It remains quiet on the modeling front with the arrival of a new baby into the house and the fact I’ve recently started a rather full on new job! Last week I did have a brief email conversation with the helpful staff at TopMark regarding white metal casting. I’ve since decided to stick with resin casting for the interim but am recording the material details and pricing here for future reference.

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TadPortly, a forum member over on the Back of Beyond Pulp forum recently posted a link to Fiddlers Green which is a web site of excellent paper aeroplane models.

They’re not free, but most are reasonably priced and I immediately picked up the J2F Grumman Duck and Sikorsky S-38 Flying Boat from their Between the Wars range for $5.95us each. The Junkers Ju-52 is also very tempting, but a little more pricey at $14.95us.

They accept PayPal and once you purchase the models, they immediately become available for download as a series of PDF files from your Fiddlers Green account pages, despite what the site says about PayPal payments taking some days to clear. For each model you get a regular and large version as well as several variations, one of which always seems to be a simple black and white version which you can edit yourself for a custom appearance.

I’m unsure if the scale is consistent between models, as the regular version of the Sikorsky Flying Boat is clearly marked as 1:46th scale while the Grumman Flying Duck doesn’t directly indicate scale. However each model includes at least one ‘figure’ in the form of a standing pilots and/or ground crew so you can scale the planes from them.

I’ve printed out a reduced version of the Sikorsky Flying Boat (1:46th at 82% = 1:56th scale) to keep it consistent with my other Pulp vehicles and am half-way through assembling it at the moment. It looks like an excellent toy for that American millionaire adventurer gadding about Africa with his hunting pals.

I’m still trying to put together our second Pulp campaign and although the scenarios are coming together, I seem to have side-tracked myself into creating small Pulp terrain pieces. First we had the crates (which I’m certainly sick of), and now we have some Pulp luggage which I intend to use as decoration as well as objective markers in the campaign.

This photo shows the finished masters which I’ll mold and cast in resin for a handful of luggage pieces. So far I’ve mastered a piece of strapped luggage and a lady’s hat box. I’m also considering creating a simple carpet bag before I mold them all. Also while these pieces are certainly all castable in resin, I’m wondering if it’s time I learned how to cast in low temperature white metals because it would be nice to be able to mass produce these pieces.

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As of 9:15am on the 11th we’ve got a new addition to our family, another little boy! So please be patient as posts may be slightly reduced for the next little while as sleep deprivation and modeling don’t tend to mix too well!

Talisman Island have a photo gallery of the new Black Industries Talisman set in play.

The board and playing pieces look nice, but I have to admit the cardboard stand up ‘figures’, while true to the original Talisman game, are a little bit disappointing. I had imagined that Black Industries, being a Games Workshop spin-off, would at least have included a set of plastic one piece figures for the playing pieces.

Via Tabletop Gaming News.

After my failed attempts to paint tiny versions of the DAK palm tree swastika on my painted 28mm crates, Wayswatcher on the Back of Beyond forums was kind enough to suggest using decals from I-94 Enterprises. Specifically he recommended the GR-110 set which is designed for 15mm-20mm DAK armies.

However I’m an impatient man, and rather than ordering some decals from I-94 and waiting for them to arrive I simply trimmed some from my Flames of War 15mm DAK decal set and used them instead. I only experimented with three individual crates as you can see above but they don’t look too bad at all in my opinion. Unfortunately I can’t spare any more FOW decals because I need them for my DAK tanks!

I am however heartily sick of casting, painting and varnishing 28mm scale crates so it’s time to move on, possibly to that 28mm luggage I’ve half sculpted!

Playing ASL via PBeM has been a constant distraction since I discovered VASL, but I have managed to complete three whole Pulp figures recently! It’s a bit of a mixed bag though as I try and clear work off my paint station.

From the left we have: a Copplestone Castings American Adventurer, an Obelisk Miniatures Baluchi Zombie and another West Wind Cairo civilian.

The American Adventurer, despite obviously being armed with a BAR (I regret not drilling out the barrel) has ended up as a rather Teutonic looking blonde.

The Baluchi Zombie was one of the few I’ve based green rather than brown and although I’m not entirely sure I like the final result at least he’ll differ from the others! I only have two more of these to go and I’ll have finished the standing Baluchi Zombies. The mounted Zombies have been primed and base coated so far.

Finally that humble looking Cairo civilian was probably the hardest to paint of the lot. That blue cloak he sports has about three different strata of paint and ink washing built up over it. The final coat is passable, but I probably should have done a little more highlighting because it looks a little dull now I’ve matt varnished the figure. That gives me a whopping total of four Cairo civilians I’ve got painted so far.

Ah well, at least I have cleared some space on the paint table!