Dunnit! Battlebus done!

I used copper wire (100yen shop/pound shop) to attach the skeleton to the front as a figurehead. Painted the hatch and flamethrower and glued them to the roof.

I painted some other accessories and stuck them on, then weathered the whole thing with homestore craft paint (chocolate). Painted the copper wire and wheels black. The paint will chop off the wire, but that'll look cool. I also used tamiya weathering kit "soot" to add burn marks from the flamethrower.

DONE! What's next...

Battle bus baby steps

I made a little more progress tonight. I drilled a hole in the roof for the turret to plug into.

I splashed paint over the flamethrower (black), hatch cover (chocolate brown), front grill (choco), and skeleton (graveyard earth).

And the most satisfying was over brushing the Armour plates with Boltgun metal. It looks much more like rust corrugated iron. Still more to do, but now it's bedtime.

Battlebus gets armoured

I got up early this morning and stuck the armour pieces over the windows, then I stuck the front judge-rammer together.

I also rummaged around my bits box to find a turret and flamethrower for the roof. I also found a cool "figurehead" for the front. It's gonna look really scary.

The flamethrower needed the hole blocking up with plasticard and a bit of sprue inserted so it sits in the turret.

The cursed earth short bus

More work done tonight. I painted the corrugated iron armour pieces with some cheap water-based acrylic (chocolate brown). I'll go over it with a metallic paint later.

Then I very roughly painted the visible parts of the window black.

Lastly I made a start on the front piece that'll be used for ramming judges out the way. I cut up some sprue into equal lengths (about 1cm) and I'll be using plastic glue to stick them onto an old bit of plain plasticard for ease of painting and attachment to vehicle.

Battle bus continues

I used water based craft paint from the home-store (so much cheaper than miniature paint and fine for terrain/vehicles) and applied it using a bit of foam from a miniatures case. The foam is also in the pic FYI.

This gets rid of the glossy finish and makes it look used and dirty. The grey in the recesses brings out the details too.

While that was drying I cut out pieces of textured plasticard I got from the hobby store model railway section. It's textured with horizontal lines and looks like corrugated iron. These pieces will go over the windows so I wrote on the back of each piece where it's supposed to go. Also cut slits to see out of or shoot from.

Battle bus next segment

I used some cheap, yellow gloss spray paint (not Tamiya or mr hobby - they're terrible). The grey underneath gives a shadow effect.

Bus stage 2

Continuing with the battle-bus, I used nail polish remover (acetone) to wipe away the glue residue left by the stickers.

Next I put masking tape over the wheels. I'll paint the hubs later.

After that, I primed it grey. White mat primer is so grainy and black may be a bit too dark for my nefarious purposes.

It looks like a real model when it's primed.

School Bus for Judge Dredd

I bought a school bus from the 100yen shop (pound shop) with the intent to make a Cursed Earth Desperados vehicle. Imagine mad max.

The scale of this bus is good and it's so cheap I got nothing to lose.

The first thing I did was peel of the labels and rub the surfaces with a fine abrasive so the paint sticks well. It looks much better without the labels.

The inside of the bus looks crappy, so I'll paint over the windows and therefore I also rubbed the windows with the abrasive.

More to come soon..

Cards for JDMG

I made a bunch of cards for the Dredd miniatures game. No more rosters, wasting time making lists, forgetting which model has which talents or equipment.