined by a dodgy FEP, so having a spare film is essential for when the inevitable happens. Changing out your FEP is just one of those skills you will need to master. Some say that you can tune your FEP for optimal performance, but I just use the German specification gudentight. I recommend buying from 3DJake.
Fun Fact: FEP is an acronym for Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene.
Silicone Baking Tray
Resin 3D printing is a messy affair, particularly when you are extracting your prints from the build plate. It is hard to not drip uncured resin onto your table, so I use a silicone baking sheet as a table protector.
Nothing sticks to silicone and these mats are super easy to clean and so cheap that you can cover an entire table in the things and still have change from a tenner (£10).
PTFE Lubricant (GT85)
Every now and then you will suffer from a print that just wants to stick to the FEP rather than where it is supposed to stick, the build plate. The best thing I have found to combat this is to give your FEP a good spray with GT85 and a gentle rub down. This creates a microscopic PTFE layer on the surface of your FEP guaranteeing that the print will release when the build plate rises.
Everytime I change resin, change my FEP or just engage in a spot of cleaning, I give my FEP a liberal coat and then buff it dry. GT85 will change your success rate instantly, no more failed prints, bits stuck to the FEB or layer peeling.
Plastic Funnels & Conical Paint Filters
Trying to pour your unused resin back into the bottle is a nightmare task made tolerable with the use of a funnel. Get some conical paint filters to strain out any bits of cured resin and your life will be so much easier and less messy.
The pound store is your best bet for funnels. You can get a bunch of filters for pennies at the usual online retailers like eBay or Amazon. A big shout out to Jayo3D who pack 2 or 3 filters in with their 1Kg bottles of resin.
Two Wash & Cure Station Tanks
It wasn't long into my resin 3D printing journey before my wash tank looked like a winter's morning. This occurs when the uncured resin suspended in your IPA cures and fall to the bottom of the tank making an amorphous plastic blancmange. Honestly, this stuff is horrendous to deal with, so having a second wash tank that you can decant into and clean your IPA is a must. I have found that running a few curing cycles on an empty tank can work wonders.
I found this on EthanTSavage's Cults 3D page and thought it was an awesome sculpt.
The aesthetic is undeniably Anime, and for me is reminiscent of the fabulous Tank Girl comic of the 80s. Whilst the movie ranks as one of the worst in history, I am a big fan.
I love Giant Robot anime, my favourite being Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still. If you haven't watched it you should it's just the right shade of bonkers to make a strange sort of sense and is a blend of diesel punk / magical superhero anime which is incredibly rare.
This was a very quick model to make taking me only a few days to complete. I used a skull base which I had originally intended for my huge demon model and slathered on the old poundland polyfilla to form a crust over the skulls.
This is my homage to the famous scene in Terminator 2
where the T800s are walking across the field of human remains crushing
skulls underfoot.
Regular readers will know that my scale of choice for Judge Dredd miniatures is 15mm.
I chose this scale because it is cheap, easy to paint and the legendary Laserburn Lawmen are a perfect proxy for my favourite era of Judge Dredd, the 80s. The problem is of course as with any tabletop game storage and transportation. Taking a leaf out of the old Kenner Star Wars playbook I resolved to create a miniature storage case in the shape of a city block which could add some play element to my games whilst hiding away all the neat surprises I have in store for my players.
The Framework
Fans of Aldi (a German discount retailer) will be familiar with the wonders of the middle aisle, and one such grocery shopping trip resulted in me bringing home this cheap plastic crafting drawer unit. This was swiftly clad in sheets of foam core on three sides and a carry handle printed on my FDM printer was bolted to the top.
Balconies
I wanted to extend play in 3 dimensions so the inclusion of some elevated features was essential. These consisted of 25mm wide strips of foam core hot glued at regular intervals up the block. Most of my minis are based on 1p coins so this is perfect for stationing high level snipers or as a launchpad for boingers or skysurfers.
Exterior Features
I
always picture these smaller blocks as being the work of brutalist
architects. They are concrete monstrosities more akin to prisons than
homes but they attempt to offer at least windows and air conditioning.
I
modelled a couple of "skins" featuring a door and windows which could
be 3D printed and then attached to the foamcore facade conveniently
hiding some of the wiring from the lights. This could easily be made
from mountboard, cereal packet or even thick paper if you do not have a
3D printer, but I have made the files available on thingiverse for free
just download Tower Block Apartment Front Skins.
Greeblies
No sci-fi model is complete until it is festooned with greeblies. Some are necessary to hide wiring but all of them break up that monotonous concrete facade. I downloaded some air con units from Thingiverse which were then printed out and positioned in the space between the apartment skins.
If you are interested I have written a blog about printing some of the Judge Dredd Greeblies.
Lighting and Signage
One
of the core features of any block is its plethora of crappy. Battery powered christmas lights are perfect for this and can
also perform double duty as balcony illumination. These were strung in a
zig zag pattern and then embedded in the underside of the balconies.
I then modelled some light covers to hide the tiny LEDs which added a certain amount of light diffusion aswell.
Block Name Signage
I then modelled a light box and frame to house paper block name signs for each of the blocks in my sector. This is a versatile system which incorporates 5mm magnets and magnetic strip so you can attach the sign to either side or top of the case. The hand drawn lettering I feel really sums up the art style of Judge Dredd during my formative years and they are super easy to knock out. Here are just two
I also modelled the infamous Peach Trees Block sign which I
printed in transparent resin on my Photon Mono 4K.
The lightbox design
incorporates hollow areas in the corners for the magnets to attach the frame (also magnetised). The inside of the box is covered with
aluminium foil to aid light reflection. Signs are easily attached and detached in seconds as your scenes change.
The Roof
The
top floor of the block would inevitably invite play so I made sure to create a 1" grid in the roof which was then further emphasized with short clippings of PLA filament to create a grid.
This was then painted and covered in some flock to make a rooftop garden. The carrying handle sticks out a bit but it's form over function
It's Magnetic Man!
Storing miniatures is the key goal, so it was crucial to make sure that they didn't move around during transport. I stuck some A4 magnetic sheet into each tray which has enough holding power to stop my minis from skating around uncontrollably. This is quite cheap on eBay and a good solution for smaller minis or ones which don't weigh much.
For those of you using 1 pence or 2 pence pieces to base your minis, make sure that you use only pennies from 1992 onwards, These are made of copper coated steel and are therefore magnetic. If, like me, you were using up your penny jar and didn't know this when you based them, then you can use thin steel foil or more of the sheet you used to line your trays.