Minatures

can anybody help me pse,

unfortunantly i have to mail order to get the minatures

and i dont know what the ships look like for all the different

space fleets.

can someone give me a discription of the different basic shapes

for the different forces.

i have seen what the NAC and the ESU look like but they are not

to my taste:)

> Someone wrote:

Kra'Vak:
All ships follow a design pattern similar to the vulcan shuttle\warp
sled combo from ST:TMP, except they look a lot meaner.

NSL: Blocky structure usually with one large rear engine block section
connected by a long block and ending with another large block.

FSE: Clean wedge shaped designs with several resembling adhoc star destroyers.

Merchants: Several types, including fat, enlongated shuttles to modular style
freighters.

If you can't find any you like, try scratch-building.  It's a lot
cheaper and fun using your own designs!

Mike Miserendino:
> If you can't find any you like, try scratch-building. It's a lot

        What are some good materials for scratch-building? I've been
tempted to try my hand at it, but most of my inspiration has been to raid
aircraft models for their missiles, fuel pods, etc.

> On Mon, 22 Jul 1996, Robert Crawford wrote:

> What are some good materials for scratch-building? I've been
Sculpey Clay for big parts like bodies and stuff, marbles for
round tank-like items, various sizes of balsa for wings, solar panels,
struts.  Piano wire for various small struts/tunnels/weapon barrels.
Straws for medium sized cylinders (11 1" straw sections mounted in 3 rows
creates an engine section similar in appearance to the one seen on the
Coreelian cruiser in the beginning of Star Wars) Fine screen (a la doors

and window mesh) in either metal or plastic can form grids or give texture to
a surface. Small beads in various sizes give "cargo" modules. 9mm bullet
casings give engine pods as well as small turrets from the primer caps. 22
cal. gun casing give small engine pods. Various electronic parts such as chips
give a "borg" like appearance to ships. Pretty much anything small will work,
although sometimes you might have to put several together to disguise their
forms so it doesn't

look as weird, since the eye tends to see patterns, a big pattern will
tend to over-ride a smaller one, so a bunch of straws together doesn't
look as weird as just one, until you take a closer look.

Just some suggestions,

----------
From:	Robert Crawford <crawford@iac.net>
Sent:	Monday, July 22, 1996 7:15 PM
To:     FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
Subject:	Re: Minatures

Mike Miserendino:
> If you can't find any you like, try scratch-building. It's a lot

        What are some good materials for scratch-building? I've been
tempted to try my hand at it, but most of my inspiration has been to raid
aircraft models for their missiles, fuel pods, etc.

> Someone wrote:

Anything is good!:) My first minis were made entirely from balsa wood. Kit
bashing is fun - using parts from other kits like missiles, fuel tanks,
guns, cannons, etc. A good source for parts might be your kitchen or garage
- find some odd shape plastic containers(preferably empty ones) and
throw some kit parts and paint on it and presto, it's a spaceship. I collect
tubing, container caps, plastic containers, and whatever might look good on a
model.

Craft stores are also an excellent source for parts. Sometimes when I look for
car parts at salvage yards, I come across small items like wire connectors,
knobs, etc. that could be usefull. I can usually get small parts like this for
free, or if there is a large quantity maybe a couple of bucks.

Another place to check would be electronics stores that sell old or damaged
equipment for spare parts. You can usually find quite a collection of odd
shaped items from resistors to vacuum tubes to chips that could make cool
looking ships.

Just use your imagination and have fun!:)

> Someone wrote:
Old (small) neon lamps make nice tankers. I bought couple of fuel trucks,
converted them to ordinary trucks (for use with Command Decision), and used
the fuel tanks to build a tanker. The engine section

is the Micro Machine Borg ship... (Shh.. It's in disguise...). It looks nice
unpainted, with the name "Texaco" on it's side and the flammable material
symbol visible... I also made a fleet carrier from the extra cover of a
protable CD player. My escort carrier is a combination of a Romulan ship and
Macross (The two halves of Macross were glued over and under the Romulan ship
,and the gaps filled with all sorts of junk).
        I'm also currently working on a fleet of TIE-fighters made from
pins and hexagon-shaped pieces of paper... Howabout the Death Star II
scenario with 200 TIEs?:) Of course, a lot depends on the scale you use. The
biggest ship in my fleet is a Star Destroyer which is something like 16 inches
long. If you stick to the smaller ships, it's much easier to find small items
that make a ship without any conversion. The bigger the ships get, the more
work they require.

----------
From:	Timothy Klaus <tklaus>
Sent:	Tuesday, July 23, 1996 11:22 AM
To:     FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk; Robert Crawford <crawford@iac.net>
Subject:	RE: Minatures

----------
From:	Robert Crawford <crawford@iac.net>
Sent:	Monday, July 22, 1996 7:15 PM
To:     FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
Subject:	Re: Minatures

Mike Miserendino:
> If you can't find any you like, try scratch-building. It's a lot

        What are some good materials for scratch-building? I've been
tempted to try my hand at it, but most of my inspiration has been to raid
aircraft models for their missiles, fuel pods, etc.

> Mike Miserendino:
I use: Balsa and bass wood, beads, spagetti, wire, hairbrush bristles,
cardboard, pieces of old tank, ship and plane modesl, bottle caps and tops,
sheetrock wall anchors, wire nuts, legos, pieces of old computer
boards, clay, twist-off tops from cool-aid bottles, washers, nylon
bushings, bicycle reflectors, telephone plugs... etc. You would be supprised
what you can find in the sewing section of your local store or

fabric store... eylets, snaps, rings, bobbins, brads, rivets...

YOu can even be creative with a discarded food-coloring bottle!

LME

> At 08:15 PM 7/22/96 -0400, you wrote:
The product is called Scullpy. It's a clay like substance that you can shape
and mold. Then you bake it in your kitchen oven and it comes out hard. It can
then be sanded, scribed, mutilated, and more sculpy can be
added and re-baked.  When you finally get the shape you want, paint it.
Two part epoxy is good too. Don't forget about household trash. Old lipstick
containers, with old model parts glued on and painted look good too. Just
remember neat, clean, and a halfway decent paint job and most anything will
look good.

Hi all

For both DS and FT I find a good complex ship model to be a great source of
components, especially if purchased from the specials table at Hobbyco
:).

A lot of new style models don't seem to have as many bits though. With the
ones with many bits the lifeboats make easy conversions into small ships, the
guns go straigt onto DS mostly, etc.

> At 11:22 AM 7/23/96 -0500, Robert Crawford wrote:

> What are some good materials for scratch-building? I've been

One set of things that I'm trying, though I haven't done too much with them,
are "spacers" and other plastic clips used in construction and wiring. I
bought them for about 10 cents each at a local surplus store. These things
look great. They have a round end with a hole for a screw or bolt that looks
like an engine outlet. The centres are "hollow" (that is, you can see through
them) but they can be sealed with putty. If I turn them sideways, they look
like tall, thin capital ships. If I mount them "flat" they would make great
fighters for Silent Death.

The only problem with them is that they are plastic, and as such they take a
bit of work for the paint to adhere.

> At 11:22 AM 7/23/96 -0500, Robert Crawford wrote:

You do give them a base coat, don't you? I've noticed that plastic minis

always require a nase coating before the actual paint. Also, it might be

a good idea to wash/soak them in warm water with some dish-washing
liquid. This helps to get rid of possible residue of the stuff they use in the
molds to keep the plastic from sticking. This brings up another thing I've
been meaning to ask from people on this group. What sort of paint schemes do
you people usually use on your ships? As painting miniatures is the part of
the hobby that I least like
(I'm into scratch-building and playing. Painting is something I have to
do between these two...), I've shortened the process to three easy steps: 1)
base coat of dull grey. 2) black wash to give a ship some shadows and

a dirty, used look. 3) pick out the engine flames. Simple as that, and some of
them happen to look pretty good. It's also very quick, so I can do a few
whenever I have the time after the base spray.

/GNiko

Hey Bob, you forgot to mention the SS Avon and the SS Mennen!

-- Rick

> ...Don't forget

> Niko Mikkanen wrote:

> This brings up another thing I've been meaning to ask from

Personally, I go for an "Antique Brass" look.  I use a copper/orange mix

for base coat, then apply a green wash. Finish up with brass and gold dry
brush, paint the engine pods black (I don't paint the flame) and voila. I
friend of mine borrowed some for a demo at Origins, so some people might have
seen them there. If you did, tell me what you think.

Date sent:  25-JUL-1996 14:20:23

> This brings up another thing I've been meaning to ask from

There is quite a large section of the FAQ (available from The unofficial FT
web page, or from me @
        http://basil.acs.bolton.ac.uk/~ad4/

On Wed, 24 Jul 1996 23:01:58 -0400 Allan Goodall <agoodall@sympatico.ca>
writes:

> The only problem with them is that they are plastic, and as such they

I have never had a problem with paint adhering to plastics. What do you
use as a primer? I use only the $0.98 spray paint from wal-mart. It
adheres to just about anything, is CHEAp, and acrylic paints stick well to it
...

> This brings up another thing I've been meaning to ask from

Actually, just tonight I came up with a reasonably effective paint scheme.
Easy, too, which means my ships might actually get done sometime
soon....
I'm painting a whole bunch of FSE ships, and I started by priming them in
black. I then drybrushed them with Ral Partha Grey (Which is a VERY light grey
that covers remarkably well. I reccommend the Partha paints in general;
they're a good line.) After that, I went back and picked out the raised panels
in white. After that, I did the engines in deep red, brushed them with a
little bit of flourescent red, and that's that. I still have to paint the
base, and put decals on it, but that's all that's left. My NSL ships are
similar, except that I paint them with a panzer grey, drybrush them with a
medium grey (Partha Armor Grey), and then do the panels in Partha Grey. It's
easy, and quick, and it actually looks good, I think.
 Of
course, I'm biased, but take it for what it's worth. For decals, by the way,
there's a company called Beacon which puts
out 1/285 sized lettering and numerals.  They are a perfect size for the
FTII ships, and they have a lot of colors available.

> My NSL ships are

I did exactly the same thing with my ESU ships, but I also used silver and
gold to touch up the details. Anything that sticks out on the model was fair
game, and I just went over the whole thing putting silver and gold on all the
little knobs, bumps and fins on the ship.

I spray-sealed it after that, and then went over the whole thing again
with a very thin brush, putting black paint into all the seams and crevices.
The coat of sealer made it easy -- if I got sloppy, I could wipe the
black paint off of the model with my thumb without smudging the paint job
underneath.  After I was done with the black, I spray-sealed it again.

The thing I was aiming for was a VERY high contrast. It seems to me that the
shadows in the crevices would be pitch black on a real spaceship, while the
highlights and raised areas would reflect brightly.

> At 06:27 AM 7/25/96 +7516517, you wrote:

> in the molds to keep the plastic from sticking.

Oh, definitely. I spray them with a fixitive (the stuff used by artists to
coat canvasses), then I prime them, then I paint them. Finally, I spray them
with the fixitive a second time. This makes them harder, less flexible, and
protects the paint.

> This brings up another thing I've been meaning to ask from

Depends on the ships. I like colourful "camouflage" patterns, such as a white
base with ruby squiggles, or blue and green squiggles on white. I've also
painted ships multiple colours with the engines in a contrasting colour to the
hull. Other ships are painted an overall dark colour (black, dark grey) with
colourful "fins" or engine mounts. Depends on my mood.

> On Thu, 25 Jul 1996, Niko Mikkanen wrote:

> This brings up another thing I've been meaning to ask from

> your ships?
Depends on which fleet it is. My Imperial fleet (GW Imperial line,
mainly) is medium/light grey with all large flat panels purple metallic
(Imperial Purple, see...), the Eldar ships (GW Eldar and Silent Death
conversions ) are bone-coloured with some details in copper or green
metal; both are drybrushed over black spray coats. The Commonwealth (no,

they're not FASA - more like SW rebels) are white on blue, the bioships
are... hideous, and so on.