This is not a new project, just something I remembered while waiting for glue to dry on my current scenery and decided to revisit.
In September of 2009 I sat down with a bit of Milliput and some scrap wood and created the following lectern, upon which resides a Tome of Madness, filled with eldritch verses of great power and bound in the red leathery hide of captured demons. Or something like that, anyway. It was a birthday gift for my brother as he was busy painting a group of cultist figures from Pulp Figures. That pre-dates the current version of this website, so it never got featured here, although I did show it off over on the Lead Adventure Forum. Enjoy!
As discussed in my last post on entering LAF‘s LPL5, here’s all ten of the images from my 2009 LPL3 entries. I finished somewhere in the bottom third of the pack, but certainly didn’t enter with any expectation of doing much better — I entered to give me incentive to work on my painting and photography, which worked out just fine!
LPL3’s bonus rounds were “Germans” for Round One, which I botched; the German WW1 stormtroopers I did for Round 7 were supposed to be my Round 1 bonus entry, but I ordered them too late. Round 5 was “Cavalry”, which I managed with my first 15mm fantasy unit painted in years. Round 10 was “Lost Worlds”, bonus points for an exploration team, a “native” team and “monster” or similar — pegged max bonus points there, and a photo I’m still proud of!
Another revival from the old Brian’s Wargame Pages version of the site, and one that I should have brought forward ages ago! You can see the Esquimalt Drydock on Google Maps for a sense of scale that wasn’t available ten years ago when I first posted the photos. — Brian, 22 Feb 2011
In the summer of 2001 I was roommates with a guy who worked in the drydock here in town. He turned into a real asshole after being laid off, but while he was still working he gave me a tour of the yard. I brought my camera, and these pics should inspire people looking for new industrial modern or SF scenery projects!
One thing that would be very difficult to reproduce on the gaming table, except maybe in 6mm, would be the sheer scale of the place. I didn’t have my wide-angle lens with me, so I didn’t even try for some real area photos. The drydock itself is 1100 feet long; the two big cranes pictured below are several hundred feet tall. There were two fair-sized ships in the drydock when I was there, and they could have accomodated a third with no difficulty. And this isn’t even that big a drydock, by maritime engineering standards. The ones that can accomodate nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are even bigger…
Wargamers interested in industrial scenery or future-tech industrial landscapes (Necromunda style) should find plenty of inspiration here! Even if you can’t reproduce the scale, the clutter, details and fixtures should provide some ideas.
Click any image below for a (slightly) larger view. Keep in mind these are refugees from the Old Web, when 600px wide was a Big Image.
The blue-and-yellow tower in the centre is one of the two massive cranes; this photo is also impressive for the amount of clutter visible!
One of the massive cranes alongside the drydock; the two big cranes are similar, but the details differ.
Workshops, office cubicles, supplies and random equipment and parts compete for space alongside the drydock. Great, colourful clutter for scenery ideas – lots of cover for skirmishers.
When they need to section off the drydock, the big cranes lift these huge steel bulkheads into the dock. For scale, those yellow railings along the top of the photo are about waist-high on a person.
Ships are big too – this guy is spray-painting the primer along the hull of that Russian deep-sea fishing boat. The travelling lifting-basket truck he’s working in actually looks pretty cool too.
The pale blue crane is the second very large one at the yard; the ship at centre is a Russian deep-sea fishing boat in for overhaul. Again, lots of clutter and stuff filling the place up…
The two big cranes ran on these massive railroad-style track assemblies. To give you an idea of the scale here, each of those big blue cylinders (brake machinery) are about five feet tall. (1.5m or so) These are seriously large machines….
The other crane. Made by Krupp of Germany, at least in part.
More old photos resurrected – this time a few from a Fantasy Rules! 2nd Edition game we played years ago. Human medieval knights & footmen vs orcs and goblins with necromancer help. I’m pretty sure this was the first outing of Tony’s undead; years later he’s finally got enough to field an all-undead army without help from my figure collection. Continue reading Photos from a Fantasy Rules! Battle→
15mm fantasy figures, based for Hordes of The Things (HOTT) or Fantasy Rules! (FR!). Many of the figures are long-out-of-production Ral Partha 15mm (from when they held the AD&D license, before WotC bought AD&D from TSR and started producing plastic crap); the rest are a mix of Reaper & Ral Partha 25mm monsters and Chariot 15mm (now produced by Magister Militum/Navigator. Continue reading Fantasy Gallery #1→
PIZZA BOX SCENERY: This 25mm science fiction scenery was inspired by a 25mm pirate tavern from a now-vanished webpage. That one was designed for a tavern-brawl skirmish; mine is designed for SF skirmishing on space stations or other large indoor facilities. The two pizza boxes still fold up for travel & storage, and the various walls, columns & partitions were carefully laid out so they’d mesh together when the box was closed.
The interior walls are mostly matte board, which is strong and thin – and it was on sale very cheap at a local art supply store! The hazard striping, signs & other decorative bits were printed off on my colour inkjet, and created in Photoshop. Some of them are available free on the Sci-Fi Signage post. Continue reading Pizza Box 25mm Skirmish Scenery→
Photos from September 2003 of GZG 25mm & 15mm United Nations Space Command troopers (in Martian Legion camo) and Alien-movie aliens from FreiKorp. Continue reading SG2 Gallery #4 – UNSC & Aliens→
These were the first 25mm figures I ever painted, sometime in the first half of 2002; I’ve still got them but haven’t used them in years. GZG never have published their “Full Metal Anorak” skirmish rules, either…
As always, click for full/larger view, but keep in mind that Old Web images ain’t that big! (if I ever find the original scan files, I’ll see about modern large images!) Continue reading SG2 Gallery #3 – 25mm SF→
