Real Life and searching TMP in Firefox

It has been a short while since I added anything here due to real life getting in the way of the hobby.  Between holidays and my daughter passing her exams and getting a place at Bradford University I’ve had no real time for any hobbies other than spending a little time on TMP between tasks…

One thing I have done though is move over to Firefox from IE 8 (too many crashes) and created a search via Google for TMP.  To use this just copy the text into a file called TMP.XML in the C:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins folder and restart Firefox.  You will now have a search option for the TMP site.

<SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/"> <ShortName>TMP</ShortName> <Description>The Miniatures Page</Description> <InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding> <Image width="16" height="16">data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAQCAYAAAAf8/9hAAACUElEQVR4nEWSIXMcSQyFv2wF qFk3m4YNx2zNdqGhw2wWamh4MAf9E3LsDjrMYTGz4Zh52C5I1Q7Usu5DLXBVOrCbyiOqUknv vdLThz/uuzebqLrFbKH2grEAGahAIlmkyhEJldCFmEEkkBJ8bAaqGatCbUKrBgFEFBipdkRY UPbQR3JKdIOcIxYWVr03JBrLcUZ1hrCn1obxjFXDaqfxhrHHzDB7B5RFn+nd4OZmcu3df6F2 94eH6u7qw3BwOPiPp4N3d7+7/z037Q5+ffPifP68c+3d7788+eOPF3+Z1OHR3d1LeXc4uPfq X/9+d3h0dfVh+Ord3b887HwFiad/AFujS+avPxeKXAEwlgwsIIaZAGuwiB2vefy2p5TEKiC8 PkOUQEzCPBWqCfz3L9srAQJtqWACJE7IHNVAYEWoNJsh7EhDo5vSUOafBzYbGIfI+7wH4xSr NKBxdV046sIKAWEDZISCSQQy0xTJF7C+SnyfBGJAWBgY0B7ZjJHd68jqxAxBjLMMcq4pRsqF otoAATIG3H6a2G6/gVRWp/VGNzAULAAKgCrkAawBGEY+9ZcLsDXAL4KzDeysVJEA0+ueUgqI nN+60swwIEgipXAiMDrbzUgpIyIwrhOXY2F+E/azsB63rC8zw9AYRMilI6meHQjECIIgVALG 7W2h1oVl13h9blxeCqB8uo3MxzfKyDkN+HB3d3BVQ9WABWtbat8RgkE/JVPtCaQQQgZZEBFK yZSU+CgSiBGwhCFU6+SYEAQTwaqQS8Z0i3UjxpGUzzeTxv/GSlxWLBJgMgAAAABJRU5ErkJg gg==</Image> <Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" method="GET" template="http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?output=firefox&amp;client=firefox&amp;hl={moz:locale}&amp;q={searchTerms}"/> <Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://www.google.com/search">   <Param name="q" value="{searchTerms} site:theminiaturespage.com"/>   <Param name="ie" value="utf-8"/>   <Param name="oe" value="utf-8"/>   <Param name="aq" value="t"/>   <!-- Dynamic parameters -->   <Param name="rls" value="{moz:distributionID}:{moz:locale}:{moz:official}"/>   <MozParam name="client" condition="defaultEngine" trueValue="firefox-a" falseValue="firefox"/> </Url> <SearchForm>http://www.google.com/firefox</SearchForm> </SearchPlugin>

I do have one quick photo – I have managed to get the first part of the Battlesuit board flocked ready to have bushes and trees added.  The dual flock matches better in real life than under the harsh light here and I am really pleased with the terrace – the steps are visible but subdued so they do not look too artificial!

Also shown here are two 6mm ruins from SPC in Newcastle via eBay.  The ruins are a little old for the future games but will fit fine once cleaned and painted.  The larger of the two arrived broken – the brown resin does seem fragile but a quick glue will fix this fine.

A closer view is here but due to the brown resin very little can be seen at this time – once painted though these two will show the fine details they have.

Next up will be the Woodland scenic trees and bushes for the base.

Warning Signs

I need a few signs for an up coming project so here are some I’ve prepared earlier:

If you would like larger copies I have put them here

Ogre Maps

For those of you who are fans of Ogre, you may have seen my attempts to organise a response for Eric Hotz to make a map or two for Ogre / GEV (Ogre Forum Link, TMP Link etc) and that it has gone very quiet.

Well, in the middle of this week, Eric sent me a mail:

My first attempt at printing up the game mats wasn't too successful.  However, I came up with another idea, which fixes a few problems and makes the whole process easier for me to produce and doesn't take as much time.

I want to make Ogre game mats, at least at the start, to match fairly closely to the first Ogre game board that shipped with the 1978 version of Ogre.  This was basically the shell hole sci-fi environment map.  I was planning to use 3 inch hexes.  If you feel this will help, and is what some people would want, I can have this ready by the end of this month.

After this, I can plan to create other Ogre mats, but to produce the full color maps that came with Steve Jackson Ogre games in the 1980's is tricky and expensive.  It can be done, but the cost would be high.

Now from this I take it that he is aiming for a version of  the classic map shown above (not sent by Eric I add) with a few changes and a lot larger in size :-)

Can I ask if you are seriously interested (and I mean serious as we have all seen ‘oh yes but later’ promises on the net) that you get in touch with Eric directly and let him know your intent.

His company details are: http://www.hotzartworks.com and details of his email are at http://www.hotzartworks.com/hotz_contact.html

Edit – Please note I do not have any other info (e.g. cost / size) than the above – please contact Eric direct.

Woodland Scenics ‘The Clinic’ DVD

While on holiday I had the fun of spending some money and visiting Hobby Craft in Newcastle in error (yep really was an error – we where looking for fuel at the time and turned into the wrong part of the estate) to have a look at the model section.

Living between two major towns without good FLGS this trip was very very handy for a few bits but also for inspiration and a ‘touchy feely’ chance for items only seen on the net and in this case inspiration won out as from previous posts you will know I use the Woodland Scenic range of flocks (finer than the Jarvis stocked locally) and a large selection of the ‘bits’ are kept here.

A few years ago I managed to purchase the manual but found it sparse on pictures though full of good hints and tips but this time, sat tucked in the corner of the range was the actual DVD filmed live over two sessions at a railway convention in the States based on the demo kit called ‘The Scenery Kit’ (finally available in the UK) that builds a small hill side with culvert and track base.

The DVD is split into two parts:

Part 1

This covers the basic assembly of the box and how to pad it out using newspaper and plaster bandage.  If anything, the start of the DVD is not that useful for wargamers as it does not cover making hills out of foam and I think the railway solution would not stand up to the day to day pounding from tanks, cavalry or infantry.

The key skills I picked up from here are the use of hydrocal to make the rocks, how to fit these to the base and how to paint them.  Having come from a paint background, to see the use of the pigments and earth colours splashed (quite literally) onto bare plaster and flooding the area with black was eye opening and the result of this combined with ‘fly specking’ just blew my mind over what can be done.  A small flash video is here.

If you have not seen ‘fly specking’ it is a light dusting of green / black on the rocks created by using pigment dry and blowing down a ‘J’ shaped piece of paper to spread it out.  So simple but so good!

Part 2

This covers the fitting of extra rocks, the culvert, trees and flocking the ground.  In one sense this is overkill as nearly every product (including items not in the kit) is covered but it does show you how it all works and worth it for that.

The key skills I found here are the use of a base flock and then blending all other items (including trees) back to the base colour.  Now in my case I had just purchased a large bag of ‘earth blend’ turf and this was the base they used – yippee I got something correct for once…

The flocking section showed how to cover bare plaster with the pigments, apply the base pigment and cover with flock, blending each area in with the others but still maintaining the differences at each level.  You do need a lot of scenic cement though – PVA glue is used but not as you expect.

Use of talus and ballast is shown to give a bed for the track and to represent fall from the rocks applied earlier and is the only place PVA is used (Elmers no less).

Trees are shown being built up from the metal and plastic trunks with two or three good tips on foliage and fastening them on to the base itself.  Worth watching a couple of times as they fly through this very quickly.

Hedges, bushes and grass get added using hobby tack glue and I finally saw how I can use the field grass to get it to stick as this is different to both the tutorials I have seen previously and looks more suitable to my way of working.

 

All in all, if you get chance to see the DVD (at £20 it was a big bite into my holiday money) I would as the quality and detail provided is better than the ones on the web site (link here to the first one) and if you can ever see Miles Hale and Fran Hale live go for it – in fact leave the family behind to shop if needed…

Review twice – hot wire once

Oh flip (but much stronger).

Having cut out the shapes and cut a slope in them using the hot wire, I found I have inadvertently transposed the slices so the map is now a mirror image of the original!  In a way it matters not as the cuts did not go as well as I hoped (well this is my first time at anything bigger than a fence) and the cork I bought for the base is so soft it is useless.  Making the best of the poor job I am doing I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the result:

Now the only problem I can see is that the glue I was using reacted with the hills and they are going a little on the soft side – but what the heck I am having great fun and learning as I go along (I know I could read up and test and trial and ask but that’s boring).  Looking from the figures point of view you get an idea how how tall the base is compared to the GZG figure:

Even a level two hill sits above the figure and the main level six slop looks OK to stand the figures on.

The next steps are:

1. Paint in Sandtex mid stone masonry paint
2. Grit some parts with sand
3. Paint the remainder with Johnstone’s Sea Moss (the darkest green sampler I could find at the moment)
4. The flock the lot
5. Add bushes and trees

Trees look like they are going to be a problem,  I have a bag of trees but they are very light green and I mean really light green so I’m running a little test on a sample (see I do learn).  With luck I’ll get a photo up tomorrow.

Battlesuit board

One of the aims this year was to play a three dimensional game of Battlesuit from Steve Jackson Games  (part of the Ogre line).  Now being a sad sort of gamer, I know there are two versions – the boxed copy and the magazine version with the original boxed copy having larger counters than the magazine and with a few extras (e.g. drones as shown to the left) but basically the same rules.

Now the other advantage of the magazine copy is that the map is smaller (and no I am not going to put all the dots on) and therefore simpler to photocopy and cut apart for templates for the hills and tree / bush areas.

 

So off I went into the dark reaches of the cupboard top – moving boxes and bit to find my issue of the January 1983 Space Gamer (number 59 at only $3.00).  I must admit I hoard but did not think it was that old or should that be me being that old?

Anyway, in the centre of the magazine where all the counters and the map sp a quick copy and a pair of scissors I was left with a series of rough templates for the hills.

This is where life gets very strange for converting board games to figures.  The vertical scale is totally different to the horizontal, 37.5m to 1/2inch (so building are only 1cm in size and counters sit on the shape) but hills are to be 2m apart!  In the end I decided that I did not care and would just represent the map as is using 6mm thick polystyrol via eBay and Terrascenic and make the base from cork tiles cut to the magazine page size.

If you have never used polystyrol a couple of hints:

1. Make sure you have a sharp knife.
2. Get used to it pulling – it seams to have lumps of thicker material in it that is the same colour!
3. It stinks when using a hot wire – do it outside and hold your breath under a mask

So after an hour or so I ended up with a series of cut templates and a pile of rough cut levels ready to be smoothed and shaped: