Thursday, January 21, 2021

MV Australis Black Site Studios Pt. 1


Here is my first midway entry for Dave Stone's "Paint What You've Got Challenge". Everything in this first photo was done in about a day and a half and I'm certain I could have completed the whole thing in another day.

Honestly this build has unfortunately hit a wall, and I was cruising along nicely too despite some issues with the initial paint job which I ended up re-doing.

It may be hard to see in the photos but the black painted parts had all kinds of odd white splotches all over them. It almost looked like mildew but I can't imagine how that could possibly be.

I cleaned up all the sprues with the black paint the best I could and ended up having to put three coats of the new black paint on to completely cover whatever that white stuff was, but it all worked out thankfully.

I will tell you right off the bat that in hindsight I didn't look closely enough at the photo of the completed ship and just jumped right in with two feet and started building it. I didn't give the kit enough thought about what I wanted to accomplish beyond simply repainting and adding more "ship" details and there is one really big thing I wish I could go back and change. 

I really wish that I would have increased the height of the hull, and this is why I've hit a wall with the build. With this kind of ship I think that the hull needs to higher than it currently is - here's my quick mock up of that height difference, maybe not quite twice the height but definitely at least half that. Again, in hindsight it's a huge oversight on my part and I immediately realized it when I put all the hull pieces together across the table in the first photo.

So, do I just push on with the ship as it is or do I attempt to pull off the water line pieces and increase the height of the hull, and hope that the damage won't be enough to ruin the entire build. I'm not sure because the water line pieces are a thin cardboard like material and I know that they aren't going to come off easily.

But beyond my hold up with the hull height another thing I changed was the overall color of the ship - the hull originally was red with the waterline being black - above on the left. I reversed those to the hull being black and the waterline red. This gives the ship a more traditional painted look. 

So while I stepped away from the ship to decide how I want to proceed I plugged along painting more Star Wars models and Lord of the Rings models. As well as cleaning up and fixing several Lord of the Rings models I picked up off of Ebay for cheap.

I completed over 40 Army of the Dead models from LotR.

That's a pretty big accomplishment for me lol! I don't think I've completed that many models of the same type since some ACW stuff I did probably like six or seven years ago.

Now I just have to decide how I want to base them - do I put them on my favorite thin clear bases or do a traditional base? If I go clear then I will have opened a Pandora's Box of madness because then I'll have to do the same to all my other LotR models.

Speaking of LotR here are those Ebay auctions I mentioned above.


I'm going to call them Ebay Rescues, because as you can see they needed quite a bit of help. All of these are the actual photos from Ebay.


Lots of modifications needed for missing and broken parts.
 

And a whole bunch of Simple Green to get all that old paint off.


But miracles do happen lol!



I decided to give Gandalf a sword instead of trying to fashion a new staff and honestly I'm really pleased with the end result.


Still need to make a staff for the foot version of Gandalf though.


And Theoden back with a nice new gray prime.


I also completed some more Legion models - more droids, because you can never have enough.


And a squad of Death Troopers. These proved way more difficult than they should have been. I tried a gloss finish and it looked awful. I then tried a paint on gloss and only did some of the more prominent armor, and that was a train wreck too, so it was straight black and call it a day.


And last, I started working on some Rebel Fleet troopers.


I always liked these uniforms despite those helmets functionality being a real head scratcher.

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Ivor

14 comments:

  1. Wow! That’s a WHOLE lot of stuff going on there! That ship looks absolutely huge, a game table onto itself?
    Also loving all the lotr eBay rescues. I got some of those same models lying around somewhere needing paint, and I’m still tempted to pick up the newer sculpts in plastic. 😀

    Gandalf was known to use a staff AND a sword so that’s all good. 😀

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    1. Cheers Stew! Yeah, that ship is a beast - comes in at just under 5 feet long. I'm really liking the look of the white wizard with the sword better than the staff, so I'm glad it was broken when I got it lol!

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  2. Your on fire Ivor, as for the ship if your not happy with it now you never will be so do what you think you need to.
    The LotR stuff I'd base to match the other stuff you've got tbh as to go the other way around is the path to madness :)

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    1. Thanks a lot Frank! You're absolutely right about the ship, as well as the LotR models - the one hiccup is that I've already thin clear based all of the hero models some time ago as they've been used in both Rangers of Shadow Deep and some roleplaying games 😐

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  3. Dang! You've been busy. Man, on the ship - I hear ya, would be nice if it was "higher" --- but I can see what they must be thinking - more about storage and "playability" ... especially if it is at a port, you want to be able to put something like a ramp to get on the ship or something so making it higher may have been a trade off.

    It's hard to tell as I know builds are large things are complicated ... but my first thought would be to finish as is. See how it fits in with the tabletop you are after. Then, if you still want it higher, I'd look to build out a thick cardboard (thinking mapboard) under layer ... it sucks you have to build it ... but it would be easier to add under - and likely fit more seamlessly into the model. Just a thought.

    LOTR models!! WHAT! HELL YEAH!! Get on it! Man, Ebay ... at least you got them cheap. Should have let me know ... I have tons of left over models/stuff I'm not gonna use but I've been too lazy to try to sell.

    Star Wars ... looking great man. Those are the droids you're looking for! This is something I need to work into this year somehow ... get my winter themed stuff back on the table ... many a rebel attack against an Imperial facility ... humm ... squirrel!

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    1. Lol! I have been, and that's not even everything I've been working on too.
      One of my biggest problems is that I constantly think of things in terms of the real world and not on the tabletop, and that's where I cause myself the most headaches. Just leave it be should be my new mantra 😀 But you're right, and I was thinking possibly XPS foam cut to shape and height could be an option as well. We'll see, but yeah, let's just finish it as it as.
      I've been playing Rangers of Shadow Deep but doing it in a LotR themed world so I've been picking up models as much as I can when on the discount. Just got a job lot of mounted Rohan, as I would love to try to game the warg attack from Two Towers.
      Send me an email if you want, I'm sure I'd take whatever you've got laying about 🤣

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  4. Wow ! And wow again. You have been a busy chap !
    The ship is excellent as it is, the size is obviosly a matter of choice, but really it's for wargaming, not a scale model.
    I still can;t believ you managed to build and paint such a variety of pieces - kudos to you.

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    1. Cheers Joe! Yeah, I really need to stop thinking about gaming terrain like they are scale models, it's my Achilles Heal 😂

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  5. Great work on all Ivor, if you want to raise the height, could you fashion some standard MDF to raise it, and then paint the details in ?
    Your legion of the dead look great, hope you solve your base dilemma.
    Your right can never have too many droids ! LOL and great work on the rest of your Star Wars models, and fully agree with you on the Rebel helmets ! LOL

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    1. Thanks a lot Dave! I did purchase some MDF but I'm thinking maybe even XPS would be an easy way to go. We'll see, I think I'm just going to power through and built it as is and re-evaluate 😀
      Can never have enough droids... or anything Star Wars!

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  6. a 5 foot model in general is crazy, but one that can be played upon too? Doubly so!

    Lots of good stuff in this post Ivor!

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    1. Thanks Dai! Yeah, it's an absolute beast, I just hope that I can get it finished.

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