WIP El San Francisco 2

Well here is a little update on the ship I am building as you can see I have done mast placement, rudder and the prow. The masts have not been glued in. That is so I can remove them plater so I don't poke my eyes out. Just a small update but it means only a few parts of the structure remain and I can soon move onto cladding it in planking.

Being white makes it hard to get good photographs of the ship due to the light but here she is.

The string was just to hold the prow in place as it glued. Will be removed soon

.

Again lighting is a pain but you get the overall shape with this one.

And the rear cabin and rudder here almost done apart from the roof.

Well that's it for this post. I'll do the next one once I have moved into planking it. By that point I'll be covered in PVA glue and regretting ever getting into this hobby.

Anway that's it for now. Have a good day/night everyone. :-)

WIP El San Francisco 1

Here are a few pics of the latest project I am working on. The first of this years model ships. This is El San Francisco. It is larger than the river boats I made but smaller than the Abigail. The aim is to make a more interesting vessel by having an accessible cabin area with a removable roof. In addition this model will have similar planking to the Abigail to increase the level of detail. So far the model is rather simple but it is just work in progress. :-)

This shot is the set up I used last night to hold the gluing parts together.

made with anything to hand, offcuts, string and a handy glue tube the set up worked quite well.

Oh and that mess in the background is my workbench. :-P

This is the result I found this morning. Not bad eh?

It's not perfectly symmetrical but good enough, It'll look good once done.

I have since added the front and rear walls of the cabin so these WIP shots are already out of date

Once again an overhead shot of a boat captures one of my feet. I really must be careful with that.

Well that's it for now guys. More to follow. And to you all have a good day/night. :-)

whats on my workbench

so what is on the dinning room table workbench then? well its a scruffy disorganised chaos that somehow I manage to work in and regularly tidy away to allow for dinner, though because its summer I can leave the stuff out longer, :-). the following pictures may disturb some viewers who hate chaos and others who find the use of a dinning table for anything other than dinner a crime.

this is just part of the mess, projects I am working on

One Oronegrean supply house, you find these along the nations roads, this is a small one that is also designed to act as fortification if needed, hence the many windows on the ground floor providing 360 degree views, and the roof. which is removable.

this here is an collection of figures some Oronegrean soldiers the others are civilians

this here is the Willow a nice little cutter that will be either a transport or cargo ship

once again a look at the figs, this camera angle and lighting does not do them any favours, nor does their current stage in basing and painting, more on that later on.

and this scribbled and disorganised mess of words is an attempt to get on paper exactly how many people guns, wagons and horses are in an Oronegrean legion. the answer is 5000 humans, 50 guns, 500 wagons and 5000 horses. I will explain more once I sort out the mess into a nice chart. give me a few years, hours, months, days or weeks.

 And Now onto a little fun explanation on basing my figs... my new figs unlike my moderns will all have nice rectangular bases so that they can all be squashed together to form those rigid battle lines of the time... why I am also doing this for the civilians is beyond me. BUT whats so special is the materials I am using!!!!

I AM USING BLACK SAND AND PVA TO BASE MY FIGS!!!!

along this coast of New Zealand the beaches are made of black sand which makes them a feet frying strip of magnetic pain. (trust me it does burn your feet badly during the summer). this sand is very fine and like I said magnetic... SO the other day I went to the beach and got a bag full, then I had to dump half the sand and then put the bag inside 2 others because the load of sand was incredibly heavy. so I based my figs with the mixture of sand and PVA only to find the sand was so magnetic that even when done and flock applied a good magnet can still pull those figs around! I am now think how funny if would be to move my army from underneath the table by using a large magnet... I wonder if I could move them without my opponent noticing???

a bit of black sand on a pen which has a magnetic strip so it can live on the fridge.

OK cheating in a game aside and losing all my figs every time we go past a scrap yard I hope you are all having a great time... and one last important thing I forgot to attend to last post. My new Follower...

Hello to Abdul666 from emperor vs elector and MCristo by LaceW. welcome to the blog I know you have been unofficially here for quite some time and its really nice to officially welcome you here.

Piratical Pirate Preview or Silly sailor sneak peek

well well well here I am another post before the year is out... what have I been thinking? no new posts on the Oronegro blog but the story there will be completed sooner or later. just got to get a round to it.

here are SOME of the figures that I have done, a few more were completed after these guys and some are being made up now... with a few more as yet un-started and some lying there in need of work. so Here are the Oronegrean Pirates and Sailors

all of them together you can see that they are all based up. for the 18th century I will base all my figs one terrain suitable for their combat home, so pirates and sailors on beaches, for the captain on the left the ships deck or in some building

one of my all time favourites, if you could not tell already... formally Robin Hood himself now a pirate

one of my least liked, his conversion didn't work well there is another converted to a shooting sailor/pirate but with a different method. looks better so far

only a small change for this guy, hat swap and now he wears shorts... I like this guy also

bicorns are hard to make right, they either become to tall or not wide enough, but with practice I should get it right eventually... of coarse he is a gun crew member

another gun crew member, I experimented with a stripey shirt... looks fine to me

the Captain of the HMS Anne. He needs a name. he is a conversion from the Zvezda Medieval field artillery set, not much was changed just the type of helmet.

well there you have it, a few more done before the year is out but the whole lot will not be complete before the year has passed. I hope you have enjoyed this preview and as always have a happy, healthy, hobby filled new year

whoops wrong set

admittedly it appears that I am also to blame, I appear to have got the Republic of Korea Imex set instead of the KPA, well I am not too fussed these guys will make some good new rebel forces. Also it appears that the modern set has a part missing a shield for the riot police :-(
the KPA is the biggest concern as I wanted to get them because they all wore the caps however in the RoK troop set most of them have M1 helmets which though OK for a militia force is not in keeping with Oronegro because...
the Oronegrean stockpiles would have had British style of 1940's style German helmets, as is shown by the native units it was the third Reich not America that influenced the uniform of the Army of Oronegro from 1946-1967 before Oronegro started to change its uniform to the field caps that are worn by many of the rebel forces from the boarders and rural towns. However there is room for the US equipment as it is likely that after 1967 that the M1 helmet was introduced in small quantities with the German Stahlhelm remaining the standard helmet up until the 1980's when it was replaced by the newer US Pagsat helmet and later the Fritz...
just a small bit of history for you there, but I shall not complain and I will continue to look out for the KPA set perhaps a Christmas prezzie :-) have a nice day guys

SPETNAZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh yes I have started the Russians. after the great soviet reunion these guys were trained in the thousands (thousands more than usual) the following are wearing the Urban/night Camouflage of the Oronegrean unit. this camouflage has also turned into their standard dress as the jungle uniform is tattered beyond belief. These men are well trained and well equipped with new AK-740's produced in rebel owned factors in Oronegro. these guns are so good that even the M-16 is not more advanced (about equal actually). their skills are only matched by those of the wests most elite units, and of coarse the Angeles Negros are far superior. they are the Rebels most dangerous ally and one of it's most elusive. any self respecting general in the national army would call for air-support as soon as these guys entered the fight, if he got the chance.

just a note, I am getting low on primer and so their bases have not been primed and the usual black paint needed a substitute of PVA to get it to stay on, and more PVA to protect it!

the shadow hides the most dangerous rebels I have painted yet!

these are the ones I have done so far, the others are nowhere near this stage

as you can see I have returned to my usual trick of adding beards and eyebrows

this guy is perhaps the most dangerous threat to my harrier, BTW the euro fighter is on the way

an RPG hopefully it will be accurate as it is rebel made, Oronegro's got a great reputation for it's weapon manufacturing

two average soldiers, I thing that these guys are cool, it's just a shame Esci did not make more combat poses

there you guys go. I hope that more will be complete soon and I can present the whole unit. and I hope that you all like the camouflage!

progress report...

in general the situation here is one of great progress in the figs department.. shinney little men are rolling of the production line at light speed. however builders will be buildes and no progress has been made on those embassies.

a materials shortage is the claimed cause. however these contracters are a dodgy sort (I know I have good friends who are contractors :-P ). they problem is due to parents dumping the piles of cardboard boxes left over from moving house. I'll need to build up supplies before work can start. then there is the problem of paint. I am getting low on black and grey which are crucuial to the construction effort. with cash reserves low. construction will have to remain on hold for the duration on the current cash shortage in the oronegrean reserves.

well not a good report on the whole but the figs are doing well..... Unfortunately I have doveloped a nasty cold and am off sick again... moving to another country means you must go through al those nasty deseases again :-( we have been here 7 years and still I get ill

ah it is good to have connections...

hi all well I have two things to announce today first my number of followers matches my age, then my new haul of scratch building goodies and Finlay some other connections that equal going to the movies... so first up the followers.

on this blog I always knew right from the start followers would be important. I needed them to help with these crazy ideas I keep having (less of late due to head cold). so the number of followers reaching my age is quite a special moment. Captain Richard's miniature Civil War is my new follower, from captain Richards miniature civil war. though I assume many of you passed this milestone without batting an eyelid.


now onto more important issues... my latest gifts.


thanks to Pete a family friend I get the occasional delivery of foam core. though I only got a bit the first time and did not expect to get more yesterday I got a knock on the door and low and behold Pete with an armful of foam core and card. all different thicknesses as well. one piece was the same as the stuff I got before but the rest is thicker or thinner... so lets take a look at this pile of greatness...

by bed may not be the home of this stuff but with the table being used  to make ginger bread men it'll do

thicker on the left thinner on the right. the paper at the back is some very fine sand paper.

this is the thick foam core... great for bunker walls or as you will see one day soon, boat hulls.

so there is the surprise gift now onto the movies, last week I had that terrible cold which made me miss school. but it also made me miss going to the movies with my friends family for his birthday. But they knew that I wanted to go and reshuffled the trip up to Auckland. it was a good time even before we went in. we went into toy world which despite the name has a great little selection of models, then we went into the cinema to see.... The Avengers. I really enjoyed it, still have to decide who was my favourite, we watched it in 2D and for once I felt that watching it in 2D was the right thing to do, unlike other recent movies where there are shots just to make the 3D audiance go WOW. so thanks guys.


P.S they are fans of the other blog and started one of their own... but that is for another post. but let me tell you they were excited to see my works first hand and really enjoyed it. so maybe if I go to a wargame any time soon I'll bring those boards along.

no tanks for me! or mabe there is... take a look

well I was doomed from the start, the other bidder cam back and saw my Little bid :-( they then put in a slightly higher bid and turned the auto bid on so no matter how much I put in they were one step ahead. I could have kept on going until I passed the amount they had set not to go over but that would detract from the fact I was getting it as a good deal... maybe I'll go to the guy in pukekohe he does not stock allot or what I need but I can order through him and maybe get bits-and pieces I need.

so what next...
how about this idea... I had it a while ago but completely messed it up first time round. make one out of paper! I am glad to have found this blog myhobbycraft.blogspot.com most of the stuff is in other scales but thanks to math and a calculator I have converted this black-eagle-tank-13/5

Russian and modern, a failed project for their army a armament of my rebels

looking good, all I need is some card a printer and glue (and patience)

it may be 1/35 but I can change all that, there is other stuff there too a real wonder blog if you ask me. all this stuff free and you can make it over and over. I love you guy's blogs but this one makes me get armies quick and cheap all I need is more time, so my next little project that will be going on with my streets one is...

building a tank out of paper and my challenger 2 tank to see whick is better.

hope to see you all again soon oh and any tips on where to get good deals on AFV's would be much appreciated. 

easter holidays, terrorists, ballet and shopping

well maybe a more abstract title but a rather good one for my current situation. I am painting overtime to get my set of Caesar urban resistors (terrorists) done before monday. I still have 15 to do. not alot you might say well, I work slow. so why the ballet??? well my mother used to do professional ballet (I cannot dance for crap). now she teaches at the Draper Academy of dance, in Pukekohe the town next door to us. anyway this morning I chipped in with moving stuff. I of coarse did my usual thing of looking for building materials, I am the best recycler in waiuku (possibly). the plywood was not going to the skip so although it was perfect for boards it was not for me :-(. but I did get some sheets of strong thick card. perfect for some walls and some plaster board. ok the plaster board is not light and not very good for models. but for thick concrete walls like at an airfield, or a bunker. so I have some more stuff for my projects.
though I am not sure my dad is to happy about it. (unimaginative). well happy easter to all you out there who celebrate it and/or comemerate it. as for me I will be sleeping :-D

now I need some consumer advise... I can get (if I get what is owed to me) one of the following...

• Ariete - brand new 
• Type 90 - some parts off sprue but complete 
• Type 61 - largely built 
• M113 - parts off sprue but complete 
• Note: Challenger is not included (already sold)

all that for $30

or...

this for $10???

NOW 4 more things I could get...

$17

$17

$17 not so appropriate for my modern south americans but they are all wearing european clothing unlike the militia

$17 even less apropriate for my south americans but a bit of converting might go the trick for some rebel NBC troops

Now we all need to keep in mind that this is for sale on trademe (NZ's version of ebay) so I might have to bid for stuff. except the last 4 they are "buy nows". I have never really asked for advise on what to get, but I do need it I would never stop otherwize. maybe you should just say. NO GOWAN!!!! and make me think about saving....

anyway please comment, and soon or else those things will be bought by someone else, or I will and not think about why I am getting it :-)