Update & Work in Progress

I've been swamped this semester, more so now that I am the chair of my department. Its not like I've had much time in the past, now it seems like time is in the negative territory! Plus, there seems to be plenty of family activities that are going on...not that I am complaining about those! On the up side, I recently saw two journal articles in print. This is what little I've done lately:

1. I've started working on my 1/600 aircraft for my Chalupastan campaign. I only painted a few of them for the battle I had this summer with Karl and my nephew. I am also mounting them on bases using LEGO pieces. This was something I had thought of, but someone else put into action on the miniaturespage.com. I hope to take some pictures soon.

2. The plans for the Ziewback Motel are coming along very slowly. Once I decide what the back side that you don't see looks like, I will print it out on cardstock and then proceed.

3. I've been experimenting with mounting the turrets of some of my microarmor with small rare earth magnets. The problem with GHQ microarmor, especially their modern stuff, it they have the tiniest of nubbins to hold the turret onto the body. Again, posts on the miniaturespage.com suggested using tiny rare earth magnets. The problem has been how to mount the magnet. I have routed out the hole on the body and cut off the nubbin on the turret and made a hole for the other magnet. Unfortunately, the pinvise that I have can't acomodate the size of the drill bit. I couldn't drill a deep enough hole into the turret. When I glued in the magnets, they stuck out too much and look funny. I am waiting on a order for a larger pinvise to drill a bigger hole.

4. I joined an online battle using some rules called Combat Storm. If I can't game with anyone around here, I might as well on the internet. The problem is that I don't have time to go and check the website to play. They started yesterday, and I've only had the chance to check in this afternoon. I hope I don't have to back out of it, but I would feel bad if I held up the game.

Building the Zwieback Motel Part 1

I gotta say that my favorite books as a child were those of Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel). I loved everything about them. In addition to the stories and the characters, were the fantastic contraptions and architecture of this strange and wonderful universe. One of the joys of being a parent is that I get to re-read all of my old Dr. Seuss books to my young daughter.

One of my favorites was Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book (1962). There isn't much of a story other than it is a long-running news report on various people and creatures going to sleep. As the "story" goes along, it keeps tallying up how many creatures are asleep. At the end, it includes the reader as part of the tally. I guess the idea is to make the reader sleepier as he reads it. The inside cover even states that, "This Book is to be Read in Bed." It is very entertaining.

Anyway, one report is on the infamous Zwieback Motel, whose beds are so uncomfortable that you really have to be tired to fall asleep there. It does not appear to be a very big hotel. It looks like it can hold about five customers (all of whom seem to be very blissfully sleeping according to the illustration). I thought that it would be fun to build a model of the hotel.



I am planning to build it in 1/300 scale. One of the problems is that building in Dr. Seuss' universe are not exactly symmetrical or rectilinear. Its going to be quite a challenge. Also, I have no idea what the hotel looks like from behind. I am going to use cardstock for the building and see where that goes. Currently, I am drawing up that plans on Adobe Illustrator. I will post updates as it progresses.

Columbian Meat Chopper

In the 1990's, the Columbian army converted some US M20 scout cars into AA/fire support vehicles by putting the Maxson M45 quadmount. This is an electrically-powered turret that had four 50-cal heavy machine guns on it and seen on the US M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage halftrack. I decided to make my own:



I used C in C M8 Greyhound armored car (US-30) and M16 halftrack (US-38). The quadmount from the halftrack fit perfectly into the hole for the M8's turret. I glued the quadmounts in with superglue. A very simple conversion.

Armored Car Conversion

I seem to have bad luck with C-in-C's French ERC-90 Sagaie armored cars (F-10). An earlier order of Sagaies that I got had the turretless mystery tank in it that turned out to be a WWII Japanese tank. A more recent order had a Sagaie model that was missing most of its 90 mm gun. I thought about replacing the nub of a gun with a piece of wire or pin. But, then I thought, "lets get creative." The result is this:





Its is a command vehicle (as if you couldn't tell!). I left off the turret and built a superstructure out of cardboard. I then cut and shaped it to angle the sides. The angles looked a little better before I tried smoothing them down with fine sand paper. This rounded off the angles of the superstructure more than I wanted. The window covers and hatches were also made of thin cardstock. Next time I do something like this, I will use styrene plastic.

Here is a shot of an unconverted ERC-90:

The dude manning the light machinegun is from GHQ's seated WWII US armored infantry pack (US53). Please pretend that the big pipe sticking out the back is a radio antenna....please!

The New House on the Block

It took me awhile, but I finally finished this building:



It is a little more Mediterranean in style than my previous buildings. I got the inspiration from some "pretty pictures" site on the web. I am not crazy about the balcony on the third floor and I should have added a little more height to the top floor.

I have several building projects in mind, including a fuel storage facility, a market area, and something along the lines of Dr. Seuss!

A COIN For Your Thoughts

Scotia Grendel (http://www.scotiagrendel.com) makes several interesting minis of weapons systems that never got beyond prototype stage. For example, they have a 1/300 model of the Brazilian Osorio MBT (BZ3). A tank for export that no one bought. It doesn't even seem like the Brazilian Army used it. Another example is the Cavalier Mustang III from their Collectair line (CAUM10). It was to be sold to nations for COIN operations, but went nowhere. Here is one I painted up for Southern Chalupastan:



I added the spinning propeller by cutting out a piece of clear plastic. The rocket pods were made by cutting down a toothpick and rounding off the tip. I then painted on where the rocket tubes exited. There was no way I could carve them out.

Pre-Prototype of a Car in 1/300

Here is my first attempt at a scratch-built car in 1/300 scale:



Its supposed to be a Volvo C30. I make a chassis out of thin cardstock and then used a mixture of FIMO an Sculpy III polymer clay for the body and wheels. Not great, but ya gotta start somewhere, right?