Seasons Greetings

Season’s Greetings


Thank you for sticking with the blog I know there hasn’t been on there this year. Not unlike other years. But life hit me around the head with a nuclear submarine sized baseball bat at the start of this year. I’m no longer with my better half and as you would expect this put the hobby to the back burner with other projects.

The 1:1 scale character building fared a bitter better as it takes less physical effort to make things and acquire, if not just as expensive.

But as they say onwards and upwards. I’m restarting as many old projects as possible and hope more posts will come in 2020.

So let me wish you all a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year.

May your God, Gods or Richard Dawkins go with you.

A little bit of Martian Gold

A meager offering for this month. Some terrain scatter.

Lions for the British administration, a small fountain and Martian hero.

A simple Martian pedestal with Martian hero.

Martian Banners & Flags

I started working on these after I bought the new version of Space 1889. Just like the missing Martian alphabet fans had to make up their own flags for Martian city states.

But now we have some. Personally I would of picked others but I'm happy enough to go with the flow on these. So if you like them here is a freebee to print off etc.

These are principally for infantry units. I've played with larger ones for cloudships and buildings.

Oenotrian,Tossian and Boreosyrtis League in that order. There are more in the pdf with newly created faction which I'm not overly keen on. So I'll stick to the main ones.

The Red Captains are coming!

First of my Red Captain cloudships.

She is the Breton Rose. A Martian screw ship converted into a stream gunboat. Or she will when I put in the engine.

You can't see in these pics but she has a blue hull. I was going to paint the wheel house but then thought it showed she wasn't armoured better then an explanation in the stats. She will have a small converted locomotion engine which will drive the Martian props. She will have two forward guns and either one or two aft. If I add a bit of armour to the top of the wheel house she may get a light gun there as well?


Still behind on the others but they are all getting closer to launch.

USS? American cloudship-March WIP blog post

So having planned to really get to grips with the blog , life as usual thrown me a curve ball. But here is trying.

A WIP of the USS...……..name not given yet. She still needs weapons and her flag.

I've few more in the ship yard. Another tug a ferry and a Red Captain ship. If lady luck is with me these should be done before April.

Martian Canal Barges-Jan 2019

No not the sort of canal barges that first came to your mind. This are the flying sort found on Mars.

Some times when larger cargo vessels can't dock at the cloudship port and don't want to wait they hire a barge and crew to unload their cargo. Sometimes merchants hire a barge to collect merchandise they are expecting.

While steam engines could be added to these it doesn't make much sense for craft that travels short distances and doesn't require need for great speed.

I will need to add more weight to the barges rears as they don't balance on the stands. Maybe something inside the power housing. I don't know how I want to do the base. I may even get a clear plastic one?

While some may of been converted must are powered by a hand power screw.

I've added my Aphid to give a bit more scale

The mdf kits come from Blotz Terrian in the UK.

I had hoped for some nice shots of clear sky behind the Aphid but today all my neighbours had to start to cut their grass for the first time this year. AAAARRRRGGGG!!!!

New Projects

I was going to write an up beat post on new VSF projects. But Google has just told me with a pop up that they are making some silly changes to blogger. Clowns!

Any way please check out my new pages https://ccrjhm.blogspot.com/ and https://memoirsofavictorianspy.blogspot.com/

I hope you enjoy my travels through VSF. Now in a 1:1 scale as well as 28mm.

Martian Civilians-A work in progress.

Some of you may remember my DIY Martian marines made from Perry and Agema (now found at North Star miniatures) plastic sprues. Well since I had more access to the internet lately I'd recently read the wonderful http://burningsandsofsyrtismajor.blogspot.com/ from http://burningsandsofsyrtismajor.blogspot.com/2018/12/preparing-for-market-day.html from the jolly good chap kmfrye  and how he is expanding his civilian sets.

Ever the nosey parker me popped some suggestions on his page. Well sitting here tonight with the fire blazing and snow out side I just thought why not show some examples you clot. Giving advice is one thing but putting your money where your mouth is another.

So below are some of those conversions I mentioned. Which with the good grace of Fortune I'll finish before the end of the decade.

These two chaps started out as Sudanese warriors with drums. I've add a\ hooded cloak (not rather successfully) to one and a Martian-Mohican style hair cut with Martian ears. As they are barefooted a little bit of green stuff for the "Martian big toe". Most importantly the drums become baskets. One for bread the other for fruit.

These two chaps will get Martian ears or turbans and either items to push or carry or maybe just loads on their backs.

These three once warriors are simple sailors with no more weapons than the odd knife and some rope. Though are the moment the one on your rights looks like he has a string of sausages.

To add another option how about the new Frostgrave Archipelago Tribal warband set for a conversion option.

http://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=13083

Syrtis Major (Stafraana) buildings Jan-2019

The new year see's me finishing off more Syrtis Major they will get their own boards at a later stage.

They are my impression of the commercial part of the city. Suitable for trade houses, markets etc. A clear human influence can be seen in some of the buildings due to their new owners.

Over head view. The final layout could be different if I add paths and roads.

A rough idea of the scale and number of buildings.

As I said some "years ago" I had decided on different colour terrain for different parts of my version of Mars. So the British capital on the planet has a orange theme.