S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Project, a overview

 I've been working hard, maybe a bit too hard so I've been all over the place..... so I've done a stock take to get my bearings right.

What I finished, my PIP's and my WIP's, and stuff that is yet to be built. I'm taking a few days off for a long weekend with the kids, and on monday I have another online painting group session planned. I'll focus for a bit on finishing the PIP and primed stuff, then try and finish all the detailing on the rest and prime and finish those too. We should be into Christmas or beyond by then. Enough here to keep me busy far into 2025.

Red Vectors crates

 Made more 28mm crates for Stalker (but as usual will work fine for Post APoc, Modern etc), all of these are from Red Vectors, purchased through Pendraken who owns it nowadays. 4,99 euros excluding VAT, you get 9 crates in a pack. They build up really nicely. I've added thin card banding to a few just to spruce them up. Some have been glues together so I don't have to place a ton of individual crates. Went for a more agressive highlight this time, and more variation....hope you like!

Upgrading the Warbases Brick Workshop

 Just finished the upgrade of the Brick Workshop. Styrofoam offcuts for the roof and dormer, cardboard and newspaper for the roof, scrap MDF for other details and some milliput and staples for the win.

Review: Warbases Small Concrete Hut WW2-SCH Tthe Little Shed that could)

 Same spiel as the other one, paid for with my own money and I do this for fun. Yada.

Nice solid little kit. 4 walls, section with a door, section with the window, and roof and floor. Build time was a good 20 minutes, I left out the door and the window and replaced it with a card door. No windowframe as I wanted something different and put in a section of cut off MDF sprue. Added windowsills as usual. Paintwork was about 2-3 hours, most of that on the weathering and the leaves and drying time. Went for the abandonded look with lots of muck and moss. Shoudl fit in any of my gaming interests.

Cracking little thing, works for any table, everyone needs at least one shed. 8/10

Review: Warbases Large Concrete Hut WW2-LCH (aka The Shed)

 I've picked up a number of Warbases items this week and I might as well make a review of some of them. or maybe all, eventually. I paid for all of these with my own money, no donations and I'm most certainly not getting paid for this review.

This is 28mm Large Concrete Hut WW2-LCH and cost me 5.83 GBP excluding tax.
Well lasered, very small connecting points so easy to push out and clean up. I noticed Warbases uses the edge of the bases to cut out round bases of various dimensions to make better use of the empty space. I think that is a smart and economical thing, although I like having those leftovers to scratchbuild and fix things with. 

I did notice the MDF does not have the same coating as Sarissa Precision does and in places it's a bit rough and fibrous, even more so after my method of painting (Agressive sponging).... but only really noticable close up. Cleans up as normal, takes glue and paint as normal. The doors do feel smaller than I'm used to and it doesn't feel as tall. Once I have more stuff finished I'll set it next o ther kits I have.

(And then I went and deleted the pics of the MDF layout cause of course I did....<sigh>)

Building was quick, I did miss not having nubs on the base to align with the holes, but this gives you the option not to use a floor at all (or glue it top the top and the roof on top of that so you have a box with an open underside as I know some people like that. I'm not one of those people). But with the floor down and the walls glued to the side you only need to slot 2 inserts, a door and the windowframes. They both come as a full sheet of the same thickness MDF that you can glue behind the opening. My preference would be card but thats more of a habit thing. The MDF parts for the window don't line up with the walls so you need to shuffle it a bit after adding glue. Easy and again no issue. It does leave a gap at the end but I sawed off an offcut of MDF and glued that in place. The door fits nicely, but the detail is only engraved on the front. It is not lasered through so you can't remove the door to leave it off or keep it slightly ajar like I like to do. Well, not easily anyway. It's nothing a proper modellers saw can't handle :) The result is though the inside lacks a door, but adding a rectangle of card would give a nice impression of one. I just did not bother this time.

With cleaning it took me maybe 15 minutes to build. I feel no battlefield should be without at least one shed. Like water and food they are a essential part of life. 

I added windowsills out of scrap MDF and used thin cardboard to enhance all of the vertical columns. I added scrap MDF strips underneath the roof so it lays in the same position. After painting I added overhead transparancies for glazing.

This meant for my Stalker build but is generic enough to fit everywhere (in a semi modern setting).

I'll give it a 7 out of 10.

And now the result.

Shedding

 My Warbases order from the tail end of October arrived, after sp-ending 2 weeks in Customs limbo. Their MDF scenery is a bit different from Sarissa, the doors feel smaller (still have to measure) and their floor pieces don't nock into the walls on the 3 items I've built today.

In this case it's Large Concrete Hut, Small Concrete Hut and Lean-to Greenhouse. They are ok, nice detail. While taking everything from the panels of MDF I noticed they had used the empty spaces to cut bases out of, so you get less weight and they get more bases to sell. This also means you have a lot less waste.

As I said the bases on the Huts are not keyed so you just glue the walls together around the base. Just make sure the working surface is flat and you should be fine. The details of the door and windows are seperate MDF parts you glue in. I left out the door on the smaller one and left out the MDF section with the window as well and just glued in a bit of left over MDF sprue, Works just as well. Then added windowsills to both and a doorknob to the Large Concrete Hut door. The Greenhouse is lovely if a bit ....barren? 5 pieces including the door and that is it. I've added a bit of scrap MDF as a ledge to put plantpots on (I'll cut up some beads for those) and left the door off for now, but I will glue that in tomorrow.

Now, I've run into the slight issue that what I intended to use the Greenhouse for....doesn't work. The door opening is on the wrong side. I've asked Warbases if one of my friends can pick up some more of those at Warfare this weekend. He should be back from the UK somewhere mid January and then I can build one mirrored. The brickwork will be on the inside, but the outside can just be weathered concrete. No issue there.

Oh, I did add card strips to the small of the 2 huts. Will do the same with the big one tomorrow, it really helps with the look and the paint job.

A few more weeks and all the renovation of the house should be done, I'll be out of the noise and back to peace and quiet and back to more painting.

Only the Greenhouse is...well, was, meant for Stalker, the other 2 are more generic. But more about that once they are done.

Doing the right thing

While looking around the web for deals on Sarissa in the EU I ran across a cloned website of Sarissa. Looked really well done, but in an older format, with current pics and oddly high discounts. Thought I had run in to the testwebsite for a potential upcoming sale at first, but after some online checking (like using the Wayback machine etc) I concluded It must be a fake.

Reported it with screenshots etc to Sarissa and this was their reply.

Hi Johan,


Thank you for taking the time and directing us to the fake site. We’ reported it through various channels and it has now been taken down thankfully and I hope that no one was tricked into using it.


As a thank you for your assistance please accept this £5 voucher code which will give a discount of £5 on any order of £20 or over.



<nope, not showing that, sorry...>


Many thanks,Steve

After being scammed in Agugust by a real shop (losing out 160,77 euros in the process cause www.minigamers.nl just keeps your money and does not send out any stuff) my faith in humanity is a bit restored.

(And then Trump won so now it's shaky again.....<sigh>)

Hard Sci-fi civilian vehicle WIP

 Saw this basemodel early October as a sci-fi vehicle and thought, I can do that. So found one on sale and made it my own with some old (and very old) GW and other parts. Basemodel is a 1/48 Tamiya 7ton Armoured Car MK. IV

Went with a abandoned Redneck in space look. Plenty of scope for weathering. Minor cleanup tomorrow then primer.

Will work for any hard Sci-fi I suppose.Alien, Rogue Trader, Stargrave