The Special Objective - a AK-47 Group Build - "The Red Herring Fish Factory"

 

And it is done, the Red Herring Fish Factory Special Objective. 

 

Situated in in the coastal city of Aladinea, Republic of Wadiya, the factory supplies the beautiful people of Wadiya with work for 20 men and a few children. Most of the cans are exported to the Sovjet Union, where they are used to stock up air raid shelters with delicious and nutritious seafood. It is not exported to Western countries due to biased claims and market protection schemes. Listeria never killed anyone in Wadiya, so it is 110% safe. Very Aladeen. 

 

The original factory was started in the early 1900's by the French in their colonial days. This factory later burned down. In WW1 a new cannery was erected to supply the French army during the war. The building was finished in 1919 and subsequently burned down in the riots during the coup d'etat of 1927.

A new factory was built shortly before WW2 and this supplied canned fish to the Axis powers. This was then bombed by the British Royal Air Force in 1944 and burned down. In what can only be described as sheer tenacity, another factory was built a few years after the war and as mentioned, supplied canned fish to the Sovjet Union. Shortly after taking these pictures, a unfortunate incident happend and the factory burned down. Again. The resulting explosion of fish pulp and oil flung the massive Red Herring sign across the bay and right onto the yacht of the Admiral of the Wadiyan Navy, Abdel Ranka, killing him and seven of his mistresses. Admiral Abdel Ranka was posthumously declared a Hero of Wadiya and mentioned in the Guiness Book of Records as the man who caught the biggest herring on record. Again, very Aladeen.

And that's it. A complete scratchbuild, a core of foam coated in card, with some scrap lasercut card from other projects, lead wire, some magnets, and a 3D printed VW Beetle. A nice mix of old and new techniques (to me). Some things worked, others not so much. The signs are magnetised (else it would not fit in the storage box, plus that gives extra space to mount a AA gun or a glorious flag) and I've already started work on additonal pieces so I can use it for other games as well. Hope you like :)

Zona Alfa Dice box for my S.T.A.L.K.E.R. projects

 
Something very simple, not weatherd but just functional - changing a small teabag box into a dice box for my Zona Alfa dice and (future) markers, just to keep it all together for convenience. Teabox was 20 cents at the Goodwill, sticker was 1,38 euros from Uncle Alie and the dice I just grabbed from my way too large box of dice. KISS and all that. 

Air Traffic Control Tower FINISHED (took me bloody long enough)

 On September 5th 2023 I said:

"Finished the Generator shack, next up weathering of the top part and then painting in the windows. 

Getting there, slowly."

 

...then I fucked up painting the windows and into the box it went.

During lastnights online painting session I was trying out some now things for the AK47 group Build and it just clicked. Grabbed it from the box and finished it. 18 months to spend about 5 seconds per window

 Jay. Victory. And stuff. <smileyface>

Also nice to see how my style keeps changing/evolving.

 

Anyhoo, Wadiyan airspace is now controlled by glorious air traffic controllers between 9:00-17:00 business hours, not on sundays and certain holidays. Lunchtime is from 11:00 till 13:00. 

Bamboo Test Model #1, #2 and #3

 Decided to test of the basing looks just as good, better or worse by substituting plastic leaves for Dill, so #1 is 100% plastic leaves, #2 is 50/50 plastic/Dill and #3 is 25/75 plastic/Dill.So far it looks rather good, but won't be 100% sure till the lot is painted, but I think it will be ok.

LtR - #1, #2 and #3

Scale wise they work for my needs, 15mm and 28mm.

28mm Stargrave figure (that I REALLY need to finish) and 15mm Peter Pig Citroen Car

Storage is also sorted, a RUB 9 Liter box will hold quite a few

 

Bamboo test model #1

 Made 10 test bases of bamboo for Nam'68 and am now looking where I can speed up things for reasons of not going completely mental. I'm not stripping the stems, that might be fine for one or 2 bases if you want to use them for photography backgrounds, but not when I want 40-50 bases of these. Same goes for cutting off individual leaves, ain't nobody got time for that, so now looking for a suitable bunch or other workaround for something resembling the shape. Other than that, just dandy.

 

 

Oh (Scratchbuilt) Well finished

 And it is done. A nice mix of tufts and leaves, will look good on the table :)

Nam'68 Dice, Token and Counter bag

 Finished a little thing to keep it all sorted.

Patch I picked up from a collector, lower half of a old pair of green hiking pants reworked by a local seamstress, a button from a swapmeet and a bit of black marker.

Next up is glueing and revarnishing all of the Tokens onto old wooden Scrabble tiles and also finding my sets of dice I have set aside for the bag.

LAF BSC 2025 - Backwater Ferry - Framing the Ferry

 Just a progress shot. Sanded, connected and glued the framing together made from discarded fireworks, then sanded both sides a as flat as possible. Now I can start adding the plastic card decking, the extensions, the cabin, engines and the workings for the front ramp.

 

3 weeks for this and the paintjob, and I have 2 other projects running simultaniously. Better get cracking.

Oh (Scratchbuilt) Well WIP

 After visiting Ikea last weekend with one of my daughters I picked up a small cardboard tube in the plastic plants section. (I fought her for it and I won :P )

With a base, some card, a paperclip, aluminium tubing and some copper wire I made a Russian Village Well for Stalker. 3/4 with painting that I started at tonights online painting session. 2 hours well spent. 

Tomrrow (I hope) final detailing, weathering and plantlife.

Anything is a ... if you are brave enough.

 

Recently saw a post on the LAF with some nice scifi scatter that inspired me to make my own. I could not find any decent parts till I found this for 2 euros in the toy section, a nice hard plastic too.

After some cutting, basing and adding a few bolts on the inside for weight and some light detailing on the outside I got this:

The tops of the rocket boosters will be finished another day, I'm not happy with how they turned out. But the others are just lovely, so enjoy. I'll be dual using these for 15mm and 28mm.

Old statues and a Sarcophagus

 I had based and cleaned up quite a while ago a few of the old plastic GW LotR statues and thought it a good time to paint it up. Dropped in a Sarcophagus from Frontline as well, from their 25mm Musketeer Range, set MR6 Graveyard. Tufts are from a lot of different sources.

The advantage of graves and statues is that you can use them for almost all periods, from old to new and future even. Right, enough for today, on with the next.