Something for the Po Po!

The police station is finished (all except a lick of varnish)!

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out and I think the brick effect looks good. Still not sure if it warrants the time spent doing it but I found it quite relaxing to paint so I'm not going to grumble. I do plan to to this style of painting on the other buildings that have brick sections but I will confess that I'm considering doing a slightly altered process involving a foundation of drybrushing followed by just some of the bricks being picked out.

I had half hour spare after finishing the Police Station so I popped together the containers from the TTCombat Merchant Vessel set. Just a dry fit and they'll probably get a blob of glue tonight. They're not a complicated build so that should only take ten minutes.

Yesterdays lunchtime was also fruit full as I managed to stick together the Warsenal Infinity Benches (Hi-tech bus stops?) and do a dry fit on the Sarissa Caravan which is destined to be part of my scrap yard set.

If I'm honest I hoped to get more finished during Scenery September but looking back I have made some good in roads despite diverting myself with loads of crates at the beginning of the month. Also the brickwork painting took.....some.....time.

What next? I should get on with the AoS Seraphon as there is a campaign waiting in the wings.

I suspect that the scenery might still have a place along side the lizards on the painting table as I am totally inspired by the MDF at the moment.

TTFN

It was supposed to be simple.

When I painted the roof top fire escape (see previous post) I was really quite pleased with the contrast between the dry brushed grey and the hand painted red bricks on the corner trims. An effect that I decided to apply to the next building, which at the time was going to be the comic shop, as the it has the same brick trim on the corners. Great I thought. Simple I thought.

Then at some point I changed my mind about the next project however not about painting brickwork. The next project ended up being the Police Station. I didn't think it through. The Police Station isn't trimmed with brick. Its Brick dressed with columns.

So.....lots of bricks. Like I said. Didn't think it though even to the point when I started painting it. I was too excited about brickwork. Thankfully the excitement has been sustained by how it is turning out. It might be laborious painting soooooo  many bricks but goddammit....I do think it looks mighty pretty.

  The first night was easy. Dry brushed coats of dark brown, dark grey and then a lighter grey to give a mottled dirty greyish look.

There is an etched floor on the ground level so that have to have some colour as well.

Now I've only done two of the upstairs walls so far and expect that it'll take me two more evening painting sessions to finish the rest but I'm pretty pleased with how it looking so far.

At work, in an attempt to make some other progress, I've been starting on the base stand for my dock crane. The kit was nice but it is great if there is some relief texture to help with the weathering. With this in mind I've started to add rivets to the superstructure.

Not an especially long job as the rivets are quick to make using a card makers hole punch. Seriously.....think about getting one of these for your modelling tool kit. Adding rivets becomes an absolute doddle. All rivets should be done by the end of tomorrow lunchtime.

TTFN

Getting there......slowly.

I'm still chipping away at the scenery and, perhaps more importantly, I'm still really enjoying focusing on this stuff.

I've always liked making and painting scenery but I must confess that it has been somewhat cathartic to make progress (or even start) on some of the bits I've had hanging around. The TTCombat stuff is still relatively new but I've had some of this other stuff for some time.

The Scrapyard stuff is from Ainsty from a range of urban apocalyptic barricades type stuff but when I saw it, all those years ago, I thought they'd be great to have fenced off as a scrap merchants yard. I could do with a few more busted up cars but this will do for now.

I've got wooden fencing to go around the scrapyard now so I need to get that finished as well as the scrap merchants caravan which is a Sarissa Americana style caravan I got at Colours. After that The Yard will be finished but I suspect I'll add some more scrap cars. As it happens I have a plan involving some tin foil..........

Done, except for a lick of varnish, is the TTCombat building site set which is a very cool set given its low price. Signs, barriers, generators and flood lights. Nice and characterful and they'll be good scatter terrain for Superhero games. As Urn pointed out "Nice signs too, eh great for the supers to smash each other with!"

True. So true.

Almost done now is the rooftop furniture set also from TTCombat. I have become a serious fan of their stuff. Its solid, functional and cheap. All good words but more importantly than that, it looks great once put together and painted. I've got several of their buildings lined up to do as part of Scenery September and I'm really looking forward to getting cracking on them.

I do enjoy the finishing little touches on the MDF scenery. The MDF kits take washes well and so devlan mud and nuln oil weathering is quick an simple to do. I also find inks quite fun to use as they soak straight into the wooden without their usual shiny finish. It adds a strong colour without adding a different texture to the surface. I've tried to get a contrast between the grey and the bricks on the fire escape block but it looks a bit subtle in the picture so I might revisit that prior to giving them a varnish. I want to use that sort of effect on some of the buildings so it is nice to have a small piece to practice on.

I got through today the other piece I needed for my dock crane. I got the steam crane Sarissa kit at Colours and now the Oil Well from TTCombat has arrived to be re-purposed to be the base of the crane. It'll need lots of rivets as the kit is pretty plain but it was only £3.95 so no complaints from me. I do want lots of rivets on it as I plan to have a lot of rusty weathering on it. REALLY looking forward to putting this together!

TTFN

Some weekend purchases.

That time had rumbled around again when the (usually) annual Colours show takes place at Newbury racecourse. I do like to go as it feels like a small pilgrimage. I know that there are bigger shows but it is local and familiar to me.

I've been going to Colours since i was a kid, back then it was called Armageddon and was held at the Hexagon theater in Reading. I loved it back then as it was always crammed in with sellers all over the place in different nooks and crannies! Its moved on quite a lot with loads more space at the Newbury Racecourse but many of the original sellers still showing every year. I'm not currently playing any GZG games but it is always nice to browse their stand. It's Nostalgic.

This year I got a few bits and pieces, mainly MDF scenery cos' man I loveeee the MDF scenery!

Paints, scenery and cheap foam trays. I saw the demo game for Hysterical Games' Fantasy WWII game. The game doesn't appeal to me, although it looked fairly fun, but they had dock cranes on their table that were cool! I asked and the chap who made the board said that they were a Sarissa rail based steam crane coupled with a TTCombat Oil Rig tower. Needless to say I ended up buying the Sarissa part of that equation. Unsurprisingly the TTCombat part is currently on order.

Also brought was a American style mobile home to go with the scrapyard terrain set I am putting together. Two sci-fi scenery kits and some resin fences for the scrapyard completed the scenery purchases apart from.......

Nee Nar!! Hands up punks!!!

£6 from some stall......whose name completely escapes me. Absolute bargain for a 28mm vehicle. Thinking that I missed a trick not buying the £5 car that they also sold.

I also got to make some small progress on Scenery September. Not much tho'.

TTCombat urban street dressing from their Building Site Set. I'm intending to knock up a 'hole' as road works for this lot to go with. Just something to break up the open road sections when we play Pulp City or any future Zombie games.

TTFN

Anything. But. Crates

Who'd of thought that crates would take sooooo long to paint. Well they do.

Sci-fi crates with lots of detail, foolishly combined with a multi colour paint scheme takes time. Its frustrating me as I feel I'm on the clock as its 'Scenery September' and I really do want to make some progress into my sizable collection of unfinished buildings.

With that in mind I have resolved to keep the crates to hand and nibble away at them whenever I have a spare ten minutes left at the end of a painting session.

So first up is some Tyre barricades and a battle damaged car (circa WWII) which I had lumped to together to be a scrapyard for Pulp City games. I've got some wood slat fencing and was just going to use these scattered within the fences to be the scrap. Might have to get one of the TTCombat little construction site offices to give the scrap merchant a place to peddle his wares.

Also undercoated last night was some TTCombat items like signs and roadworks digger generators. Had them a while and they'll look ace on the table. I will need to make a scenery piece to be the roadworks with a hole and some excavated rubble. Just to complete the set.

I'm really looking forward to doing these. Should just be a case of quick dry brushing to get them done. It'll be nice to have a finished set done.

TTFN

And so it begins......

So Urn, Junta and I seem to have managed to sort of challenge each other to "Scenery September".

No prize just bragging rights!

I've started with some sci-fi crates that i'd knocked together from some spare Spartan Scenics detail panels that come with their kits. I thought they'd be better and more usable as crates. Put them together and undercoated them ages ago but they'd not advanced since then.

As always my painting choices make the job take longer than necessary but I'm hoping that these will look pretty funky.

After these I'll be looking to get some of the TTCombat kits I put together earlier in the year painted. Given the slow progress I made on the crates last night I wouldn't be surprised if I don't get to them for quite a few days.

TTFN