March 2017 / Away from home

I'm away from home as work is dominating the start of the year, but I grabbed a
handful form the lead pile and some British Navy officers for re-basing and set off on my travels.

I cleaned of flashing and put together some Martian bar wenches, eegaar ,zonar and some armed sailors for one of the Red Captain crews.

Not much to show but not stopped completely.

Aphid Class-HBMMS / HMMS Bumble Bee

I give you Her Britannic Majesty's Martian Ship Bumble Bee. I was going to launch her once her crew was ready but I just couldn't hold in my excitement. You won't see her on the table for a good while as my Martian Cloudship fleet are in the air docks at the moment to put up a challenge against her.

I've gone for HMMS Bumble Bee as in the original Space 1889 source material see is in the docks in 1888 and now in 1889 see is complete with minor advancements on her earlier Aphid sister ships. A better boiler and better forward gun.



Built by the most excellent people at Oshiro Model Terrian www.oshiromodelterrain.co.uk

February 2017 Blog

Alas I'm still painting the Martian Sewers :(

A bit more Martian terrain.

Tree groves

A fruit orchard. As we know from the original text Martian fields generally take on a triangular shape. 

Building Martian sewers/Jan's Blog 2017

As you can see the construction is taking longer than I had hoped. The excellent set from Ainsty Castings  is produced in resin and there is some distortion in the moulds. This makes and easy fit with the others pieces rather difficult. So it's a case of sanding,filling and even sawing before the final gluing.

So far I've three large boards and one smaller. The aim being that I can play at least three sewer levels while making enough of walls removal to give different options while still maintaining a skeleton to give support to the pieces.

I'm hoping I'll get the painting finish before the end of Feb?

Dec 2016 Martian News and Seasons Greetings

So here we are not much further than last year,mainly because I keep taking on more than I can chew.



What are next years plans? Well pretty much the same as this year. Finish outstanding projects and try not to start any more.

So that would be:

• The British Residency (Partly constructed kit and scratch build)
• The Martian Villa/8 sided Manor House (Party constructed scratch build)
• The Emerald Palace (Partly constructed scratch build)
• The Martian City Sewers (Base boards finished ready for kit build and painting)
• The Martian Temple complexes, above ground (below completed unless I want to extend it)
• The Martian Docks/Quay+Canal Walls (Partly constructed from a scratch build)
• The Martian multi level street section (Partly constructed from a scratch build)
• The Ruined Martian City (Partly constructed from kits and scratch built)
• "Pimp up" my cloudships and finish my outstanding bits.
• Venus Landing Field (Parts collected)
• Venus "Birdmen" village (Partly completed scratch build)
• Venus German jungle base (Partly completed scratch build,still having problems with the walkways)
• Venus Airship to finish as well.
• All outstanding armies/factions to finish painting.Roughly 200-300 minis.Infantry,Cavalry and civilians, human, Martian and a creature or two.

Oh yes get the games planned for some years now played ;) lol

Any way below is the current painting board. Some new and some brought back for changes in bases etc.

EEEEKKKK!!!! So far behind.....

Produce bins. A quick and simple use of coffee cups to give somewhere to store Mar's gain (or what ever they eat as the main crop, we don't really know from the source material) a bit of paint and sand with a dash of coloured paint. A box of cocktail sticks,brown nylon thread and three little bits of square wood. Excluding drying time a 30 minutes job. They need a jug or bucket on the "rope"and the job done.

A few "roof tops" to go towards some buildings.

A little addition to the gardens British Residence (still under construction) , only little bits and bobs due to lack of free time.

I wish you all well and may your God,Gods or Richard Dawkins go with you.

Happy New Year and many happy gaming and hobby days in 2017.

A big thank you to my better half for letting me play with toys "at your age",keeps me out of trouble darling ;)

November Update or the missing August and October blogs

Nov Blog 2016

Well to those regular visitors you will have noticed I haven’t blogged for a few months. The word and reason is work BOO!

I’ve been doing bits and bods but only the grunt work for a number of ongoing projects. I’ve even started a new one…………………………………you fool! My version of the Emerald Palace of Syrtis Major (Stafraana).

Very little is mentioned about it in the original source material apart from the palace it's self is built of  pale green Meroe limestone. From the maps old and new it sites next to/adjoining the ruined Royal Palace and its ground plan is a rectangle on NW to SE axis. I see it as a courted area around an octagon which has some Martian architectural themes.Three of it's gates have been pulled down to remove its defensive use and consists of one residence/throne room of Amraamtaba X.A stable block and bodyguards barracks.Then a kitchen,storage and servants quarters block. This is surrounded by ruins of the main palace and private dwellings never repaired after the taking of the city by the British.

My lead pile has started to grow again………………..not good as they should be on the painting board or better the gaming table.

It’s looking like I won’t get any games this X-Mass, at least not here and VSF. Any spare time needs to go into getting things finished.

So sorry for the scant offering, I had said to myself would get a blog out a month this year but alas if I’m not at home I can’t do much. Trying to paint and use green stuff at work isn't that easy. Anyway hoping for a more productive 2017 and some table top VSF games……….please oh great gaming god master of the dice!!!

Building more Martian Buildings / July 2016 Update

Yet more cork buildings for the cityscape .  I'm nearing the last part of these mini building projects.

That's not to say I won't do some more later but storage of them is starting to become an issue and there should be enough now to give a good selection of play areas and feel of cities.

What I need to do is try these into the streets and street scatter when the games start up again.

The main British Residency of the Governor(See. Part 1 of the post)  ,some more Martian flats,offices and warehouses and towers etc.