Aphid Class aeroneff (picture heavy)

I've always had a soft spot for VSF and a recent commission enabled me to have a play.

The commission was for a 28mm scale Aphid Class aeroneff and it's quite possibly the most popular neff in 28mm so there were plenty of reference photos to go on.

In 28mm this thing is quite large, about 500mm long!

All the parts were drawn in cad first, apart from the boiler which was made in the 'traditional' method, cut out and dry assembled. The lower hull needed a bit of reworking so back to the drawing board (laptop) to sort it.

Once all the parts were sorted then it was on to assembly and painting. I have been using spray cans more and more recently, especially for the bigger jobs as it gives a much better finish than brush painting alone. I do have an airbrush, but not the set up for it at the moment. With the cans I can just pop out into the back garden and spray away :-)

Colours were to represent British naval colours from around the time of the late 19th century but made to suit (aerofoils not being standard naval equipment back then lol).

Well, on to the pictures. There's a couple of wip's first and then onto the finished ones.

Here are the finished photos and I'm quite pleased with the way it came out. I've had another couple of these to do as commissions for different people and would like to eventually make one for myself and something a little bit bigger.

The stanchions are from a model ship supplier and the guns are from The Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company (rather splendid to deal with). Everything else was made by hand (laser, table saw etc).

And now onto the pictures of the finished neff :-)

ttfn

Imperial Shuttle

Only complete pictures of this one I'm afraid (this is starting to become a bad habit) but basically it was a Star Wars Rebels toy picked up in Lidl and converted.

Below is a picture taken from the net of what the original toy looked like. I took the folding wings off, glued the cockpit in place, removed the soft vinyl elements and preceded to make the scratch built parts.

The main alteration was to add three new wings in a similar vein to an Imperial Lambda class shuttle from RotJ. The two lower wings actually move and they can be in either position. The top central wing is static.

The wings were made from sheet styrene for the core and plates with some tiny gubbins added here and there for effect. Some extra styrene panels and gubbins were added over the ship to help fill in the blank areas and to try and give it a sense of 28mm scale.

Te lgazed cockpit was masked out and it was given a primer coat of grey and then a coat of a light Tamiya acrylic spray. It was then covered all over with a diluted GW black ink and once this was dry a light drybrushing of a very pale grey brought the colour back up again.

Some small patches of rust were sponged on and then some weathering powders were added to complete the effect.

It's a big bugger but will hopefully take it's place on the table without intruding too much.

ttfn

Star wars figures

Just a quick post today of the figures that I've completed for my Star Wars project so far.

They are all WotC apart from Boss Futtnic (he in the purple robe/jacket), the Jedi, Bona Gon Flatte and the little black droid, which is a scratch build. I'll e making some more droids in the future as you can really never have too many :-)

ttfn

Some more figures for Japan

I'm carrying on with my British Invasion of Japan project which stalled somewhat last year.

First off are the Japanese that I've got done so far.

And here we have some more Brits.

I've done a bit more themed terrain for this project but that will be in a separate post soon (hopefullly).

ttfn

Some Game of Thrones

In the form of some terrain...

I recently bought the Renedra castle tower to see what it was like and to have a bit of fun with it if possible. Unfortunately the kit itself isn't the best. It doesn't quite fit together properly on the corners, some of the details are a little soft (not a massive problem), the battlement sections have no locking mechanism and the interior detail is a little lacking and seems to missing in some places.

To be honest, these aren't big problems for what I have intended for the tower as you will see below but I fell that the product was rushed for a Salute release. Understandable but slightly disappointing.

Anyway, the idea was to have it as a holdfast for my Karstark forces for when we eventually get to play a Game of Thrones.

As you'll see from the pictures below (no wips I'm afraid) I've done some conversion work on the tower by having a platform for the door which is up on the first floor. There will be some wooden stairs from the platform down to the base.

I'm also going to be adding some wooden hoarding on to the top instead of the supplied battlements. I think this will give a more of a northern Westeros look. I'll hopefully get this done in the next week or so.

The base was done with blue foam that has been carved with a long bladed knife and various geens and flocks were added to break it up a bit.

ttfn

Spanish building bases

Name drop time :-)

David Imrie (Saxon Dog) has asked me to make him some Spanish building bases for his Carlist war project and below are pictures of the first one complete.

Quite a simple build but with plenty of detail. The main body was made from mounting card with Wills pantiles for the roofs. The exposed stone work was also Wills sheeting and the woodwork was normal balsa wood. Groundwork was a goop mix with various flocks and tufts applied aferwards.

Enough of words, here are the pictures :-)

ttfn