Nothing New To See Here

11.21.2021

The only true, new addition(s) to the 4Ground mall is an elevator (or lift, as they say on the product page), stairs, and support/pillars to help hold up the 2nd floor walkway & bridge. The real reason all of this came together was to check if there was anything I needed while 4Ground is having a "25% off for November" sale. It turns out I need more bridges. Honestly I thought I initially bought more than 1, which is just what I do.

While everything (that's not in progress) was setup, why not take some pics and make a filler blog post?

And yes, those are meddling kids loitering (from Foundry) in the mall.


4ground 4ground-mall Foundry

4Ground Mall Loading Bay

11.02.2021

It's been a while since a build went quickly without incident. Maybe I was due? The 4Ground Mall loading Bay has to be one of the quickest things I've put together. It's just the standard kit with some extra Google Image'd work safety posters. The only thing I messed up on was the cross beams that support the garage door had some small grooves for the runner/guide and I, not paying attention, glued those cross beams in backwards. Luckily it doesn't appear to make a difference as the garage door can open and close easily.

I took a little extra care in dry fitting and sanding edges this time. There were few enough edges that I felt more inclined to take extra care - plus gaps/dried glue spreading out messed up the security office a little.



Only the food court and bathrooms left to build for the mall, but I think I'm going to take a little break and work on something non-MDF before I get in a "I can see the end coming" rush and not both take proper care while building plus enjoy it. In other words, don't expect another Built Update in 3 days!


4ground 4ground-mall gaming miniatures

Mall Security Office

10.30.2021

Work on the mall continues in the realm of specialty shops/buildings with the Security Office. This section starts out with a couple of ATMs by the entrance door that opens up to a corridor to a fire exit door. Along the hallway are 2 doors that open up to a security office, which has an interview room to the side. The security office has an obligatory gun safe, which every mall security office obviously has, stocked with automatic weapons.

The only "I learned" moment on this one was that the blue painter masking tape I used to not paint sections grey ended up taking off some of the (off-white?) original paint. As it is, I think it gives a little neglected weathering to the hallway.



Bundled with the security office was a loading dock section, so I think I'll work on that next.


4ground 4ground-mall gaming miniatures

Last of Not So Bored Games Minis

10.20.2021

Normally I have a quirky title or some kind of learning experiment to report on whenever I post a painted batch of minis. This time it's just something I learned after the fact. I like using contrast paints for fabrics, the translucency works well. The things I finally learned are that you really need an even coat of primer, and once a brush starts separating it's time to use a new brush - portions of the application of contrast paint are apt to dry faster, and following dips into the paint won't always get applied evenly. That's were my splotchy contrast paint jobs come from - some portions are drying faster while I'm still painting. Sometimes it comes across as shadows and shading. Sometimes.

I really need either an idea of a color scheme to use or a box/picture sample to work from. Some of the color combos I come up with are a little too reminiscent of showing I grew up with comics from the 70s.

I don't know if any of these minis have recognized names. Wheelchair Guy has a laptop I had a little fun with while using brush-tip pens. From tabletop distance it's just detailed enough.


gaming miniatures

3 More 25mm

10.09.2021

Here's the next round of 25mm generic, Pandemic inspired minis. These are really too small for me to pull out good details on, so I'm trying out some tricks and techniques, and most importantly missing a painted template to copy colors from. Hazmat guy was my big practice mini here. Yellow is hard to cover with historically, and this yellow came out darker than I intended (it was on top of white primer with a light nuln oil wash) but at least the coverage is there! This was also my first attempt at wet blending on his face shield. The 2 colors are almost the same - sky blue and then sky blue with a hint of white - but the top of the visor is just perceptively lighter if you know where to look.

There's 11 more of thse guys from the pack, so I'll pick another 3 or 4 and noodle around with them for next time.


gaming miniatures

Blog Archive

As always, correct spelling is optional in any blog entry. Keep in mind that any links more than a year old may not be active, especially the ones pointing back to Russellmania (I like to move things around!).

Tags have been added to posts back to 2005. There may be an occasional old blog that gets added to the tag list, but in reality what could be noteworthy from that far back?

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