Work in progress...Star Wars side project... Battle on Hoth!

 

Whilst I was over at www.momirfarooq.com as well as various StarWars ships suitable for use in the StarWars X-Wing miniatures game....  I also found the PDFs for AT-ATs and Snowspeeders! - So just for fun I'm in the middle of knocking up a mini battle on Hoth diorama... I adjusted the legs on one of the AT-ATs so it looks like it is falling over... I haven't decided how to support the flying Snowspeeders yet - maybe wire? I'm going to experiment with cotton thread dipped in PVA glue for the tangling wires that come out the back of the Snow speeders to wrap around the legs of the AT-ATs....

These days it's all about Star Wars X-Wing.....

I resisted the urges. I tried. But then they showed all 6 StarWars films on the telly....

A-wings

B-wings

Y-wings

Death Star Turrets

Ties

Lambda Shuttle

Paper ships so far.....

X-Wings and more Ties next......

When I was at the UK GAMES EXPO I poked my head in the tournament room and I saw how popular the STAR WARS X-WING miniatures game is. A couple of people at my local gaming club are into it too.... The base set is reasonably priced, so I got myself a copy, knowing that I would have some local folks to play with. The rules are easy to learn - and great fun!... The thing is - as soon as I held the box in my hands I knew I "needed" more ships (this isn't actually necessary to play the game - but additional ships are available to buy for around £12 each for the smaller ones and £20 for the bigger ones like the Millenium Falcon).... I was checking out the page on the BoardGamesGeek site and found a great link for User created material:

 http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/938057/collection-of-user-created-material-for-x-wing-min

....and on this list is a link to 1:270 scale Paper ships....

http://sw-xwing.xooit.fr/t358-papercraft-BANQUE-PATRONS-PAPIER-pour-X-WING-psd.htm

Woah!!! - I thought - I can make my own papercraft ships!!! And so this is indeed what I've made a start on. This French site has PDFs for various ships on it that have been rescaled for the X-Wing game.... but the original designer of these papercraft mini's is Momir Farooq, and he's got his own site:

http://www.momirfarooq.com/swstarfighter/index.htm

The original PDFs are all on there - plus a load of other interesting stuff. These original PDFs are photoshop layer PDFs - so there are loads of variants that are available. The original designs were made for the Wizards of The Coast StarShip Battles game, which is at a different scale - but on photoshop I enlarged all the ships by 150% - this seems to be pretty much spot on for X-Wing.

And so far I've attempted A-Wings, B-Wings, Y-Wings, a Lambda Shuttle and some Tie fighters.... X-Wings and more Ties are next.... I sent off to LITKO for some X-Wing compatible flight stands... (Just waiting for a large one to arrive for the Shuttle). These work out at around £2 each including postage... So each extra ship instead of costing me £12 is costing a couple of quid plus some papercrafting fun!!

http://www.litko.net/products/Space-Fighter%2C-Deluxe-Flight-Stand.html

Obviously these ships won't be any good for playing official tournaments etc - but for bulking out your forces for fun with your friends and family - they're great!!

And you can create all the other templates and cards you will need to play with your papercraft minis using the files from here:

http://www.afewmaneuvers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=183

I will post more updates as I create more ships....

Evil Skeleton bots and giant Skelly-Mecha....

 

I actually painted these guys just before summer started - they're old school 15mm miniatures from:

 

http://www.15mm.co.uk/HOF_15mm_Science_Fiction.htm

 

The folks at www.15mm.co.uk do all the old Lazerburn figures (and you can still get some of the rulebooks from them too)... and they've got a load of newer 15mm stuff in their HOF ranges... a lot of it I'm not that keen on personally - most of their figures aren't that detailed compared to some of the other ranges that are out there - But I do like these terminator style figures - (and I've still got a soft spot for the old Lazerburn models)...

 

 

What's occuring?

Not much.

Was quite Ill over Christmas and New Year... Played quite a few new boardgames. Not really been doing much creative stuff at all. Creativity seems to have been drained away by work and the frigging snow. I like a bit of snow. But having to drive a van around in it for work makes the whole thing very tiresome very quickly.

I need a holiday. Luckily I've got a few days off with the family very soon. Also I'm looking forward to the UK GAMES EXPO... got my hotel room booked for that - 2 days of boardgames. Time to recharge the old batteries.

......

Sheffield punks spend loud night....

 

So I actually made it out to another gig. Just down the hill from where I live is a new autonomous space - "The Audacious Art Project"... as soon as Carolyn got in from work I legged it down and squeezed in past the kids to see 4 local hardcore punk bands tearing up the place!! - I got down there just after 9pm and just caught the end of Death Job's set who were standing in for The Pact... followed by Dry Heaves, Howl and Sheffield's D-Beat masters - Skiplickers. All great bands - Howl and Dry Heaves were both new to me - and both played excellent sets. I picked up the Howl demo cassette at the end of the gig, and I've been playing it all morning. The Gig space was really nice - a good crowd of people managed to fit in there and it was a nice atmosphere... although I was a bit surprised there was no no-smoking policy...Since the UK smoking ban, I've quickly got used to not going home after a gig coughing my lungs up and smelling like a shitty ashtray. In such a small space I would have thought people would have been a bit more thoughtful for others, I did notice that most of the older punks went outside to smoke in between bands, but the younger folks didn't seem to bother. Just an observation.

 

Check out what the bands sound like at the bottom of the page....

Skiplickers

Skiplickers

Skiplickers

Howl

Howl

http://xhowl.bandcamp.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dambusters!

 

Yesterday we went for a family afternoon out, exploring around Ladybower reservoir in Derbyshire. I've been loads of times before, but I didn't realise there was a nice little museum up in one of the towers of the Dam... (only open Sundays and Bank holidays apparently) which has some great stuff in there about the history of the reservoir, the two sunken villages of Derwent and Ashopton... and a load of memorabillia and interesting artifacts of the famous 617 Squadron (The DAMBUSTERS) who practiced their low level flights there in the second world war. It's only a tiny museum, but the kids were really engaged by it.

 

Next year (2013) will be the 70th anniversary. I was chatting to the folks in the museum, and allthough nothing is confirmed, they recon that there is sure to be a flypast by the Lancaster bombers... so we're going to try and get out to watch that. Apparently last time they did it (65th anniversary) all the roads were blocked by cars and it was complete chaos - so I think an early start and some hiking will probably be in order...

 

For info on what is going to be going on,  I think checking out the Dambusters Weblog is probably the best bet... 



Dambuster's 50th Anniversary flyover (pic not by me!)... 2013 will be the 70th Anniversary!
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derwent_Reservoir_(Derbyshire)



Sunken Church tower of Derwent Village. The clock tower of the church had been left standing and the upper part of it was visible above the water level until 1947, when it was seen as a hazard and demolished with explosives.

 

The Dambuster film. 1955....

My Daughter is a Viking Warrior!

 

It was "Viking Day" at my daughter's school last week.

Every day should be Viking Day.