Insert Obligatory 'Still Here' Joke Here

December 21, 2012.  Time to throw out your old Mayan calendar and get a new one.  Let's skip all the obvious jokes, okay?  If you want those, just read Twitter for five minutes - you'll get every single one of them a few dozen times.

On the spaceship front we have my new favorite thing, but first let's look at the progress on the rec room.  A lot of work gives us some new scenery.  The small potted plants are made from old sprue trimmed and painted and stuck in a wooden bit found at the hardware store.  The pots are meant to get stuck into the holes of wooden furniture to cover up deep set screws, but they look like ceramic pots.  Here's a more detailed explanation from the wizards over at TerraGenesis.

And oh, what's that on the telly?  Let's take a closer look...

Even space-orcs love the Doctor.

It's Worse Than That, It's Gym, Captain

Here's a nice open space for a shoot-out.  The ship's gym comes complete with a futureball court and target, and a sparring/wrestling mat.  I'd hoped to do without the Necromunda style yellow and black striped caution marks, but darn it those patterns just plain work.  The boys at GW were onto something with it, even if they did overuse the pattern.  They tend to do that with things...anyone up for more skulls in their 40k?

Ignore the tall door - I've got plans for that.

The small balls are the heads of sewing pins.  They'll stick quite well, after all they come with their own pins.  If you leave about 2mm of the pin in place, you can smash that into the foamcore for extra security.

 If you look across the big hole you can see a small potted plant.  We'll talk more about those tomorrow, along with a new painting I'm particularly proud of.

Bridge Construction

Tell me this bridge doesn't evoke a TARDIS feeling.  That's a basic hex base for a 28mm figure with cereal packet painted with dials, screens, and other controls.  I took the same style syringe cap used for the engines and stuffed it full of green and unpainted toothpicks.  The whole mess fit perfectly wit the bamboo skewer coming down from the nose of the ship.  Green felt serves as carpet and completes the upper bridge.

In scale, that platform is waist-high, so I'll need to add some steps up yet.  The rest of the level is still pretty barren, so we're looking at more control tables and screens somewhere down the road.

Little Touches

Every little detail added makes the rocket come alive just a little more.  This shot shows some successes in that department.  The engines are starting to look the part with bright green glowy cores surrounded by plastic casements. (Those are the tops of big syringes over a painted bamboo skewer - I got sloppy with the paint because the plastic obscures the things anyway.)  These still need more pipes and grommits and doo-dads, but that can wait for later; I have to resist the urge to cover the whole darn thing with cover everywhere.

The flooring turned out great.  That's just textured shelf liner paper painted black, highlighted silver, and hit with a touch of brown ink.  Looks metallic and dirty and helps give the lower level a darker, more industrial feel to it.

There's a little red toolbox in the lower right corner, so this will eventually become the machine shop/motor pool (if I can find a small vehicle I want to park here - a Firefly-esque mue would make for some fine cover.

Also notice that the vent now has a red number 'stenciled' on to it.  Enter a vent, and the next turn you come out at a random vent.  While painting these, I realized that the vents are better at getting down to the engine level than up near the bridge; there are two vents on the bottom level compared to one on the rest, so that means you have a 1 in 3 chance of coming out in the guts of the ship.  Which makes sense - it's easier to climb down than up.  That's a neat little feature that smart players will be able to exploit.

Ladder for the Lads

Like I said - a little drybrushing and those zip-ties really pop as ladders.  If you don't think about it too hard.

This shot gives you glimpses of other design decisions.  The vents turned out just fine, but they still need numbers on them.  The teal and orange will suitably retro-70s-sci-fi, and the kitchen is coming along nicely, too.

Brilliant Solutions

The best comment section on Blogger is right here, folks.  Early this week I lamented that my storage case was almost perfect.  Two, count them TWO, loyal readers pointed out that I've got pointy blades that could nip a small notch in the case, which would allow me to carry my Mangalorcs in style.

He's just too much mangalorc for one shelf.

Door closed for rollin'.  Hatin' optional.

Tip of the hat to an anonymous reader, and to Brummie over at the excellent and eponymous BrummiesWargamingBlog.

Almost Awesome Storage Solution

Down to the local craft store this past weekend, looking for a small plastic box to house my Mangalorcs between games, and stumbled on this slick little number.  It's a carousel of five small boxes that detach, with a larger and deeper central  bin on top.  It's only nine bucks, and it can probably hold a good 100+ figures in the 15mm scale, with room up top for three or four vehicles.

Yoink!

 It's almost perfect.  Look at how cozy my li'l space bastard are in there...

Cozy is realtor speak for "really small".

There's just one problem...

Whoops.

It's about 2mm too short for any slightly oversized figure, or one waving his pistol and sword in the air.  Yeah, you could put those few figures in the upper bin, but then they wouldn't be together, and you wouldn't have a way to showcase your force in one place.  It totally defeats the whole purpose of the thing.

Back to the store with you!