Ishoo Wun-Sixteen: Ruined Concrete Walls.

Continuing the back to basics trend here at TFH, it's time to look at some simple ruined concrete walls. We've done these before - way back when I built the My First Underhive terrain set, but these are a little different. They came out of the same planning session with Pete as the rock spires from last ishoo and are intended to be scale-agnostic enough that we can use them in Gaslands and mighty ruins or in 28mm scale games as low ruins. And in an attempt to make them more durable than our polystyrene, foamcore, or cardboard walls, they're made from MDF.

And there you have it Hippo Fans! Hopefully, these walls will prove more resistant to the destructive forces of HGC club storage. And hopefully you'll be back for the nest ishoo (in about half an hours time since I already have that one completed and sort of forgot to post this one for a few days...)

Ishoo wun-fifteen: Rock Spires.

In the old days when I first got into this hobby, rock spires were a big thing. They were always turning up in White Dwarf pictures, and they were one of the first terrain projects I undertook - almost certainly the very first time I used polystyrene. Which makes it a bit odd that I have never actually posted any to the blog. Of course, terrain technology has marched on. Those first rock spires I made used 10mm thick sheets of low density foam cut to shape and slathered in plaster. These days it's easy to get high density styrofoam insulation sheet and I've learned much more effective texturing techniques. So with the increasing interest in Gaslands at my club, it seemed like a good time to build some 'scale agnostic' terrain like rock spires which could be used in Gaslands as well as all the 28mm games we play. So here's Grot to show you the way!

Note: He toothpicks will add some strength and stop the pieces slipping around while they dry - they're even more important on thinner spires which are more fragile than this one.

Note: Extend about 5-7cm of blade, dig it into the polystyrene horizontally, and then flick your wrist to twist the blade sideways. It will rip a chunk out and give a nice stratified effect.

Note: My jigsaw is mounted upside-down to this jigsaw table - that's the blade coming up through the whole.

And there you have it hippo fans! It's quick and easy to make a whole table worth of these (which is exactly what I did - I ended up with nine seperate pieces ranging from about 5cm across all the way up to about 20cm across. So long as you don't over do the grass they will look perfectly at home in anything from 15mm-28mm scale, and if you just swap static grass out for flock they'll work at smaller scales too. You could leave the grass out, but it helps to seperate the spire from the base visually. Come back soon for the next ishoo which will also tackle one of the classics of my youth in. a scale agnostic way. Or attempt to anyway.

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.