jordangreywolf

How's that for alliteration? Anyway, some pictures of recent miniatures/terrain projects over the weekend, featuring some Pixar "Cars" playsets I picked up used (and minus all the accessories and even a few parts ... but at least they were cheap).

"Lizzie's Curio Shop," AKA "Radiator Springs Curio Shop," refurbished as a post-apocalyptic roadside "Trading Post."

The original building had a big "Radiator Springs Curio Shop" sign sticking out of a slot in the roof, but that was among the pieces missing, so I made a new sign out of fridge magnets (acquired during various visits to Goodwill), and craft-store "letter-board" plastic letters. For the "lightbulb" look to some of the letters, I used a round-tip Dremel head to make "divots" on the surface that I then glued some tiny "friendship bracelet" beads into. I actually have several "T" pieces I could have used for the sign, but I deliberately substituted a "7" (and varied the letter style) because I wanted this to look cobbled-together, as if the letters came from different roadside establishments.

The sign slots in, and is removable for transport, storage, and also so that I could theoretically replace it with another to "re-brand" the building (perhaps transforming it into a "Saloon" or what-have-you).

The pumps out front are from a broken O-scale Plasticville "service station" kit. For Fallout purposes, I imagine one of the "pumps" provides coolant for microfusion-powered vehicles, while the other is a recharger for electric vehicles.

Here, the merchant caravan arrives at the Bomber Wing restaurant. This pre-war establishment has been operating for over 210 years, thanks to its former-waitress-now-proprietor ghoul who took over when the rest of the staff fell prey to radiation poisoning during the early nuclear aftermath. The chicken mascots atop the entrances hint at the animal that provided the appendages that were originally batter-fried in the establishment; what sort of meat is used NOW isn't specified, but the customers generally don't mind as long as it's not human.

A few more pictures of the Bomber Wing. This used to be a "Ramone's House of Body Art" playset (Pixar "Cars"), and I kept the building itself fairly generic so I could potentially swap out signage and decoration to re-purpose it.

The two chicken mascots are from a Safari Ltd "Down on the Farm Toob" set of toys (in fact, some of the horses, cows, and wagons are toys from that Toob as well, with modifications). I just used some putty to add "bomber jacket" and "goggles," and they are standing on 20mm plastic square mini bases.

The "Bomber Wing" sign is made from layered foam-core illustration board trimmed with laminated thin cardboard (cut out of scrap packaging). The "BOMBER" part of the sign is spelled out with fridge magnets glued to 40mm round-lipped mini bases, and those in turn are on some disc-shaped PLA scrap "rafts" (leftover elements from 3D-printing), held in place with wire pinning. The "WING" part of the sign is spelled out with letter-board plastic letters (the same type I used for the "POST" part of the Trading Post sign earlier).

The base of the sign is made from an upturned orange juice bottle lid (for the base), and a couple of cash register printing spool cylinders (for the pole), with a couple of wooden chopsticks and epoxy putty filler (for the core of the supporting pole).

The terrain boards in both pictures are mostly Secret Weapon Miniatures "Tablescape" tiles (made of HIPS plastic) that I've painted up, and in some cases decorated with some epoxy putty and paper elements.

I've got a couple more Pixar playsets that I plan on transforming into terrain. First, though, I need to devote some time to taking one of the plastic pins in my garage and fashioning some pluck-foam liners so I can safely store these buildings for later use. (I don't want them to get all dinged up in storage before I get a chance to actually use them in a game.)