Hangar 18 Scenics

A while ago on The Miniatures Page a link to some photos of some cool new spaceship/airship lines was posted, followed later by news they were available. The company is Hangar 18 FASA and once they were in business I placed an order and it arrived yesterday.

My first order included some from their Sky Kings WWII range, sort of a Weird War II thing, but also a lot like the board wargame Hard Vacuum, or the brief RPG Rocketship Empires. I picked up a scattering of ships from that range, without a real plan in place, I have both HV and RSE, and I had at one point started a Starmada conversion of RSE, although I now think Silent Death is better for that universe. I just need some Space Spitfires!

Along with the ships though I also got one of the line's bases, a power generating station, for use with my 2mm Star Wars project - yes, for Hoth.

Here's what it looks like out of the box:
The casting is good, hardly any work will be needed. Not sure what to do about the steep jigsaw puzzle sides; I'll probably mount on a base and use polyfil or the like to make it a natural slope. It looks like a pretty good fit for 2mm, I'll probably get more for other Star Wars or 2mm sci-fi projects; but the pieces are bit too modern for VSF - pulp is probably the earliest I'd use them for.

On the other hand, I also got one of his Flash Gordon terrain pieces - Vulcania - specifically to try with VSF (Land Ironclads, Aeronef). Here's the naked shot out of the box:
There's actually a separate piece that adds to one of the buildings, but I'm not sure I'll use it, it looks ready to go to me. I think I'll use it for my VSF Venus, which uses a lot of Space 1889's Mars (my Mars is like Wells'). This could be the fortress or palace of a Venuvian king. It's slightly too small for proper 2mm, but would work as an objective to defend or capture for Land Ironclads; you wouldn't want troops fighting on top of it. For Aeronef though it's perfect.

All in all, yet another place to spend money! Rob from Hangar 18 does have a rewards program, which makes it an even more compelling place to shop at. I'll post some pics of the ships once done, but his site does a good job of showing what you'll get (lots there for you War Rocket fans too).

2mm/3mm Terrain/Scenics - Works In Progress Update

Well I've finally shut down the cleaning and prepping station, and am now just basing and painting...for the rest of 2011. Honest.

I've finally picked up some paint brushes again over the last week, continuing with some terrain and scenic pieces that have been blocking the production line on the painting table.

Here's where things stand:

The front view of a couple of SPC Wargames Scenery (ex-Simply 6) streets/manors. The one on the right is being painted as a French plantation manor for Vietnam, although the washing process muddied things up more than I wanted. I was trying the "magic wash" method, and I don't think I pre-coated a thick enough coat of Future to prevent the paint from grabbing the wash. It worked on the grey one though, which has now been finished with drybrushing. The white one has had the roof shingles drybrushed but needs the rest done.

Rear of the above.

A lousy photo (stupid white on white!) of my Indian (Irregular's Middle Eastern town) town, painted in a souther/eastern Indian style. The mosque has a dome, honest!

Another view of the same. Still a lousy photo!

Irregular's Middle Eastern village, being painted up as an Indian village, southern/eastern style. I'll be ordering some more this month to paint up in a more Northwestern India style (i.e. sand coloured).

Another shot of the above. Windows, tree foliage, well water, doors, flat roof tops are done.

The wizard's castle from before, finished except for a matt varnish. Although I'm thinking I over-did the drybrush on the hills and may need to do something to tone it down.

Another view of the castle.

The ion cannon for Hoth, not much changed from last time, just cleaned up a bit.

I have one of Irregular's windmill pieces, and I was going to do it in a European style for SYW, ECW and TYW projects, but in the end I went with a North American paint job. Hopefully the varnish tones down the red brick of the miller's house. I'm pleased with the actual windmill housing's paint job, I was trying for an aged plain wood look, with multiple greys. I based with a medium-dark grey, painted some verticle stripes in lighter and darker grey, then muted them with a wash/daubing job of the original grey.

A fort for North America, still in progress. I tried for a variety of painted buildings within the fort, representing different ages of the structure. Fresh, lighter wood; darker brown main structures, built at the same time as the wall; and one original grey/aged wood building from the trading post that was originally on the site.

And of course I forgot to take a picture of the work-in-progress 3mm church from SPC Wargames Scenery, which is nominally a European stone church, but I'm painting it for the ACW as a red brick and green roof (white trim) North American church. Seems to be working ok, although I'm hoping my matt varnish darkens things a bit, I don't quite have a proper red brick paint, but I'm close to the sort of church that still stands and I drive by daily. I have another copy of the church coming that I'll paint up proper as a stone church.

I've also got some background posts up for my 18th century Imagi-India project, over on the Mahindya 1750 blog: January's posts and February's.