[Minis] Car Wars - and House Woes

[jordangreywolf]

Okay, first off, an update on my situation for July: On July 1st, I went on a road trip to attend a family reunion and my grandma's birthday. I sculpted a figurine for her birthday gift. She liked it. More on that later. On the way back, Gwendel and I went to Dollywood, went through the mountains, saw some neat stuff, visited a family grave, had lots of car troubles, got home and ... disaster. It seems that in our absence, a plastic hose running water to the refrigerator (for the icemaker and water dispenser) ruptured, and had been spraying water into the house for long enough that the carpet was completely soaked throughout, even to the point that water had flowed out to the garage and ruined some cardboard boxes and their contents stored out there. Mold on the walls. All the IKEA and particle-board furniture bloated and broken. Disaster.

I found the water main outside and shut it off (as the shut-off valve under the sink was frozen), called insurance, called a recommended contractor to get my house in order, rented a storage unit, started evacuating valuables and small sentimental items, etc., and ... it's only this week that someone from the insurance company even showed up to look at the damage. I still don't know if anything's going to be covered. I have to document everything, and wait for the company's pace because if I jump the gun, I jeopardize any chance of compensation. At present, the house is "packed-out" and the contents in storage (or in the trash :( ), house is still a wreck, dehydrator units are running full-blast inside (it's hot, but at least it's a "dry heat" inside), etc., etc. Fortunately, our friend Digital_Rampage has come to our rescue by renting us a spare room in his house, so we can get some AC, wi-fi, and a place to crash at night, and he has two adorable black cats (who, oddly enough, do NOT set off my allergies). I still don't know if my personal PC is salvageable, but I had my work laptop with me for the trip (I was still doing work now and again despite being on vacation), so I have a way to get online. We've been living out of suitcases for a month now.

On the upside ... well! Digital_Rampage has all his paints and brushes and minis that need painting. So I've been showing my thanks by painting up said minis.

He picked up Car Wars Sixth Edition (Steve Jackson Games), which has come a long way since the days of tiny cardboard "chits" and complex movement phases, and instead seems to have borrowed a few ideas from the likes of Gaslands. It's also scaled up a bit -- purportedly "1:64 scale," though it seems to be rather SQUISHY about the exact details. (That is, ALL the cars are the same size, whether buggies or trucks or sports cars, which gives it much the feel of the Hot Wheels / Matchbox approach to "scale.")

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4-Player Boxed Set:


Butcher
I painted this up in utility-vehicle yellow, since I imagined it as something of a weaponized road maintenance vehicle. Size of the model (as with all the others) is approximately 2.5" long.


Hammer
Each of the base boxed-set cars has a corresponding play mat/sheet that has a "pre-gen" car and a couple of images that show some sample paint schemes. (Technically you're free to customize your car with a deck of add-on cards to figure out how to distribute your armor, weapons, special features, etc., with a point-buy system, but for quick-play you can just go with a "pre-gen" car and a big play sheet that has the "cards" already laid out for you, and points figured out.) While most of the sample paint styles look pretty pristine, like the owners promptly go to a detail shop for a new paint job after every autoduel, this was one of the "grungy" designs that looked a bit weathered and beaten up, so I stuck with that for the paint scheme.



Hotshot
Does this guy have enough guns? With a name like "Hotshot," and a couple of flamethrowers on the sides, a "flame" paint scheme only seems appropriate.



Scarab
Green and red-orange for maximum garish Hot-Wheels-esque contrast! I experimented with trying to do a "segmented" look to the windshield. This reminds me a little of a green Hot Wheels car I used to have when I was a little kid.


Typhoon
So, a PINK battle car! I salvaged some "watermelon" spray paint from the garage in my exodus from the house (it was leftover from an old "Jem" cosplay prop project for Gwendel ages ago) and tried using that as a base for this one.



Boomerang
ANOTHER pink battle-car. I used the watermelon spray paint as primer again, but had trouble getting a smooth coat this time.



Dragon
Something weird happened with the spray coat on this one, resulting in a wrinkle-paint effect that I tried to buff out, but apparently not to as good of effect as I'd hoped. I may have to sand and re-paint this one.



Goblin
It looks like this is some sort of dune-buggy-esque vehicle, but with the "forced-scale" of the cars, it actually comes out being BIGGER as a model than most of the cars. So maybe I should just think of it as a truck.



Jackrabbit
Yet another flame design! It kind of reminds me of the Michael Bay Optimus Prime (in "flames on blue background" sense, that is).



Slipstream
This one was challenging as it called for a bit of gradient color, and then the fine "lightning bolt" designs.



Superflash
Definitely this strikes me as something that belongs in a cyberpunk setting as envisioned during the 1990s or so.



Warhawk
yet another yellow car. Apparently that ram plate has a couple of saw blades that pop out the sides for added measure.

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Miniatures Set 1:


Hades
The "Miniatures Set" boxes each contain 5 models. Whereas the base set cars all came with pre-gen sheets that showed a couple of possible paint schemes, I was largely left on my own to figure out what color(s) to paint the expansion box cars. In this case, for the "Hades," I figured a flaming design was appropriate, and against a dark color for contrast. I could have gone with black, but I opted for purple since that felt far more "Hot-Wheels" (as seems to be the aesthetic so far).



Hydra
Given a name like "Hydra," and the rounded, somewhat serpentine design, I figured something green would be appropriate, and I went for gold/orange for the canopy for contrast. (Windshields seem to come in all colors given the sample paint schemes.)



Joseph Special - "Taxi"
Digital_Rampage theorized that somebody by the name of Joseph must have put in a special pledge in the Kickstarter to get a car named after him. Anyway, I had the wacky idea to paint this thing up like a taxi. I have no idea how the passenger gets in (or the driver or gunner, for that matter), but it was just a bit of a lark. Painting those checkerboard stripes was the real challenge.



Pillbug / "Peacebug"
Something about the design made me think of a Fallout-esque version of the VW van or "hippy van," so I went with that. Seeing "LOVE" and "PEACE" and smiley faces combined with heavy weaponry seems amusingly disjointed to me for some reason.



Scimitar
This design reminds me a bit of the Halo Warthog, but I ended up painting it RED, since at the time I didn't have any other red cars on the table.

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Miniatures Set 2:


Apollo / Bluesmobile
The "Apollo" is very boxy, reminding me of late 60s/early 70s muscle cars. Digital_Rampage suggested painting it up as the Bluesmobile, so ... why not? "We're on a mission from God!"



Pure Energy
I had already painted lightning bolt and flame schemes, so how to communicate "pure energy"? Neon green of course! (Primed white, based yellow, with green wash, then light yellow highlights.)



Redline
With a name like "Redline," it wasn't hard to come up with a paint scheme.



Sledge
This thing seems more like an APC or something, leading me to doubt the declared "scale."



Spark
I'm not sure where the driver and gunner are supposed to go. In my head-canon this is just a robot car that has a couple of processors on board for weapons and mobility systems (but game-wise it's functionally the same). With a name like "Spark," it makes me think of the "all-spark" from Transformers, and the thing DOES look like it should transform into a robot or something. ;)

Comments

[rowyn]

Oh no, your house! D: That's so awful. And insurance being slow to inspect and get back to you is just insult to injury. I hope August goes better for you. :(

The cars came out well! I kind of like the wrinkled-paint-effect on the Dragon, like maybe you should lean into it and use it for veins or something instead of buffing it out. Although it might have issues with peeling later anyway, idk. The checkerboard on the taxi is perfect, I love it and the Peacebug especially. <3

[jordangreywolf]

I like the "veins" idea! I might have to try something with that.


Digital_Rampage has at least one more set on the way, and he mentioned something about a car he thinks looks like a hearse that he'd like to have painted up as an Ectomobile. :D I look forward to when I can get access to all my gaming stuff again, because I think I might have some vehicles that are about the right size for Car Wars that I might be able to kit-bash for some silly "novelty" vehicles. For instance ... a taco truck, an ice cream van, a post-apocalyptic mail truck, a clown car, etc. I've got a bag of these things called "Shopkins" that look like plastic food items and appliances with tiny cartoon faces painted on them. They seem like good candidates for "mascots" to put on top of a food truck, etc. (I've got at least a couple of plastic tacos just begging to be put on top of a truck.)

I've painted up several "serious" cars -- far more than are necessary for a full-sized Car Wars game -- so I figure a few "novelty" additions would be fun for the amusement factor. (Even if they don't get used in a particular autoduel, Digital_Rampage could have a line-up of extra cars parked on the sidelines at a convention or store game.)

[tuftears]

Oh my goodness, that's awful! re: coming back to an essentially totaled house. o.o Good luck getting remedy from the insurance company!

Re: the Joseph Special, maybe "in game" the weapons swing down when it comes to a full stop, so you can use them as a stepladder to get in.

[jordangreywolf]

Re: Gun Stepladder: Hee! I like that imagery. Actually, there's what might be a hatch in the very back of the vehicle, so maybe that could be a boarding point. Honestly, the engineering on all these cars is so dubious that I think the designers simply haven't thought of practical things such as "how does one get in and out of this?" While in theory I like the changes to the Car Wars rules, and some nice plastic battle-cars, the design aesthetic is pretty goofy. (There are tons of cars where the driver would have ZERO peripheral vision, and it should be physically impossible to stick a handgun out the window on the side -- because there IS NONE -- as is claimed to be something everybody can do.)

[tuftears]

Yeah, a lot of dramatic license being taken there!

Anything I can do to help with the house woes? I'm happy to chip in some money if that would help.