Progress? Slowgress. A brief update.

I'm wearing some.

Ah, haha. Just kidding. well, not really, I am wearing briefs, but that's not what I'm talking about.

It's been a while since I've posted anything, because it's been a while since I've completed anything. I've got a bunch of half-finished stuff going on- a second Dark Vengeance tac squad, some Chaos Terminators with lightning claws (rawr!), a DA Rhino and a magnetized Landspeeder Vengeance / Darkshroud, a couple different HQs, a bunch of Orks, some Sisters of Battle Adepta Sororitas rescued from Fleabay that I'm cleaning up, and the ever-present albatross of the marines Cruor Dexter that I would really like to work on, but there's just so much other stuff...

Anyway. One thing I did manage to get done was rearranging my hobby space and throwing together a paint holder to make it easier to share things with my wife. Her side has the groovy chair and the Dark Eldar warriors, and my side has the Academy P40 that I'm going to use to test out the airbrush that my neighbor is letting me borrow.

Wow, I really need to sort out the lighting situation. It's extra-important now that I can't use both lamps.

It's a Dollhouse- For My Dollies.

That's what I told my kids when they asked me what the heck I was doing.

This ruined building is made from foamcore with some model railroad ballast for dirt and debris, and the tiles are made from cardstock cut into squares. Actually, the tiles are made from the cardboard separators that they use in cases of liquor to keep the bottles from banging into each other (but let's not judge, shall we?). It's all glued together with wood glue- I prefer to use wood glue for things like this over hot glue because you get a little more time to shift things around if you don't like where you've stuck them. If you use hot glue, you pretty much have to get it right the first time.

I based this off of RubbishInRubbishOut's 'Making simple City Fight terrain' videos. It's a pleasant enough way to kill a few weekend hours.

This... Is... CRIBBAGE!

Actually, it's a priming jig.

I wasn't able to get any painting done this weekend, between clothes shopping on Saturday for my new job (I should have taken Thoreau's advice) and doing the brakes on my car today.

What I was able to do was grab a piece of scrap wood and drill a boatload of holes in it.

Wait a minute... Never mind. Let's simply call it a bunch of holes. A bunch of holes that are just the right size to jam in some toothpicks.


I'm able to use sticky-tack to affix whatever little bits I feel need to be primed separately.


Here's a backpack that I primed using a similar jig.


You can see that the sticky-tack leaves a nice, clean masked-off area for whatever glue you use. Pretty nifty.


The real test is going to be when I finally get around to priming those AoBR Boyz. I have 19 left, and I'd like to try priming all of their heads and arms at the same time. I've always fully assembled plastic minis before painting them but lately, as I get more concerned with quality, I'm finding that there are times that I'd like to be able to get into those nooks and crannies and get some paint on them.

More Time than Money

Yesterday, I was sitting around the house waiting on the plumber to fix some things in this place that we just moved into. I found myself looking at those snazzy miniature cases, you know, the ones that swaddle your minis in custom-cut foam and look like something a SpecWar operator would HALO out of a C-130 with and glide behind enemy lines like a silent angel of death?

Yeah... Even if I could afford one of those, I don't think I could justify the expense to myself.

So that got the hamster moving on it's wheel. Not having any way to store or transport minis other than plastic baggies thrown in a box is hardly ideal. I've got all these 'banker's boxes' siting around from the move, I figured that I should do something with them to help me get organized and move things around.

I started by measuring the interior of the box, and cutting a sheet of 1/8" cardboard (from another leftover moving box) that would fit in the bottom. I then cut 2" high pieces for all four sides and glued them down with wood glue edgewise to make the sides of my tray. I used a few more pieces in the middle as row dividers. I used old VHS cassettes to hold everything together to get a good seal.

Goofy, but expedient.



Of course, after gluing everything down I realized that I hadn't measured properly. So, we'll just call this one a proof-of-concept.

Since I'd already blown the 'measure twice, cut once' rule, I just added cross pieces wherever I thought they looked right. The clips are being used as wedges to force the pieces together.



Here's the first tray assembled, leaning up against the banker's box that it barely fits in. I should have cut the bottom piece a leeeetle bit smaller on every side to give myself some wiggle room...



...and that's exactly what I did on this next tray. It's just a wide-open 'catchall' tray for whatever doesn't fit anywhere else. Right now it's housing templates and some unpainted terrain.



Here are some pictures of the whole thing in use-





And here's the box with the lid on.



Alright, so it's not as sexy as some Agent 007 style case. And, yeah, the cardboard might rub some paint off the minis, but let's face it. So will playing with them.

If I hadn't already had the banker's boxes, a box of 12 is about $10. The cardboard used for the trays is just scrap, and you should be able to get scrap boxes from just about any retailer (liquor store, grocery store, etc.) for free.

That's a whole lot of nicely organized, custom mini storage for $10 and some time.