Pick Up A Pint

 I've been pretty effusive in my praise for Atomic Laser Cut Designs' MDF kits, and have built several of them. Well, I posted pictures of my Urgent Care on Facebook and tagged the company in the post, and Vince, the owner, was pleased enough with my work to send me a complimentary copy of one of the latest kits - a long, narrow retail space with a small back room and a trap-door in the roof in addition to the normal front and back doors. As soon as I saw the design, I knew it'd be perfect for a liquor store - one of the businesses I'd been wanting for my table but hadn't found an option I was happy with for yet. 

 

I started off with a spray of Montana Gold "Sahara Beige" for the exterior, picking out the bricks first in a raw sienna craft paint, then doing singular bricks in shades of brown and tan. My usual lost dog posts and "No Entry - Staff Only" signs are on display as well, along with some Greenstuff World graffiti decals. The sign over the front door is printed paper, cut to fit over a 50x25mm Renedra flat base painted black. 

I didn't bother with a printed paper floor this time, in part because the gray spraypaint I put down with on splotchy and with a lot of texture. Bare concrete floor it is! 

The interior walls were primed white and painted with a bottle of craft paint called "Sea Glass," a very pale blue-green tone. I printed a bunch of alcohol ads scaled down to serve as posters on the walls, along with "No Refunds" and "No Sales to Under-21s" signs. I need to get a counter for the store, but once I do it'll go right in front of where these signs are hung.

 The backroom has a pallet and stack of cardboard boxes, both of which I pulled out of a Mantic Terrain Crate set - "Abandoned Factory." To this I added a pair of 3D-printed boxes I had laying around.

 What's in the boxes? Who knows - there might be "business" being conducted in the back room unrelated to liquor sales...

 More furniture to come - I'll need to get some shelves and a counter at the very least. But considering that I basically dropped everything (except the zombies, which I mostly painted at my usual Monday night paint-hangouts) to start this kit immediately, I think I've done a pretty good job.

It's a little different from previous ALCD kits I've built - the base plate is different, lacking the front sidewalk and with the walls plugging flush into the edges of it instead of slotting into holes cut into the base. It's not bad, just takes slightly more effort to ensure the walls line up with each other. I've got a second one, because I ordered a copy of this kit before I knew Vince was sending me a complimentary one! 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 184

Miniatures Painted: 168

Terrain Acquired: 2

Terrain Painted: 8

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 10

 

Here Come the Zombies

 The first 20 Zombies are finished, which means hopefully I can get a game of Zombie RV in sooner rather than later!

 This first batch are 50/50 Copplestone Castings and Recreational Conflict figures. I like that there's themed groupings within the Recreational Conflict line - this batch has four zombies in paper hospital gowns, a zombie doctor and two zombie nurses - one in scrubs and a hairnet, right up front, and one in the little white uniform who's not super visible in the group shot. 

So let's break this group down into smaller groups, shall we?

First up are the Copplestone "Zombie Troopers." This was a fun batch, and I kept their clothing uniform - Army Painter "Woodland Camo" pants, Reaper "Desert Stone" shirts, washed with Army Painter "Strong Tone" and highlighted with the base color. The body armor was Reaper "Midnight Blue," washed with "Strong Tone," then highlighted with "Twilight Blue."

 Next, the Copplestone "Plague Zombies":

 I appreciate that two of them are in their underwear. 

Next up, the Recreational Conflict zombies - Doctor, nurses, and four patients in paper hospital gowns:

 And yes:

 And finally, for now, another three Recreational Conflict sculpts I grabbed from my primed pile:

 The one on the left is a surfer, I just still need to paint and affix the remnants of his surfboard, which appears to have been bitten in half by a shark.

 What's next? I've got another 14 Recreational Conflict sculpts to work my way through. But first...

I have to update another line on the tracker as well - Atomic Laser Cut Designs sent me a complimentary copy of one of their kits! They rolled out a new retail store kit and I'd commented positively on it on their Facebook page, as well as provided some free promotion on my own page. Next thing I knew, a copy of the kit showed up in my mailbox - just hours after I'd ordered a copy! Now I've got two; in keeping with the run-down, seedy and a bit low-life vibes I've gone for with my terrain, they're going to be a liquor store and an adult bookstore. I'm already working on the liquor store, and here's a sneak peek:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 184

Miniatures Painted: 164

Terrain Acquired: 2

Terrain Painted: 7

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 10

 

Urgent Care - You're Gonna Need It!

 While I still have furniture to paint and glue into place, I've completed the building itself for this Urgent Care center from Atomic Laser Cut Designs - making this my fifth building, and sixth kit overall, from them. As always, I've done a little customization and decoration to make it feel a little more alive.

 The exterior walls have gotten some graffiti, courtesy some GreenStuffWorld decals, as well as some lost dog signs and a "no littering" sign I pulled off Google Image Search and resized before taking to my local office supply store to print out. The windows (including the window separating the receptionist's area from the waiting room) have "glass" cut from overhead projector acetate sheets and glued into place.

 The floors are likewise printed paper, from a set of floor patterns I got from Sarissa Precision. There was a lot of careful measuring, re-measuring and cutting, believe me! 

 Inside, we've got more signs in the waiting room (including one on the receptionist's window reminding patrons to be polite, based on ones I've actually seen in waiting rooms post-pandemic), and a bulletin board in the receptionist's office. 

The one piece of furniture I've painted and glued into place so far is an air conditioning vent from OshiroModelTerrain. Most of the rest of the furniture I've got to paint is also from Oshiro, save for a pair of bench seats for the waiting room from GreenStuffWorld.

 I had some nerves going into this kit - it's one of the most complex Atomic Laser Cut Designs offers, with multiple interior rooms, and I knew I wanted to split the flooring between wood and tile. And yeah, I snapped a piece while I was test-fitting. But other than that, I just took my time and did a lot of test-fitting and sanding and cutting and ultimately it was less stressful a process than I feared it would be. 

In others news... while I'm not keen on zombie movies or TV shows much any more (post-pandemic they feel a little too close), I've gotten the bug to try out one of the solo zombie apocalypse wargames on the market - specifically, Zombie RV, which I know my friend Mike over at Lead Legionaries has spent some time playing. Thing of it is - I don't have any zombies! So an order was placed, and I fall well behind on my painted vs acquired tracker! At least they should be fairly fast and easy to paint up...

 

Miniatures Acquired: 173

Miniatures Painted: 129

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 7

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 9

 

Here's Your Sign

 Another piece of terrain for my modern tables, this one has been sitting awaiting attention for a bit. This is a straightforward roadside billboard from Atomic Laser Cut Designs, that went together a treat, without too much sanding. 

 The base was sprayed cement gray and the sign itself a dark brown, before getting a dusty drybrushing of tan craft paint. The actual advertising was what I could knock out with my slightly-busted black and white inkjet printer at home; I'll probably end up doing at least two more of these and I'll make the trip to Office Max for color printing for those, with billboards for local defunct ambulance chasing lawyers and a used car salesman who had omnipresent ads and slogans for years.  

The base got some glue painted on it and dipped in some gray "fine ballast" from Woodland Scenics before getting tarted up with a few tufts and a 3D printed cardboard box. I've got a bag full of assorted little cardboard boxes a friend printed up for me and I think they add some visual interest.

My friend Chris and I are looking at getting some Fistful of Kung Fu in this month, and martial artists are actually something I don't have much in the way of; so I've ordered some street fighters and ninjas from Crooked Dice to flesh out life on the mean streets of Tabletop Town. And speaking of fleshing things out, I've got a dozen civilians (well, mostly civilians) on my painting bench at the moment, with most of them nearly at the point of just needing their hair painted. 

Time to update the tracker - and I've been going back and forth as to whether the billboard counts as scatter or full-blown terrain. I'm going to count it as terrain.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 149

Miniatures Painted: 113

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 6

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 8

 

Nickel City Smoke Shop (As Finished As It's Gonna Get in 2025!)

 Last night it began to snow here in Buffalo, NY. And it's been snowing all day today so far. Which means my window for priming and varnishing outdoors has closed until next spring.

The view from my WFH desk today.

Which means I can't get a coat of spray varnish on to the Nickel City Smoke Shop, and consequently can't glue the window panes into place (since I need to varnish first so the glass doesn't "frost"). It also means any furniture I order for this building likely won't get primed and painted until spring. 

So that means that, with the signs, posters and ads I glued on over the weekend, the Nickel City Smoke Shop is as done as it's going to get this year.

I'm really proud of the sign over the window. I eyeballed sizing on the sign itself when I was making it in MSPaint, cut it out and put it up against a 20x40mm base I'd sprayed black - and barely had to do any trimming to make it fit right. 

"Anaconda Malt Liquor" is a reference to the 2009 Blaxploitation spoof "Black Dynamite," in which the drink is a major plot point. I won't spoil it, but the scene of Black Dynamite and his companions decoding the hidden message in the label is a side-splitter. 

While doing Google Image Searches for posters and ideas for signs and, admittedly, with an eye towards emphasizing a run-down seediness to the terrain, I stumbled across an ad that ran on Facebook for a strip club in California offering "Welfare Wednesdays," offering discounts to patrons who could show proof they were receiving government assistance. It was so low-brow, so tacky, I immediately saved the picture to my terrain folder.  

And on the inside of the Smoke Shop, posters for "Up in Smoke" and "Nice Dreams" from Cheech and Chong.

I do still need to figure out something to put over the pegs from the awning that stick out on the inside. 

WIP: Nickel City Smoke Shop and Community Center

With the weather getting colder, I jumped back into an MDF kit I started a few weeks back - cold and wet means no taking stuff outside to prime or varnish! This is a two story "Mean Streets" brownstone from Atomic Laser Cut Designs, the manufacturer of many of my recent modern buildings. In fact, I think ALL of the MDF buildings I've built in 2025 have been ALCD kits - the pawn shop, ramen restaurant and Off-Track Betting buildings I've built have all been Atomic Laser Cut Designs kits. This is my first two-story building, the beginnings of an effort to add more verticality to my modern terrain layouts. 

There's a street about five minutes from my house, Webster Street, which is all older two and three story buildings with a shop at ground level and apartments above, all looking very much like this kit. So Webster Street is going to be my point of reference in collecting a few more of these taller buildings from Atomic Laser Cut Designs. Incidentally, while we're still very much a Rust Belt town, Webster Street has gotten significant sprucing up in recent years thanks to efforts from our phenomenal mayor and is now a great place to go and eat or shop; my models might end up a bit more of a blend of Webster Street of today and 10-15 years ago. 

I still need to hit my local Office Max and do some color printing for signs, bill boards and interior art, but otherwise the building itself is pretty much complete. Gluing acetate into the windows will probably have to wait until spring, because I'm not sure the weather will cooperate for spray varnishing the building, and I'd like to do that before I glue the windows in so the "glass" doesn't frost. 

There's graffiti decals from both Green Stuff World and Dave's Decals on the walls, most notably the XL "pinup" graffiti next to the back door. I threw a sheet of these supersized decals in an order with Dave a while back on a whim, and this is the first one I've used; I'll leave it to the viewer to guess if the full word behind her is "SWANK" or "SPANK"! Hopefully not "STANK"...

Part of why I chose to use the XL decal is because I decided to make the ground floor shop a cannabis dispensary/head shop. A lot of these have cropped up around here since New York State legalized marijuana, ranging from high end dispensaries that look like Apple stores to grubby spots that look like they should have Cheech & Chong versions of the venerable cigar store Indian out front. There's one right on Webster Street that has a huge, lavish mural covering one side of the building done in the style of an EC Comics' scifi cover from the 1950s, so I knew I wanted some more color for mine. A detailed graffiti mural centered around a buxom blonde pinup felt right for my seedier, more run-down tabletop town. 

While my terrain is fairly generic as to location (other than America's Rust Belt), this one actually will have a reference to location; Buffalo, NY is nicknamed the "Nickel City" due to the American Bison (also called a Buffalo) on the back of the old "Indian Head" nickel, and the sign I've made for over the front window identifies the dispensary as "Nickel City Smoke Shop."

The most challenging part of the build was actually the awning over the front door - It hooks into the wall instead of just slotting in, so I had to spray each piece individually with beige spray paint and then assemble it in the wall - slotting the sides in, letting the glue dry, then fitting the top and front pieces in. 

Inside, each level has a paper floor pattern from Sarissa Precision glued down into place:

The black and white tile floor is, for me at least, a bit dizzying to look at for too long - which might be either great or terrible for a shop catering to stoners! As far as interior furnishings go, I'm thinking about grabbing the "Spice Shop Interior" from Miniature Building Authority and repurposing it. I scaled down some Cheech & Chong movie posters and some counter-culture art from the 1960s and 70s - the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Mr. Natural, etc. - to decorate the walls with as well. 

The second story, with the wooden floor, is going to be a community center of sorts, an open space for people to congregate with like-minded sorts. Of course, I love hiding things in my builds that reward taking the time to look at them, so it's probably not going to be quite so straight forward as that! I won't say any more until I can show off the completed, furnished room. 

I am debating what to do with the roof; it's a lot of wide open space. I could put a 3D printed air conditioning unit up there, maybe some teeny tiny little pigeons; I have some picnic-themed bits from a Mantic Terrain Crate box, maybe someone got up there for a private party. Just something to break up the expanse of gray and add some visual interest while keeping it largely playable. 

I did do some test-fitting on an Atomic Laser Cut Designs billboard set and placed it on the roof to see how it would look; once completed it'd be something I'd keep separate so I could place it on different roofs or next to roads to maximize it's usefulness on the table.

And the only other big thing to do with this kit is going to be some advertising posted on the side walls of the second floor. A big "Camel Cigarettes" ad or maybe a billboard for a local restaurant kind of deal. Otherwise, the walls are a bit bland! I thought about some "Ghost Ads" decals from Dave's Decals, with the faded remnants of decades-old ads still lingering on the walls; I absolutely see some of those walking down Webster Street! I'm iffy though because the decals tend to have the brick pattern printed on them which won't match up with the incised brick patterning on the MDF. It might look fine, it might not. 

With the OTB next door for height comparison.

I'll probably head to Office Max tomorrow morning to do my printing, so I can finish pasting things on to this building in the afternoon. I've also got my internal furnishings for the Off-Track Betting finally primed so I can start painting those and gluing them into the building as well. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 234

Figures Painted in 2025: 164

Wanna Gamble on the Ponies?

 Last weekend, my wife and I were out socializing on both Saturday and Sunday - and given that we're both introverted potato-people, it meant going into the work week feeling absolutely drained. We agreed that this weekend we'd "stay home and enjoy what our mortgage pays for," and I spent most of the day in the basement at my workbench, putting the finishing touches on "Mean Streets Storefront #5" from Atomic Laser Cut Designs. And by finishing touches, I just mean the MDF kit itself; I'm waiting on some 3D-printed furnishings to fill it with. 

I decided I wanted an off-track betting parlor, to go with the sort of run-down, Rust Belt feel my terrain collection has been built around. For the building itself, that just meant a pair of OTB signs - identical to plenty I've seen over by my local airport and even on the main shopping strip near me. I put a sign on either side of the building near the front, since the awning over the door and front window prevented me from putting one over the front, unless I put it up on the roof. 

The walls got some graffiti decals, as I mentioned previously, and to that I added some printed paper posters and signs - "no entry," "emergency exit," and posters for concerts from Blue Oyster Cult and Black Sabbath - the latter in celebration of the late, great Ozzy Osbourne. 

I also cut some acetate plastic to fit the front window and the door. I find this step really adds a lot to the model when viewed from outside; unlike my previous two kits, I didn't have any signs to glue to the window this time around. Happily, I did manage to get the doors aligned right when putting them in so that they open and close freely. 

So that's it for this building until I've got the furniture ready to paint; I pulled out the Urgent Care Gina got me from Atomic Laser Cut Designs and began test-fitting, but I think that's going to be a much more involved build since it has multiple interior rooms. In the meantime, I think I'll work on some more figures. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 127

More Terrain Building

 I'm not sure what it is, but there's something just very peaceful and relaxing about making terrain, even if it's just building and customizing a kit. Gina got me a pair of modern MDF buildings from Atomic Laser Cut Designs for my birthday a few months ago, and I decided to pull one out and get it built up and customized. This particular kit is "Store Front 5" from their "Mean Streets" line of brownstone buildings, a single-story shop with a removable roof and opening doors. Despite the pulpy 1930s aesthetic of the Mean Streets line, there's plenty of buildings that look exactly like this within easy travel of my house (fun fact: because Buffalo, NY has so many old buildings still standing, films set in the first half of the 20th century are often shot here), so it's more than appropriate for the Rust Belt aesthetics of my modern games.

The pieces have been spray-painted, and I've applied graffiti decals to the exterior walls and given them a tan drybrush to weather the brickwork. The decals are a mix of Green Stuff World and Dave's Decals - the GSW decals go on more smoothly, but honestly half the decals on the sheets are misprinted and cut off, limiting their usability. I'll probably be putting another order in with Dave's Decals in the near future - I want to add some two-story buildings to my table, and "Ghost Signs" on the sides of the second story would be very fitting. Dave offers a variety of them. 

The fit on Atomic Laser Cut Design's buildings are very tight, necessitating some sanding on the pegs before painting - a lesson I learned the hard way! These were well-sanded before I got out the spray paint, but it's always worth it to continue to check fit as I go:

I'll be printing out a paper floor and some miscellaneous signage to glue in - a "no entry" sign on the back door, things like that, maybe some "lost dog" posters to stick to the sides near the front. I might talk to my 3D printing guy about printing up a rooftop air conditioning unit to add up top as well. I will be needing him to take care of printing some wall-mounted TVs and a bar for the interior. 

Speaking of the interior, I sprayed it a fairly obnoxious orange, with the intent being for it to look like the interior decorating hasn't been updated since the 1970s. 

I think it works.

To offer another update, I've finished pouring the resin for my gator-infested swimming pool. I haven't had a chance to get to the game store to pick up a bottle of "Dirty Down" moss effect, but I'm debating whether I even want to bother with it; this looks fairly decent as is.

The most I'd be doing with the moss effect would be some dirtying up of the rim. Not sure if that's worth spending $20. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 124

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today's my birthday, and while I took the day off work, I never made it down to my hobby bench - too busy running errands and getting the house ready to have guests tomorrow. I did receive some lovely gifts from my wife however!

Two more modern buildings from Atomic Laser Cut Designs - an Urgent Care and a blank storefront that has a really nice brick pattern over the entire exterior walls - as well as some 3D printed scatter from Bad Goblin Games - some disheveled cinderblock walls, an above-ground swimming pool and most charmingly, an on-fire dumpster that comes with a little flickering LED light and battery, so that the flames actually light up. That is going to be an absolute must to have ready for my game in 3 weeks!

And I think I want to recreate what the Bad Goblin team did for the product image on their site, and put an alligator and some scummy "water" in that swimming pool...

I have to thank Mike over at Lead Legionaries for turning me on to Bad Goblin's goodies. He's painted a lot of their scenic pieces, including a variety of ruined and armored trailers and a stunning water tower, over recent months, and has been putting on some amazing games showcasing them. If you're not following his blog you should definitely check it out. 

Gina was also kind enough to hand me her card and tell me to use it to buy myself some miniatures. By coincidence, Lucid Eye Publications put out a call on their Facebook group for what miniatures people would like to see go on sale this week. I requested their Cro-Magnons, and they were kind enough to do it, so I bought another Tribal formation's worth of warriors, as well as another few characters. 

Since I've ordered more figures, it's time to update the tracker:

Figures Purchased in 2025: 66

Figures Painted in 2025: 85

Fat Dragon Self-Service Ramen

 Last night, after I finished posting about yesterday's game, I put the finishing touches on another building kit from Atomic Lasercut Designs. This was a blank storefront that I bought a month ago with an eye towards turning it into an automat-style self service restaurant. 

The sign out front (and interior art) is all just stuff I grabbed off Google Image Search and mocked up in MSPaint, printed out on the laser printer at my local copy shop. The graffiti decals are from an EBay seller, and the furnishings on the interior are mostly from Oshiro Models, with the booths and arcade cabinet from Miniature Building Authority. 

And here's a better look at the drinks cabinet - I used UV resin to give it a "glass" front.

What's next? Well, a buddy of mine is setting me up with some 3D printed modern buildings and street scatter, I have the three gangs of Mafiosos to paint up, and I picked up a set of Mantic street scatter at my local hobby shop yesterday:

I also found out that Harlequin is hosting their next Demo Day event on June 14th...one week after my game at Wargames Among the Warplanes! So it sounds like I should maybe not bother unpacking my car after I get back from WATW...

Figures Purchased in 2025: 58

Figures Painted in 2025: 70