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Beetle Class Transports
This project came about when SWMBO went away for a weekend. Apparently,
she missed me. As a result of that, she went a little impulse crazy and
bought me a slew of die cast cars for a couple bucks each. Even at the
low price, this is quite a haul.
Score!
Obviously, the first thing I had to do was rip a few apart. Since I have
recently done another
VW beetle conversion,
I figured too much is never enough ... so do more.
They came apart easily, by to screws on the underside. Then I was left with hulls (for the project at hand), interiors (which might make some nice vehcile dashboards at a later date), and the chassis (that will work as a base for other vehicles -- getting the wheels and conntecting them is always the hardest part of a vehicle scratch build). Again, score!
Since I am saving the wheels for something else, I need to scifi the hulls up. I will do that with bottle caps = grav pods.
So I attach the bottle caps, and fill in the open window holes (cardstock
behind them). Then prime, basecoat, and paint.
As a "beetle" I went with a metallic blue with green shimmer scheme, as that is what I think of when I think scarabs. I am pleased with the way the metallic green fades. It took nothing more than a heavy dry brush away from the spots where I wanted it concentrated. The gold trim really gives the bug a bit of pop.
I glued some old paper towel tubes to cardboard for the bases. I cut a cross under where the tube goes and folded the tabs inside underneath to give it some stability. The cars just rest on top of the tubes. Since the tubes have a relatively wide mouth, there is a broad base of support, and the cars stay put, even with minis standing on them. This also allows me to have two different heights (or more, if I want later) and change that out during a game.
All in all, a satisfying diversion for a couple of hours.
And here is a little bonus I got out of the conversion that I went ahead
and did alongside it. I thought about keeping the interiors as ready-made
cockpits for later vechicle (likely saucers). But then I realized that
the seats (for some) would come out easily. And (good) furniture for
28mm is hard (and expensive) to come by -- this was (essentially) free.
The final thing that occured to me was saucer cockpits are more fun
if you can take figures you use on the board in and out of them.
That works much better without seats in the cockpits. Decision made.
Time to make some chairs.
Not much to it, just stuck some old 'Clix flight bases under them and put them on bases of their own. I went with a neutral color that could go well in modern, post apoc, space opera, and hard sci fi settings.
The ladies seen here show how they look in scale. Not too bad. They also go well with bottlecap barrels as modular scifi tables. The black base and silver stand is just enough detal (that and a black wash after painting them) to give enough realism to them. It really looks like the chairs are about to become an integral part of the negotiations between these two ladies.
