More Pulp Alley Prep

My second box from Cresent Root Studios http://crescent-root.com/ arrived last week to round out my desert buildings and accessories for my Pulp Alley game. As I mentioned in my last post, I can't recommend these buildings enough, and Mark is absolutely a top notch guy to work with!

I picked up the market set and the fountain and couldn't be happier, they really look the business!

Below is a picture of model #28E1 (each building has a letter and a number to designate which series it's from, as opposed to an actual building "name" per se). This is the biggest building in the series and for what I'm trying to accomplish with this particular Pulp Alley game, it really doesn't fit - but I can see this building being the base for the evil villain in a future game though!

Building 28F1 is actually a series of four separate pieces packed as one set, which is great because it allows you to use the buildings as you want to create your own configurations. These are also the only buildings in the entire set that have a raised base.

When I realized these buildings had a raised base I immediately though "train platform", which was brilliant because I absolutely love a train as a backdrop (even though it has zero to do with game play - I think I got just as many compliments and inquiries on my Old West train as I did on the whole table for Dead Man's Hand at Historicon last year, and it did nothing but sit there and look pretty!). There's just something about a train I guess. Anyway, I lined everything together and then used a 4Ground 15mm Corduroy Bridge to extend the platform out a bit - I have another bridge I need to build that will end up extending the platform further. And of course need to find a period locomotive :)

I've been on quite an Indiana Jones kick lately, trying to get inspiration and ideas from the movies, books, and comics, and then remembered how absolutely brilliant the line of "Nice try Lao Che!" is while watching Temple of Doom (probably my favorite line in the entire series, followed closely by "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go" from Raiders) and thought "let's make a Lao Che Air Freight building". Easy enough. And why not paste a whole bunch of his logos on all the boxes? Done.

I ordered two more bags of palm trees and have got those painted and plates started for them. The palm leaves were painted with Army Painter Goblin Green, and the trunks with Vallejo Model Air Camo Light Brown. First three plates are almost completed, just need the second coat of the yellow flock. There is enough trees to probably make another 10 to 15 plates, so I'm going to be set on palm trees forever now!

I also finished re-painting a truck I picked up at a hobby shop years ago, have no idea of its actual scale but it fits nicely with the 28mm figures. It's one of those cars that will run across the floor when you pull it backwards to wind up the back wheels. Needs weathered and the hubcaps need either painted or dulled down somehow, as they are much to bright. But overall looks the part for a pulp game.

Also primed some mountain/hills I picked up off Ebay.

And got all the rest of my pulp figures primed and based - 72 figures to paint (yeah, right!).

Completed my first two leagues. Here is the "good guys" led by Hutton Kincaid IV. I've got this idea that it would be fun to create this fictional family so I'll be able to follow their adventures through the different eras. Below is my American Civil War Kincaid, Hutton the II, and peacekeeper of the Old West, Hutton the III.

Hutton Kincaid II

 

Hutton Kincaid III

 

The "bad guys" league led by Barnabus Perry and sidekick Amon Sighn.

Sometime in the future perhaps... Indiana Jones versus The Mummy?!

As always, thanks for looking!

Prepping For Pulp Alley

The past week has seen me working on finally getting Pulp Alley on the table. I've been re-reading over the rules (I think finally playing X-Wing with the matching dice mechanic has helped me a lot) and doing a ton of work on scenery and terrain. Plenty more work to go though!

I started off by finally completing my palm trees that have been sitting in a drawer for probably two years now. I got 20 of them off Ebay for around $5.00 or so. Obviously at that price you get your standard "wow, what a great deal" but also "how good can they possibly be for that price?". Well, I can say for that price I got a steal. The leaves themselves are absolutely brilliant and after a coat of Army Painter Goblin Green spray paint (I wished I got a before photo because they were a bright green) they really looked amazing. The trunks... well, that was a different story. Some had an obscene amount of flash on them (in the photo above, the trunk on the square board hanging part way over was the main culprit), and I'm not sure if because of the type of plastic they are, but they didn't trim easily with an X-Acto knife. The best I could come up with was to use sand paper to clean them up as much as possible.

Here is a before (on the right) and an after photo of the trunks after I painted them with some Valejo Air Model light camo brown.

I cut a bunch of MDF into different shapes and sizes for the plates for the palm trees, trimmed and sanded down the edges; something I've never done before and I now see what a huge improvement it makes in the overall look of the terrain piece - now the big question is do I go back and do that on the 20+ 4Ground Old West buildings I have? Not looking forward to that. I also pre-drilled holes for the trees and threw a random rock on this plate; the rock has since been toned down a lot to a more yellow-ish brown instead of the grey seen here.

I added some wheat tuffs that really look more like dead tall grass to my eye above.

For the "sand" I originally started out with real sand, but just didn't like the look at all. I rummaged through my box of flocking material and found some Woodland Scenics Fine Turf Yellow Grass and again, couldn't be more pleased with how it looks! Looks the part of sand much better than actual sand to me.

The last two plates I decided to try to build little hills on them. First I used some crumpled up newspaper covered it with tape to get a rough idea of the shape of the hill, and then glued a plaster rock into the side.  Next I used some cut up strips of Woodland Scenics Plaster Cloth to create the actual shape of the hill. Pretty easy stuff with a great end result.

Above is the end result after a quick coat of spray paint. I then flocked all the plates with a coat of the yellow turf. When they were dry I put a second coat of yellow turf on, added some Army Painter tufts, and the wheat tufts.

And a couple of close up photos of the finished product.

I finished up these super cool beetle swarms from Reaper; I always loved the beetle swarm sequences in the first Mummy movie and can see me buying several more of these little guys. They come two to a package.

Next up I went back and gave all my barrels a wash of GW's Agrax Earthshade, and wow what a huge improvement that made! It's really kind of hard to tell in the photo's but believe me the difference is amazing. I cannot recommend this product enough!

I put a wash on all my boxes and crates as well.

Next up was basing and priming a bunch more of my pulp figures. I'm on the fence regarding the clear bases; I did it with my Ghostbusters figures and really liked it, but not a big fan of trimming metal from figures feet and then you have to be careful with the amount of glue used on the clear bases otherwise you end up with a "frosted" base. Lots and lots of painting in the weeks ahead; I've got a whole box of Perry's Afrikakorp I need to build as well, which will be trying to keep a certain professor of archeology away from certain mystical artifacts.

Here are my five plot points for the upcoming game; the major plot point is the mummy in the coffin, there is an incomplete map there. The other four are minor plot points; there is a mysterious journal hidden in the piano, a stolen canister (yellow item), an ancient key (round item), and the old stand by 'foreign agent'. I've got some small round bases from my Perry Afrikakorp that won't be used that I think I'll end up using to base plot points for Pulp Alley going forward, especially the small ones anyway.

And there you go, all set to try and finally play a game of Pulp Alley, more than a year later. The buildings are from Cresent Root and I have to say they are quickly becoming my favorite buildings. The quality is absolutely amazing and they are ready to go right out of the box. I can't recommend these buildings enough and Mark at Cresent Root is a top notch guy!

Hopefully the next post will be our first Pulp Alley AAR!

As always, thanks for looking.

Ivor