Carronade (Falkirk) 2014

Today I was allowed out for a few hours to play (!!) and headed off with Paul, Davey and Young David to Carronade. This is one of the (if not the) biggest Wargames shows in Scotland and this year seemed very busy.

I only took a couple of shots of games as I went around. One of the big attractions at Carronade is the 'bring and buy' - and one of the nice things they do here is switch over the tables at the bring and buy every few hours. This means that there are new stalls to look at every so often and your not just looking at the same stuff over and over again.

There was also two large gym halls with traders and demo/participation games, as well as the entry forum area and an upstairs smaller hall with games and one traders stall.

So, some pictures of games:

This was a game titles something like 'Anarchy in Nelsons Square' and had civilian anarchists in the middle with Soviet forces (seen here) and British Army forces (seen below).

Next up was a large scale Napoleonic game of some type. The figures were (I think) 1:56?

Then we have a naval game called 'Channel Dash', with German ships defended by German planes against Swordfish and Blenheim's.

And a 28mm ACW game:

And another (although this might be 20mm?)

Next up - what I got!

Full Thrust Ship (Minotaur Class Deep Space Tug)

While watching the last few parts of the EVE Fanfest footage I started work on the first Full Thrust ship I have painted in about 7 years. But first, as I enjoyed it, here's CCP's new Trailer for the game I've been playing since 2005:

Anyway, onto my own work. The ship I'm painting is from GZG and is in the webstore as FT-331A and is listed as being a Tractor Unit. I've two of these models, and both of them have a train of cargo containers. One I had set up with a larger engine unit at the rear, making it FTL capable. However, I think this time I will be trying to have one of them set up so that connection to the 'trailer' is optional.

I really struggle with painting a scheme for anything sci-fi without having some sort of reference material. Whether that be someone elses scheme or something that I have linked my ships to. For example, I see my Pirate ships as being individual and high performance extensions of manhood... so they are generally painted in sports car colours.

For the Tug I went for Lorries (or Trucks, to my American readers). One of the iconic haulage companies on the roads and motorways of the UK is Eddie Stobart, who's lorries all sport a green, red and white scheme.

So here's my little ship, almost finished.

I still want to do a final highlight and the engines. I also haven't quite decided on how I am going to mount these mini's. Likto flight peg toppers are on order.

Anyway, as I tell my EVE corpmates - Fly Safe!

Paint Table Saturday #26

This week I spent a bit of time taking paint off old Full Thrust miniatures. Last Saturday I purchased some Fairy Power washing up spray. This stuff is pretty effective at removing paint from both metal and plastic miniatures. I found the best way of removing the paint was to place the mini's in a tub (I used an old butter tub) and spray the foam all over them liberally. I then left the tub for 12 hours, returning to shake it from time to time. After that, I picked the mini's out, rinsed them off and then scrubbed them with a cheap hard bristle toothbrush. I left the build up of gunk in the bottom of the tub and just dropped the next lot of minis in before spraying again.

Rinsing the mini's first was important, as the first batch I worked on I did not rinse and ended up with very dry skin on my hands.  Like, 'I've dipped my hands in PVA and it needs peeled off' style of dryness.

The only paint left on the minis at the end of this process was the paint that had been applied over areas that had been super glued. But that superglue it removable by a modelling knife.

So yeah, a effective method of paint removal that won't kill you with fumes or need specialist disposal.

Anyway, onto this weeks painting. I did manage to apply highlights to the FoW models I have been working on for weeks, and a primer to a FT mini I wanted to mess with. This weekend has mainly been taken up by the EVE Online Fanfest feed. Next weekend will involve a visit to Carronade over in Falkirk.

So that's it for this Saturday. I will point out that I have come to the point of over highlighting on my 15mm stuff, as from tabletop distances it looks good - not so great close up though! Next up will be matt varnish and then decals.