Tag Archives: scenery

Sci-fi Signage

Note: These signs are Brian’s work from the old Warbard. One day they may be recreated in Inkscape and SVG — Corey

This zip file contains two very detailed, 1200dpi images in Adobe Photoshop PSD format, with lots of varied industrial & safety signs to decorate your industrial scenery and buildings.

Each image is roughly 3×3 inches. Print onto standard paper – or the lightest paper your printer can handle – and cut out and glue onto your scenery. A few of these on a nice piece of industrial machinery or factory wall really make a piece ‘pop’ – after all, real industrial sites tend to be plastered with signs, notices and warnings. (The actual images are MUCH more detailed than the little sample image here!)

As usual, these are free to download, print or modify for personal use.

Update, 8 Aug 2020: I’ve just confirmed that these old (from sometime in 2001!) PSD files can be opened just fine in the current version of GIMP. Not bad for files nearly twenty years old!

Mesa we will see you again?

Climbing up the side of the mesaLarge terrain pieces are the lifeblood of any good gaming table and in a fit of boredom late one night at my old job (after my work was done for the day, honest), I set out to create such a piece.

Enter the mesa. Like many such projects, there was absolutely no prior design, just some scribblings on a pad before I set off to construct it. I knew I wanted a stone arch with a pathway up and over for characters to fight on, and I wanted a winding road up to a plateau, but everything else came as I hacked and sawed.

Continue reading Mesa we will see you again?

Repainting Commercial Stone Walls

Pegasus produce a range of prepainted plastic 28mm wargaming scenery; all the stuff I’ve seen has been well cast but mostly badly painted. The stone wall sections are good value for money, though, with six 6″ sections for $10 at my Friendly Local Gaming Store.

I picked up a pack, took them home and while repainting them, took enough photos to assemble into a quick, hopefully inspirational, how-to.

Stone Wall Painting Tutorial
(Click the image to see the full-size version at Flickr)

Building A 28mm Tent

There’s been previous versions of this tutorial posted on Lead Adventure and the Speakeasy, but I figured it’s worth reposting here.

After killing a dress shirt (black ink leaking does that to white cotton) I realized it would work nicely as material for a large safari/expedition tent. I used a CD as the base, with small blobs of milliput holding long toothpicks vertically as the poles — three on the front, three on the back. After the putty holding the poles was dry (and reinforced with a bit of superglue) I wrapped thick sewing thread around the tips of the poles, with a dab of superglue holding it in place and a bit more superglue stiffening the thread after it was secured.

Model Tent
(click through to Flickr for a full-size image)

The fabric was cut twice as tall as it needed to be, and draped over the thread at the tops of each wall, with a generous layer of white glue on the inside of each piece. The walls were folded over, squeezed together and held whilst drying by clothspegs.

Two layers of shirt-weight cotton plus white glue makes for very solid walls!

Loitering Within Tent
(click through to Flickr for a full-size image)

The removable roof was made by first draping a piece of plastic wrap over the tent walls, then carefully folding and pinning the piece of glue-soaked cotton into position. I folded the eves up and trimmed them after the first coat of glue was dry, and it fits well; between the glue and the folding it’s more than rigid enough to hold it’s shape.

There’s an extra piece of cotton to form the floor, and most of the interior furniture is made of offcuts of basswood and styrene, with putty for the blanket and pillow. The maps were found on the internet, shrunk to appropriate tiny sizes, and printed out. The red coffee mug in the centre of the large map is a scrap of round styrene.

I’ve still got a good sized piece of this shirt; eventually more of it will live again as smaller tents to accompany this one. Recycling — it doesn’t just involve a blue bin, you know. Not for wargamers, anyway!

Scenery: Cardboard 15mm Cargo Containers & Crates

More refugees from the old site; I still like the graphic work I did on these shipping containers & crates. I might eventually do some more. No promises, though. If you are looking for the signage, see the Sci-Fi Signage post.

Continue reading Scenery: Cardboard 15mm Cargo Containers & Crates

Links: General & Personal Wargaming

General & Personal Games Sites:

Update, 22 May 2011: Work has started on weeding this list. Don’t expect fast progress, but at least it’s something. This time, I went through and tagged all the Geocities URLs as Dead Links. Actual link fixing will be happening as and when I get to it – feel free to contact us if you have suggested links or want to report a new URL for a site!

Because this section has gotten so large, I’m working on some ways of reorganizing it. I don’t want to go to an alphabetical listing, and many of these sites cover a lot of different areas of the wargaming hobby, so I’m going to start organizing by “Mostly…” categories, using the (in my opinion) most prominent, interesting or best area of a site to figure out where it goes. Eg “Mostly Painting”, “Mostly Galleries”, etc etc. I’m still going to wind up with a large list of unclassified sites, but at least a rough subject sort will be possible… I’m always looking for feedback.

So far, I’ve got The Essential Wargaming Sites, General Wargaming Sites, Mostly Painting, Mostly Paper Models, Mostly Scenery & Terrain and Mostly Links.

Continue reading Links: General & Personal Wargaming