GZG List archives -- August 2005

Number 83 of 300 messages in this Archive
[Date Prev] Main Index [Date Next]
[Thread Prev] Thread Index [Thread Next]

[GZG] Model Planets and figs



Hi All,
 
Got my first order of ships, yesterday, from the very nice Nic at Eureka Miniatures.  One of those ESU starter sets.  Hoo-rah!
 
A question about the FT210 Petrograd Battleship - the 'wing' seems to fit nicely either way up, one side is fairly plain, the other has a domish shape moulded on it, and elsewhere, what appear to be fuel lines or similar in a recess.  Is there a 'correct' way up for this wing? 
 
At www.pantoffelhelden.de, you should find a German gaming group's homepage which has, in English, a couple of good articles on modeling space.  They recommend slicing polystyrene balls in half to make planets.  At a local fabric wholesalers, in amongst their hobby and craft supplies (for quilting, teddy bear making, scrapbooking, etc), I discovered large plastic globes, seemingly designed to make large christmas tree-type decorations.  These globes come apart to form two hemispheres which are just the berries to make planets out of (and less messy than polystyrene).  The globes appear to come in 8cm and 10cm diametres (that's about 3.2 and 4 inches, I think).
 
I coated them with PVA and pasted on tissue paper.  Then painted them with poster paint over a black undercoat.  A light wash with watered down white, dabbed off with a paper towel, gives quite a nice 'atmosphere haze'.  The larger ones are gas giants (one in shades of red and brown, the other in blues and greens), the smaller are rocky worlds - one with seas and atmosphere, the other one I rolled in my daughter's sandpit first after a second coat of watered down PVA, then painted in reds and brown, added an 'ice-cap' in white but didn't 'atmosphere haze' - it looks quite Mars-like.
 
All in all, a very pleasing result for a couple of evenings work while half-watching the TV.  While at the fabric shop, I picked up a couple of metres of black cloth.  Our German friends play on black boards and suggest an interesting way of creating starfields using inverted spray cans.  I'll have to have a bit of an experiment to see if this technique will work on fabric.  Now to paint the ships!
 
Regards
 
David
 
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l


  • Prev by Date: Re: [GZG] FT Ship Class abbrivation question
  • Next by Date: Re: [GZG] Model Planets and figs

  • Previous by thread: Re: [GZG] Kra'Vak Ship Points
  • Next by thread: Re: [GZG] Model Planets and figs

  • Main Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Archive Index

    roger@nospam.firedrake.org
    Generated: Thu Sep 01 01:07:37 GMT 2005