Pretty Pictures: Gaslands Mishkin and Pirates.

Well, there's only a few hours left in 2019, just enough to squeeze one last blog post in so this isn't the most embarrassingly low post-rate year in TFH history...
So here are some pics of the painted heavy truck, plus some other projects and full pics of all the mishkin cars too!

Behold! The heavy truck, plus the smaller truck made from the spare cab, plus a friend who donated a chassis to the smaller truck.

This then is the full and undiluted might of MIDNIGHT ROGER. I have deiced to name my pirate truck MIDNIGHT ROGER. Because it amuses me to do so.

The detail on the wagon tail lights is very soft, making painting them somewhat guesswork. Fortunately, I know what a 1956 Chevy tail light look like, so this should be fairly accurate...

Harpoon gun and gunner are both Northstar Miniatures. I find them a bit hard to paint - the figures all have their arms out front grabbing a wheel or a weapon, and it's hard to manoeuvre the brush to get to their chests.

Note the freehanded pirate markings.

Behold the Mighty Boy! I am sure that, had Suzuki been building cars in 1956, this is what they would have been building.  Due to the whole hot wheels scale thing, this is a 56 Ford F-100 cab on the chassis of a mini. In real life, the mini would be about the length of the bonnet and maybe half the door.

The Mighty Boi has been armed with a load of dropped weapons. They could be any of the dropped weapons really, but they are red barrels which as we all know means they will explode.

Behold the Smol Panzer! I sent a WIP pic of this to my brother, and he instantly dubbed it 'Der Smol Panzer' and the name sort of stuck... It's the mini which gave up it's chassis for the Mighty Boi mounted to the tracks from a Matchbox resuce tank. 

Smol Panzer is armed with rockets. It's not a tank, it's just a car fitted with tank tracks. It's probably not that great an idea to be honest, but I had the parts.

Mishkin time! You all know this one.

Rear view as well.

This is the buggy with Gravity Gun. I dropped it just before the photo and the top prong of the grav gun broke...

I have two more of this model - kinda thinking maybe a rutherford buggy team - they look sort of like cockpits from fighter planes. That's the sort of military tech Rutherford would have... Might even add wings...

This is probably a performance car. It's pretty jacked up and all-terrain looking, but it's too big and heavy for a buggy. Anyway, it's got the arc lightning cannon.

I tried to find cars for Mishkin with some sort of round detailing at the back - often some sort of tyre - which I can repurpose into some sort of generator by painting a glow in them.

This is the car with the magnetic disruptor. The glass on this one was mis-installed and also warped. I've realigned it, but you can still see the shape is not right on both sides...

And there's the magnetic disruptor.

Van with thumper. It took a while to find a mishkin-y van, and when I did, it had glow in the dark wheels...

Well, there you go Hippo Fans - the last post of 2019. As for what 2020 holds, well, you'll just need to check back tomorrow when I'll probably post some sort of rambling plan or something.

Modelling For Hippos Ishoo Twenty-Ate: Gaslands Pirate Heavy Truck.

Toy cars don't really follow a uniform scale. They're made to a chassis length or box size, which means a Mini is the same length as a Ford F-650. This can be a pain when you want a heavy truck for Gaslands - it's not hard to get a semi to make a war rig, but the rigid chassis trucks in between that and a pickup tend to be shrunk down to fit the standard chassis. There are some out there, but they're harder to find and there's less choice. So the obvious solution is to just build a heavy truck from whatever you have to hand. Here's road pirate captain Grot to show you how!

Note: the best way to do this is by using a drill press with a 3.5mm drill bit. I've been using a 3.15 which is generally fine but sometimes doesn't get all the rivet. You could use a hand held power drill and a vice to hold the car, but you need to be very careful and it will take a lot longer.

Note: It would be a good idea to remove No.2 engine BEFORE doing this. It was not until later than I settled on the design for the engines, and had to hack it off while in place, which was much harder.

Note: the engine and it's rivet are plastic, so a hand drill was more than enough.

Note: I use a scribing tool, but a nail or pin should work just as well.

And there you have it Hippo Fans! It's not that hard to modify Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars like this - cutting them up with a razor saw is the most time consuming part, and of course if you don't have a drill press then drilling the rivets can be a pain.

Now the sharp eyed amongst you may have noticed that this project has left me with a spare '56 Ford F-100 cab. Well, due to another project it just so happens I have a spare BMC Mini chassis...

I present to Ford Mighty Boy! You can see what I mean about the scale here - the mini is one of the shortest of the Hot Wheels cars, but it's certainly not in scale with a Ford F-100 if I can do this with it's chassis.

And here's the heavy truck along side my work in progress war rig. Which has been in progress for about a year because I decided I hated the trailer and it took me a while to find this new one which I think will actually work out.

Anyway, I have a few little car projects to finish up and then it's on to some Gaslands terrain! Involving a F-8E Crusader.

Painting For Hippos ishoo Nin: Gaslands Mishkin Cars

Yesterday we built some electrically beweaponed Mishkin cars for Gaslands. Today we're going to look at painting them. Many figure painting techniques can be transferred to painting toy cars, but there are a few things to look of for - toy cars tend to have softer details for a start.
Here's Grot to guide you through the process.

Note: colours such as orange, yellow and red tend to be a bit thin and therefore require multiple coats to look good - you can improve their coverage by using a brown basecoat like this one.

Note: even with a basecoat, orange can still be a bit thin and streaky. It will depend on the brand of paint and exact shade - Vallejo model colour orange tends to need two coats to look right.

Note: You may need multiple coats of white to get a nice even coverage - even coverage is vital here so take your time.

Note: I use Tamiya clear colours for lights - they were developed for car modelers and have a very nice gloss finish. There is also an orange for painting indicators. All of them should be avaialable at your hobby shop, but if they are not, Vallejo inks should work basically the same.

Well, there you go Racing Hippo Fans! It doesn't take long to paint a gaslands team (especially when you realise this is almost two teams worth of cars - most teams have about three) so you can be out on the highways causing havoc within an afternoon! 

Check back soon for either double-decker trucks or terrain depending on how I feel.