What I'm working on

 Just a few small things today - first off, I finished a piece of scatter terrain from Miniature Building Authority that's been sitting, unhappily half-painted, for six months on my workbench. I'd used too yellowy of a brown for the wood of the crates and it looked bad. I stripped it, reprimed, and repainted, and now I'm happy with it. I especially like how it can sit flush against the wall of a building.

Had some opportunities for some fun details - a radiation hazard symbol on the barrel (that's probably fine to leave in a random alleyway, right?) and "FRAGILE" upside down on one of the crates.

 

Some months back, I got another set of irregular terrain bases from Things From The Basement, and built them up with cork layers with an eye towards making another set of jungle terrain.  Well, the second batch of trees I got were just absolute junk. Greasy, warped plastic in weird colors. So I never got around to making the jungle terrain, and these corked-up bases were just sitting there, until I started working on my samurai and I thought, "some pieces to make a bamboo grove would be nice."

So I ordered some model bamboo, and set to work painting the bases. Tonight, I drilled holes in two of the bases and inserted some bamboo stems of different sizes to see how they'd look:

 I might have made a mistake by not flocking the bases before drilling holes, but overall I'm happy with them and I can flock around the stems without egregious difficulty. I packed the bamboo in pretty densely so nobody can argue with me about whether or not they'd block line of sight. 

I'll work on finishing these two bases tomorrow and then tackle the next five or six - I forget how many I've got. Enough for a respectable grove!  

 

Miniatures Acquired: 207

Miniatures Painted: 210

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 9

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 13

 

Living On This Island Earth

On June 10th, 1955, a humble little scifi B-movie hit theaters called THIS ISLAND EARTH. It starred Rex Reason and Faith Domergue as atomic scientists kidnapped by Exeter, a mysterious yet seemingly kindly man with white hair and a large forehead, and taken to his home planet of Metaluna. Metaluna was under attack by the forces of the planet Zagon, and Metaluna needed the earth scientists' aid to synthesize enough uranium to fuel their defensive screens long enough to evacuate Metaluna's population to Earth. While Exeter argues for a peaceful coexistence with Earth, the leader of Metaluna instead suggests a future where earthlings would be subservient to the "superior" Metalunans. The question is moot, however, as it's too late; Exeter and the earthlings narrowly escape as Metaluna, under heavy bombardment, transforms into a new star. However, a Mutant (or Mu-TANT, given the enunciation in the film), a synthetic species of humanoid insects used as slave labor on Metaluna, has stowed away on the flying saucer and attacks, delivering a fatal wound to Exeter before being destroyed itself. 

I'll be honest, while it's got its charm it's not an amazing film, and these days might be best known for being included in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie," which I used to have on VHS back in the day. I certainly tend to think of some of the jokes made by Mike and the Bots in that when I think of this film. 

The Mu-TANT, however, has achieved a degree of iconicness; because the film was produced and distributed by Universal Studios, it does get included with the Universal Monsters in some tie-in media (action figure licenses, etc), and coming just a year after the Creature From The Black Lagoon, I applaud the inclusion. Modernized version have also appeared in the films MEN IN BLACK 3 and LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION in scenes paying tribute to the sci-fi boom of the 1950s. 

Which is a long, roundabout way to explain who these guys are. BigMrTong did a limited release of metal figures inspired by the Metaluna Mu-TANT, and I picked up three of them. They're now available as an STL file through his patreon, but I got three of the metal release, bending the arms slightly to create some variation between them. They'd been sitting primed on my desk for a while, but on the 10th I saw a notice on one of the B-movie pages I follow on social media stating it was the film's anniversary, so I got my rear in gear and started painting. 

 

Nothing too fancy, and I avoided trying to paint the sculpted veins on the arms - I just don't have a fine enough brush and enough trust in the steadiness of my own hands not to bodge it up repeatedly.  

 While I was at it, I knocked out another bit of scatter terrain for my modern tables - a hot dog cart, ready to be parked on a street corner dishing out delicious street meat to hungry pedestrians. 

 This is a 3D print I got from Miniature Building Authority, given a simple metallic drybrush for that stainless steel look, and the hot dog and soda logos picked out in full color. 

"This kid's been back four times today... he's an eating machine!"

 

So let's get that tracker updated:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 149

Miniatures Painted: 129

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 6

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 9

 

Modern Civilian, Vehicle, and... Dear God what is that?

 A few odds and ends I've painted this week; I've slowed down a bit on the painting because I'm hitting the limits of my ability to store painted figures, which isn't the worst problem to have, but I really need to invest in some more storage. However, I have finished a few things.

Two things I want more of on my modern, urban skirmish tables are civilians and vehicles, and to start on both, I've painted "3 Card Monte Guy," a resin 3D print from Miniature Building Authority, and a 1980 Volkswagen Vanagon from Miniature Tanks, a company that offers an amazingly wide array of 3D printed vehicles in a variety of scales.

3 Card Monte Guy arrived in four pieces - a body, two arms (attaching at the sleeves) and the stack of boxes. I kept things fairly simple - blue shirt, white slacks, alligator leather shoes. His face is expressive and took a wash really nicely, and I'm pleased I got the ace of spades painted on the card in his right hand.

The Vanagon was a single-piece FDM print; there's some visible print lines, but for the price point and my needs it works just fine. I copied the burnt orange color scheme with the white roof off a photo found on a Google Image Search, and I added white trim around the windows to add a little extra pop. 

Next up, the first of the "Zombicide: Invader" monsters I bought off a guy on Bluesky last month. This is the "Babyface Abomination," painted up as the threat for my next game of Majestic 13. I used spot washes and contrast paint over white primer to get most of the colors down, then drybrushed to smooth out some blotchiness and went back for tidying and detailing. The blue spikes/shell and the teeth and nails were the only things done entirely without contrast paints. 

"Hey pal, them's the breaks. Wanna try again?"

He's a pretty hefty beast, standing on a 50mm base. And with that, let's update the tracker:

Miniatures Acquired: 52

Miniatures Painted: 76

Terrain Acquired: 0

Terrain Painted: 2

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 1

Off-Track Betting - Finally Furnished!

Back in August, I finished the building itself for an Off-Track Betting location for my modern urban tables, but I was waiting on some 3D printed furnishings for it from a friend with a printer. Once I got those from him...they kind of sat for a while. I did get them all primed, but they sat in a box on my workbench awaiting my attention. 

I had a four day weekend for Thanksgiving, but I spent most of it running errands, socializing, and overall spending my time on everyone and everything but myself, so by Sunday morning I was feeling a bit frazzled, and certainly not as relaxed and rested as I would want to be on a four-day weekend! So Sunday morning I got the crockpot loaded and rolling for a couple days' worth of dinners and parked my butt at my workbench for probably five hours, my phone turned off entirely, and sat and painted some odds and ends that I wanted to get clear - including the furniture for the OTB. 

I'm really enjoying furnishing my terrain builds - it adds a lot of personality and flavor to each building, and it's a fun challenge to include enough furniture to sell the idea of what the building is supposed to be without making it too cluttered to move figures around in. And this is no criticism towards people who leave their interiors entirely open and unadorned to maximize play space! I think there's a lot of wisdom in that approach as well.

Bobby Dipshit, in his sweat-stained tank top and track pants, is waiting on race results.

The bar, drinks shelves and TV racks were STLs I bought on MyMiniFactory and had a friend print up for me. I kept the paintjobs pretty simple, and didn't even bother to paint the side of the drinks shelf that's touching the wall. 

The slot machines (three out of five in a set) are 3D prints that I bought from Kirk at Miniature Building Authority, where I've bought a lot of my furniture for these builds from. They came with a set of stools as well that I opted not to use. The prints are super crisp and detailed; I've gotten a few 3D printed bits from MBA that still have a lingering whiff of uncured resin clinging to them, but these were perfect, and you can see just how much detail is crammed into them; the text on the buttons is legible in the print even if my potato-fingers can't manipulate a brush finely enough to do the individual letters in "MAX BET."

These were also a significant reminder that I'm overdue for an eye exam and updated prescription on my eyeglasses. 

Finally, unrelated to the Off-Track Betting, I painted a pile of sleeping bags and bedrolls piled around a cooler that I got in a Mantic TerrainCrate set. It's glued to a 40mm Renedra base and will work great as an objective marker in modern games.

 Honestly, I wish I had another one of these, but I'm not sure I can justify buying a whole additional summer camp box for it. Though more of the various tents and unrolled sleeping bags wouldn't hurt...

More Modern Terrain and Some Early Modern Monsters

 I made my way to the print shop tonight after work, and printed our some floors and a sheet of posters I'd made by resizing images off the web, which means this weekend I can make some serious progress on terrain. To begin with, tonight I finished off a piece that's been sitting *mostly* done for a few weeks.

This is a construction office made from a shipping container, produced by Things From The Basement, who I highly recommend checking out if you're in the United States. This is my first kit from them, though I have my eyes on a few more; they use a thinner sheet of MDF than I'm used to from companies like Sarissa or Atomic Laser Cut Designs, but everything was really cleanly cut and fit beautifully. Each side of the shipping container is built up in layers to allow more depth to the detailing. 

I sprayed everything but the roof with "Sahara Beige" from Montana Gold spray paints, and did the roof in a flat red paint and primer combo I got at the hardware store. The door was picked out in "Deep Red" from Reaper Miniatures' paint line; I'm not sure why it cracked like that but I think it ended up looking good. 

I tried using some Green Stuff World weathering pigments my wife got me as a gift along the bottom of the container, but it just went on like paint and didn't dry to the texture the packaging promised. I tried to salvage it with a heavy drybrushing of tan craft paint, which I think will remain my default method of weathering model buildings.

Inside, I've glued a table stacked with cash and a money-counting machine that I got from Miniature Building Authority; could it be that there's something illicit going on in here? Money laundering? Drug dealing? Or is this just the payroll office for a junkyard or chop shop? I'm really pleased with how perfectly the table fit. 

Finally, I added a pinup of Tanya Roberts from her time on the TV show Charlie's Angels; I like having my "Modern" games seem to be a blend of everything over the past 40-odd years, with smart phones, CRT TVs, classic TV shows and the like all appearing side by side. I'm planning to put some old "Joe Camel" cigarette ads on some model billboards in the not too distant future. 

In other news...

I'll be returning to Wargames Among the Warplanes for their fall show next month, bringing Devilry Afoot with me; I've planned my gaming around having to paint as few figures between now and the day of the event as possible. I've finished off the last couple figures I wanted to use as monsters in games on that day.

On the left is a Black Dog/Hellhound/Dire Wolf type, intended as Dracula's wolf form, from Crooked Dice's relatively recently released Dracula set of figures, and accompanying it are a pair of animated scarecrows from Crooked Dice's Folk Horror line. These will be appearing as a Barghest and a pair of Bogeymen in the games I'll be running in about 4 weeks' time. All that's left to do for these three is a good coat of varnish, and all that's left to paint for Wargames Among the Warplanes are a pair of Innocents for the Bogeymen to menace. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 127

Figures Painted in 2025: 127

New Acquisitions

 A couple more odds and ends have arrived at Casa de Adcock over the past few days.

Miniature Building Authority had a spring sale going, so I ordered some more scatter bits, including a pair of end-pieces for oil-drum-and-tire barricade walls, of which I've got a few painted up already. I'm waiting for their wall pieces to come back in stock so I can buy more - I'd like to ultimately be able to enclose a building or two in barricade "fences" if I can.

I also placed an order with Things From The Basement - I needed a couple large, irregular terrain bases, as well as some large MDF rounds that will be turned into markers for smoke grenades. These A) aren't very exciting to look at, and B) aren't enough to justify the shipping costs, so a set of brick stacks and a shipping container-turned-office slipped into my cart. 

I think the shipping container office I want to eventually incorporate into a larger build - I'm envisioning a fenced-in junkyard or mechanic's yard, maybe with a garage, with the shipping container as the yard's "business office." Something a bit shady and sketchy, like they're dealing in stolen cars or something like that. I think that would be a fun project to add to my terrain collection. Things From The Basement has a garage kit in their "Industrial" line that might be perfect - something to think about for my next purchase. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 58

Figures Painted in 2025: 75

Joey's Boys

 I've finished up the first of three gangs of Mafiosos for my Fistful of Lead game at Wargames Among the Warplanes in June. Meet Joey "The Viper" Marciano and some of his associates:

Joey is from Wargames Foundry's "The Mob" pack in their Street Violence line, while the rest of his gang are from Copplestone Castings; the skinny guy in a gray suit is from the "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" line of Cold War spies, and the rest are from the "Future Wars" line. 

Joey's a very fun sculpt, with thick jowls and a fat roll at the back of his neck, rings on a couple fingers and a fat cigar ready to be jabbed into someone's face. 

Also finished tonight, Miss Angela Dellamorte, the daughter of the head of the Dellamorte Crime Family. She's the mcguffin that the whole scenario hinges around - the game begins with her in the hideout of the Jamaican Kings, and three gangs of Dellamorte gunmen are crossing the table to try and retrieve her - and double-crossing each other along the way. 

Finally, I knocked out a couple pieces of junk pile scatter terrain from Miniature Building Authority:

So that leaves me with just 10 figures to finish before June 7th, and however many pieces of scenery I manage. My buddy Dave is 3D printing a few buildings for me, and also gifted me a couple he'd printed and painted years ago that he wasn't using:

I might do some touch up on these, but overall they're not in bad shape. Anything I do to repaint or improve them will be after Wargames Among The Warplanes, however. 

That's five new figures painted, so let's update the tracker:

Figures Purchased in 2025: 58

Figures Painted in 2025: 75

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

Welcome to EZ Pawn

 I took yesterday, March 31st, as a day off work, and used some of that free time to finish* off the EZ Pawn Shop I've been working on. I got the front doors and the surrounding frame glued on, the sign on the roof assembled and weathered, some signage in the windows, and a few pieces of art on the walls. 

So why the asterisk? 

Because there's still a few things I want to add. 

I've got an air conditioner from Oshiro Model Terrain that I'm getting into the priming box today so that I can paint it up and glue it in next to the back door. 

There's some furniture to paint up and add in - I've got a cashiers' counter and a couple shelving units to paint up, and there's a safe and a gun locker that's on its way from Miniature Building Authority. There will probably be various other odds and ends added going forward. 

But!

It's finished enough to where I'd be fine with having it on the table during a game and not feel like it's unfinished. 

Pawn Shop Progress, Continued

 I've gotten a good amount of work done on the MDF pawn shop I posted about last time since Friday, and have probably one or two more sessions to go to finish the building proper; resin and MDF furniture will be another session or two on top of that, in all likelihood. 

The original red spray paint I bought to do the doors, window frames and signage in ended up being a weird neon red-orange that wasn't what I was looking for, so I painted over all that with ordinary red craft paint. Everything was given a light drybrush of a pale tan to weather and dull down the brightness of the red. I've glued in the back door, it's frame, and the window frames, plus used pieces of acetate sheet to make window panes; I've glued them in because I want to varnish over them, which will make them frost and look dingy and unwashed. The front door frame is test-fit and sanded, but not yet glued into place. The furniture inside has been assembled, but is not glued down because I'm going to hit it all with a can of black spray paint and then just give it a little drybrush to help the edges pop. There's a few resin bits and bobs I'm waiting to come in the mail as well. 

Around the side of the building, I've applied a graffiti decal - I bought a couple sheets of these off a seller on ebay; they're designed for model railroaders to add realistic graffiti to train cars, but O-Scale is close enough to 28mm for my purposes. This one worked really well; I was nervous about it tearing during application but it went on like a breeze. I've got a dozen more designs, and I'm anticipating using maybe one per building at most as I grow my modern terrain collection. 

The colors are really crisp and bright; I'll probably apply a very light drybrush of the tan over it to weather it and tie it into the wall behind it a little more. 

In addition to this, I started doing a little bit of work on my next building. One thing I regret not doing more of with the pawn shop is sanding down the lugs on the pieces; the fit on everything is exceptionally tight and once you add a skin of paint over it, almost impossible to get the lugs into their slots. So for the next building - a blank storefront that I'm building as the "Fat Dragon Self-Service Ramen Eatery" - I'm starting off by sanding all the lugs down! 

The furnishings are from OSHIRO Model Terrain - there are two noodle vending machines, a drinks vending machine, recycling bin and (not super visible by the front door) an ATM. I'm waiting on a set of booth seats from Miniature Building Authority to finish off the furniture collection for this one. The exterior is going to be the same color as the pawn shop, but I'm thinking a light blue for the interior walls. Flooring is going to be the same wooden plank pattern I used for the pawn shop. 

I'm debating if I want to do some flower pots on the sidewalk under the window and next to the front door. 

I'm hoping, given the lessons learned on the pawn shop, that the ramen eatery goes even faster!

WIP - Sarissa Precision "Atomic Gas"

 Call it a Gas Station, Petrol Station, Fuel Parlor (someone probably calls it that), it's a must for any urban or post-apocalyptic table. My wife was kind enough to get me Sarissa's "Atomic Gas" Gas Station for my birthday last month, and I've been slowly working on it over the past few days.

the catalog image, non-derelict version

 

I say slowly because the weather's been really uncooperative, with days and days of smothering humidity punctuated by torrential rainstorms. Which has made getting things primed extraordinarily annoying!

Worse, I'm nearing a point where I'm going to have no choice but to stop until the weather cooperates; I don't want to glue the walls together until I have plastic sheeting glued into place for the windows, and I don't want to glue the windows in until the walls are varnished (so that the varnish doesn't frost the windows). And I can't varnish the building when the humidity's sitting at 86% for 12-15 hours at a time. So I'm painting as much as I can, getting the paper flooring glued down, and obsessively rechecking how the parts fit together. 

I'm also working on some furnishings (purchased from Miniature Building Authority) as you can see here - out front there's a locked cage for propane tanks (not yet primed), as well as a reach-in freezer filled with bagged ice. Inside, I've got a top-down freezer filled with ice cream (placed in impulse-buy range of the front counter, just like in the gas station up the street from my apartment) and a vending machine:

There's a bit of a story here - "Big Red" is an American cream soda, only available in certain markets, mostly around Texas and Kentucky. The flavor is frequently mistaken for bubble gum, but is apparently a mix of lemon and orange oils and vanilla - and it's awful (or at least, a not-easily-acquired taste). My wife's father loved Big Red, and more than drinking it, he loved tricking other people into drinking it. I'll never forget his booming chuckle as he watched me take an unsuspecting sip of it. 

So presented with the flat expanse of the front of this vending machine, I knew I wanted to paint something, and while looking at photos of '90s era vending machines I remembered this syrupy nightmare drink, and decided it would be funny to have a vending machine filled with nothing but Big Red (and a discontinued variant, Big Blue) awaiting the unwary, thirsty customer. The red also pops against the green-and-white scheme I chose for the gas station as a whole, drawing even more attention to it. 

Looking at the weather forecast, I don't expect to be able to do any more priming or varnishing until Friday at the earliest; I might try assembling a delicate resin chair to put behind the counter, and I'm waiting on a resin cast toilet to arrive to put in the back room. I'm hoping I can maybe have *most* of the gas station done by next Monday.