Asteroid Base, Last update

I'm leaving today for Cold Wars. I'm mostly done. Even if I had another week, I'd still be making addons to the Asteroid Base. The hard deadline of departure has force me to say, Done!

My very good friend Lou, has sculpted and then cast up some gun turrets for me. He is just crazy good with wargaming talent. Here are a few last pics before I leave.

I'm still playing around with the scenic pieces I want to add to the battle board. Hell this morning I was up at 7am painting new terrain pieces.

So that's it. Off to Cold Wars. The final board will look a little different once I set up the game, but I have 95% done of what I want.

I'm out, see you at Cold Wars, Xin

Building my Asteroid Base, Part V

I got a lot of work done last night. However that was complete negated by my own hand when I started adding design changes. I added a few elements that then needed to be glued and or painted. Then having to wait for them to dry is the longest step. While waiting for the paint to dry, I did manage to get the LED lighting done. With LED lighting kits, it is super simple. Almost as simple as plugging in a light.

Here are the pics:

 The crater was too clean. It's easy to add debris and clutter, but the X-Wing game really needs a level flat surface to play on. So my compromise was to add rocks and sand into the rim along the walls. After lining the walls with sand and rocks. I soaked it in white glue from a spray bottle. Then turned up the heat and put a fan directly on the table.

I had always intended to have an entrance to the crater, but forgot about it. A hot wire foam cutter took care of that pretty quick. Some more brown paint and it's almost as far along as the rest of the crater.

 Once the white glued dried(which took awhile), I went back and and painted over the sand and rocks with the base color. I watered down the paint a lot as I needed it to flow into the nooks and crannys. The cost of that is a long drying time, even with the fan. So the dry brushing will have to wait till tonight.

Here is a close up of one of the entrances and my newly painted debris.

 Another thing I started working on while all this drying was going on, was the LED lights.I bought 2 "miniatures kit" from http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/. Each kit somes with a battery lead, switch and 5 LED lights. LED's require resistors, but these come already attached. All you have to do is twist the wires together.

 I ran all 5 LED's in parallel. Then just taped every thing to the roof of my Hanger Bays. The battery is heavy, I will have to put more tape on it as it keeps dropping.

The junction of all the wires I just covered with Electrical tape. It really couldn't be simpler.

Power on!

 The Rebels won't need to work in the dark

Red 5 launching

The last part I got done yesterday was to start painting the Hanger Bays

I could have easily gone into diorama mode detailing out the bases, but I had to restrain myself. As it was, my friend Lou decided that wasn't good enough and started adding details anyway. Lou is an incredible scratch builder. It didn't take him long to come up with a few visual improvements.

2 Build days left!

Xin

Building my Asteroid Base, Part IV, A New Hope

There is hope I can finish! The convention, Cold Wars is 4 days away. I am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. I might actually finish this monstrosity. One of my friends came over Saturday night to play Lords of Waterdeep and he looked at my board and said "you should have told me, you went off your meds"

I should get the LED kit today in the mail. When I get that I can finish the Rebel Base.

I got the board painted last night. Well the first coat and a light dry brush. Tonight I will sponge on  the 2nd color. I also will add in some details on the base.

Some fighters out for effect

That Tie Bomber is a big boy.

Well that's it for now, Xin

Building my Asteroid Base, Part III

Another day gone and not as far as along as I had hoped. On the plus side I am making progress.

While at work today it occurred to me I am a better improvisor than planer. I have been wasting time, thinking about how I'm gonna to this or that and nothing gets done. But if I just start trying to do something like, install the LED Lighting, I get something done. Sure I might have to take a step back here and there and start again. But again, the project is moving forward.

Ok on to the updates. Last night I got most of the Crater Floor texturized (spell check doesn't seem to think that is a word, what do they know, pfft). What I have been doing is taking a piece of Coral that I found in the garden(from the previous home owners I assume.) anyway, taking this round-ish piece of coral and rolling it around the insulation foam and pressing down. It dents/ cuts/ scores / and scuffs up the foam in a very non-regular pattern. That is the key, random pattern. Nature doesn't do regular patterns and the human eye looks for that.

Here is my coral, oh and USE a glove. It can be a little hard on the hand.

Here is a piece of foam that has been texturized. It can be hard to see all the damage done to the foam in a photo.

Here is the same piece next to another piece that has not been texturized. If I keep using that word will it make it into the dictionary?

This is a test piece of foam that I was using to see how it would look. Again hard to see all the dings and dents. It will look better in person.

I also got more work done on the crater walls. I'm using a light weight spackle to cover up and or fill in the seams and joints of the foam. Unfortunately it takes a long time to dry. So I do it last before going to bed. I will go back over it with some steel wool or sand paper to scrap off the big blobs that can be left behind.

Just another shot. I have 2 more seams to cover up. I supposed if I had spent more time when cutting the foam I might have less seams to cover up. Actually it goes fast, it's just waiting for it to dry is the problem.

That's all for now, Ciao, Xin

Building my Asteroid Base, Part II

Just 2 quick pics of the progress I made. All the pieces are glued down except over the Hanger Bays so I can get in there and paint and install LED lighting. I did a test LED light last night and it looks cool. Of course, given more time I would go nuts in there building a Hanger Bay diorama, but time is not something I have a lot of. Got the edge painted black. On a test piece I got my texture and paint scheme worked out. I'll go the craft store tonight and buy some cheap paints.

 Edged in black

Hanger bays. Still have to do a little detailing.

Working hard, Xin

Building my Asteroid Base

In seven days I'm going to Cold Wars. Time is ticking down on completing my Asteroid base for the X-Wing game I'm running.

Here are some work in progress pics:

Gluing down the first layer of the crater wall

For the 2nd layer, I needed to match the shape of the crater wall. So I smeared paint along the rim of the crater, and then pressed the next layer down on top of the rim. That marked the cut out for the 2nd layer and so on.

2 down, 2 to go.

A good start but a ton more work to do.

Carving out the Rebel base

 Third layer

 4th layer being laid down.

Gluing it all down.

Adding some detail to the interior of the base. AKA Mission creep

So much left to do.