Seasons Greetings To All -Martian Christmas Dec 2017

So this year has seen few finished projects due to work and family, but one soldiers on.

What for next year? I'll finish the projects from past years, I hope!.
Still fighting through the lead mountain and a lot for terrain to go to future Space 1889 games:
City multi level streets, canal docks, more general Martian buildings (my version),city roof top terrain, Venus etc etc etc.

Thank you for your interest.

May your God,Gods or Richard Dawkins go with you at this time of year and may 2017 see you modeling and gaming as much as you would like to.


DLI in VSF :)

Need a bigger building! Red Devil Inn.WIP.Nov 2017 Post

I came to the conclusion that the first Red Devil Pub/Inn/Tavern wasn't big enough. At first I thought I could save the front wall and add it to a bigger base. But it wasn't that simple.So I had to start from scratch.

Above the old and the new tavern.

Front view

East Wall

West Wall

Rear Wall

I haven't finished it but hear are some internals shots of the ground floor.

It should be big enough for internal combat. As you can see the Irish Volunteers have made themselves at home.

I've loads more to do light add lamps,finish the bar.Add stairs to the rear wall,finish the floor and then finish the 1st floor. But its more work than I've done in 6 months!

So the old Red Devil Inn/Tavern will become "The Ship Inn" among other things.

North Star AlienTribal Warband Review

I don't often do reviews as there are lots out there and they can do a better job than me. But my latest buy from North Star Miniatures inspired me to jot something down and take a few pics.

From their Death on the Red Planet range.You get 10 figures and there seem to been 12 different sculpts in the range from the website pic. Its pot luck if you get different poses from the 12. I assume its a bin pick to numbers rather than by sight.I ended up with 6 different poses.

The weapons are interchangeable or could be replaced with rifles etc..

Could be a casting problem but the chap above had a "slipped" right leg. Hopefully not a mould problem. Not a big job to fix but as its the only leg to make ground contact it will need pinning after removing the extra white metal as I've just did before the the pic.

They all need a good clean and there is rather a lot of flashing.But its not the end of the world.

Monkey faced which works well with my plans for them.

Extra high Martians! Add wing flaps under the arms, hair on the heads,backs and face,extra toes and we won't be fare off the RAFM original High Martians. As they are ground based what I'm thinking is a "Tunnel/Slave Guards" for a Kragg. I thought about junking the shields as it's not practical for flying beasts. But in tunnels you can use a shield rather effectively.

I plan to buy some more next year, hopefully the other poses but may keep them without change for another game?

September 2017-Still Alive

Sept.2017-Still Alive.

Well it's been a while but work has been a killer this Summer.

Found by mine mining piece for Mars.

Sarissa Precision got my pennies on this one.There doesn't seem to be anything out there at the moment for what I imagined a human mine on Mars would look like but scratch building one would just add to the unfinished projects mountain.

A word of caution. I painted this in it's flat pack form. Like other sets I've bought from them it didn't fit perfectly. Expansion due to the paint? I may add a track on the front base and add sand.

Table back ground piece which will have a mirror inside to give the impression of a continued street behind it by reflecting the street in front. Not "needed" for gaming but it makes me smile and gives depth for for the camera.

Still ploughing through the rest of the work. After this post one more hour working on the Imperial Japanese compound and a Sarissa bandstand.

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 Terrain 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?