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Bruticus wrote:Great idea, I've spent a long time trying to find a way to make/buy these that was both affordable and easy. I am pretty sure there must be some plastic train ones somewhere, but I've not found them, or at least, I am unsure of the scale. Lasercut mdf also seems like a good alternative to resin and there are some quite nice ones around on eBay and the like, but not at a price that would allow buying in bulk.

There are many versions available but none of them has the features I'm looking for. I don't want normal modern day containers and the futuristic ones, especially those designed for scifi skirmish are normally HDF and I haven't seen good looking ones so far. I want more detail and a good design, so designing them myself is the way to go.

But if you're looking for a simple, dirt-cheap, but rather cool container, look no further than:
www.plastcraftgames.com/es/sfici/424-contenedor-scifi.html

For details, I personally wouldn't be fussed about them all being openable, it might get a bit odd with dozens of dead end rooms around the place - perhaps some blown open walls would help if they are hollow.

They'll open at both ends, so it will be more like lots of tunnels, and doors for cover, not deadends. I'm thinking big here.

precinctomega wrote:Have you seen the new HDF stackable shipping containers coming very soon from Warmill?

I think I've seen them, but I'm not sure. Warmill does some of the best HDF terrain (the noodle kitchen OMG), but I'm not sure they'll fully convince me.
First of all, I have very specific ideas regarding their stackability and design, so it's likely that only my own version will satisfy all my demands. And in addition to that I need a huge collection. Take your average action movie, container ports are a great battlefield, but I think I'll need about 40 containers to make it work. So buying them would be quite expensive even if they are offered at a fair price.

Hmmm... This idea of yours is excellent, I must think on it.

I agree, the ones made for infinity are lacking some aesthetic. The old AT-43 cargo containers are nice, but now worth their weight in gold.

And they are not futuristic at all! Maybe actual modern day shipping containers have a rather timeless design, but would they really still look that way in 175 or 40000 years?

I'm looking forward to the results of your thinking!

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/481252.page

R.

Ok, I didn't know them, I confused them with their container homes.
These are pretty awesome. Hats off to Warmill!

They've covered most of my demands:
They are stackable in every which way. (My design is actually very similar, but I didn't add the slots to the sides, but to the top/bottom and I have added four grooves instead of three, to allow even more configurations)
They have integrated ladders, which is a must. (Love the idea of making standard bases fit between the staves, but with all those sculpted custom bases I'll not bother to go there.)
They can be opened. (Which I think could be done in a more convincing way. But I can imagine that making actual hinges with HDF isn't so easy.)

The real problem is the price. For a normal gaming table it's ok, but I'd have to win the lottery to realize my idea of the container port.

Anyway, thanks for the link, these are the best I've seen so far and even though they are inappropriate for my purposes, they served to confirm the rationality of some of my main concerns.

Although I like the warmill design I am not sold either. I think the MDF looks too thick (especially for the doors) and I don't think they would be practical scenery - imagine a moving models inside one of those. But this is why I am not keen on mine opening, I think they would be great to block LOS and make corridors but actually going inside will get impractical and fussy. Maybe if they were much shorter blocks. Oh and yeah I agree about the price.

The Plastcraftgames ones look almost perfect I'd say, but it looks like you even have to cut the shapes out of the supplied sheets yourself and then glue them? I am not sure I have the patience to assemble a bunch of them, but they are certainly tempting, thanks for the link.

By the way did you ever see a Swiss film called Cargo (2009)? It's a sc-i-fi film involving lots of space shipping crates, maybe some ideas there! Decent movie.

 Bruticus wrote:
Although I like the warmill design I am not sold either. I think the MDF looks too thick (especially for the doors) and I don't think they would be practical scenery - imagine a moving models inside one of those. But this is why I am not keen on mine opening, I think they would be great to block LOS and make corridors but actually going inside will get impractical and fussy. Maybe if they were much shorter blocks. Oh and yeah I agree about the price.

I completely agree with you, but I want them to open. I'll have to make it work. We'll see.

The Plastcraftgames ones look almost perfect I'd say, but it looks like you even have to cut the shapes out of the supplied sheets yourself and then glue them? I am not sure I have the patience to assemble a bunch of them, but they are certainly tempting, thanks for the link.

They come as scored, so the PVC is not cut all the way through. From what I've read it's quite easy to cut out and using solvent plastic glue you get perfect connections.

By the way did you ever see a Swiss film called Cargo (2009)? It's a sc-i-fi film involving lots of space shipping crates, maybe some ideas there! Decent movie.

No I have not, I'll keep an eye open for it.

This is a pretty timeless design

Traditional logic would say it need not change
but then we see more modern designs today

That look futuristic

Not futuristic enough for my tastes. I'm thinking multilayered metal and lots of 45° angles.

Dave, do you have any idea what other features and gimmicks would be cool?
For example I've considered horizontally opening doors, so that when you just open the upper wing you'd have nice cover. Or you could use the doors as ramps and so on.
Maybe add hatches to the top of the container to provide some cover if needed.

I like the idea of a toothed sliding door,

How futurey you want?

Think in shapes, what basic shapes you want and what layers of material.
I could make this cargo bay with mostly just layers of sheets

Whatever shapes you want, needs to reflect a practical reason for stacking/loading.
The Current range of available hab-block stuff reminds me of a prefab building more than a cargo crate.
More of a settler pod tan just cargo

Horizontal doors that swing open upwards and out would be great, when open they could form bridges across to another container, and you could close or shut them even during play. That would be a good game play element. Additional doors on the side might also be a good idea, like this:



or they could slide open. Again it would just give more gameplay options.

In terms of design, this looks rather cool (on this the door swings down, which could also form bridges when they were stacked double):



Cargo trailer:

dsteingass wrote:I like the idea of a toothed sliding door,

Sliding door, hhm. I think that would be hard to realize so that it works in the game. But maybe I'm not getting you here...

How futurey you want?
I could make this cargo bay with mostly just layers of sheets

That's about it, even though I don't like the style of the cargo hold. Styrene sheet will be the main material, multiple layers with some structured sheets mixed in. I'll need supplies for that as I only have plain styrene sheets.

Whatever shapes you want, needs to reflect a practical reason for stacking/loading.

This is usually the hardest part of any scifi design process, retain some degree of functionality while creating an appealing futuristic design. Form follows function follows form...

Bruticus wrote:Horizontal doors that swing open upwards and out would be great, when open they could form bridges across to another container,...

Hhm, swinging upwards and staying in place would require some kind of locking mechanism and I think they would get in the way when something wants to move through the container.
Meanwhile I'm quite fond of the idea of having one big'ol hatch that swings down like a drawbridge. That would serve to connect the containers on the second floor and above. It would also be an easy thing to put some scatter terrain on it to provide cover.

and you could close or shut them even during play. That would be a good game play element.

That was the plan anyway. Sealed containers can only be opened via hacking, that makes hackers even more interesting and limits the open/shoot/close abuse of the game mechanic. Containers that are setup with the door open at the beginning of the game are considered open, but can again be sealed by a succesful hacking order.

Additional doors on the side might also be a good idea, or they could slide open. Again it would just give more gameplay options.

I've considered including side doors, in case I find time to make some optional variations of the side and end panels, but on the basic version that would be too much I think.

In terms of design, this looks rather cool (on this the door swings down, which could also form bridges when they were stacked double):

Spoiler:

Very cool, where did the concept art come from?

Cargo trailer:

Spoiler:

Cool, it looks good. I couldn't say that I've ever consciously watched a swiss movie, let alone a scifi flick...



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ooh, cool new "blog view" function, when has that been implemented?

I was thinking of a pocket-door that is toothed in the middle, but instead of sliding horizontally, it slides vertically, then you could use the bottom half as cover.

But that would require a "pocket" i.e. space for the door to slide into, I wouldn't know how to make room for that without reducing the size of the door.

Sorry all, my bad luck continues, PCs had a melt down can't afford a new monitor ATM. Dakka via IPhone is a bit of a pain Tbh. Devabot nearly done will post when I can. R

Good to hear that it's just technical difficulties! My PC is making trouble too, I'm just waiting for it to become totally inoperable.
Can't wait to see your devabot.

My own "inactivity" btw is only on the surface. Having less hobby time than desirable aside, I'm constantly working on my Naga. Still so many small things I want to add or improve upon. I hope he'll be finished soon.

You know... I'm seeing a lot of shipping crates here, but not a lot of ALEPH models being all sexy and/or badass.

One of you should remedy this situation.

I'm too late to comment on all the comedy I've found here so far, but I can say the models are looking great and I'm surprised at how many actual pictures you have baiyuan

Hey guys, there will be more and better content, be assured of that.
Still painting that freaking Naga, but I can see the finish line now. I'm still keeping it blizzard though, it's done, when it's done. Just hoping it will be less disappointing than blizzard's recent work.

Anyway, imagine an asian guy jumping out of a closet... SUPPLIES!

Picked up a new batch of paints during my visit to the LGS.


I went there to pick up... *drumroll* my Assault Subsection starter box! Bam:

LOVELY! I think this will be my next painting project right after the Naga and the half-painted netrods.


Baah, hate the porky face on that guy. *must convert*


Better than I thought, he doesn't look as much like he's ice-skating as I thought. More like advancing under fire.


His arm is a little bit too short to really fit in place, maybe I'll have to change that. Otherwise flawless.


The best of the bunch, he'll look awesome once he's peeping around a courner, you can see he's been sculted to do so.


The black sheep. His gut doesn't look as bad as in the first pictures, but the pose is still ridiculous. Luckily my prearranged conversion plans will work out perfectly, as you can see here:




Just have to remove the fingers of his left hand and sculpt them supporting the launcher and he's ready to pop some missiles out of cover.

Apologies for the lack of pics/progress y'all. I'm a pretty slow worker at best, plus very busy ATM and throw in a few silly set-backs equals a whole lot of not much ...I will try to push through and post some eye candy soon when I get a few spare hours to finish up the fine details.

R

Apologies for the lack of pics/progress y'all. I'm a pretty slow worker at best, plus very busy ATM and throw in a few silly set-backs equals a whole lot of not much ...I will try to push through and post some eye candy soon when I get a few spare hours to finish up the fine details.

Dog ate your update? Don't worry about it though, it's only page 6, no-one really expects any photos this early in a blog.

Oh thank the spirits you managed to save that model.

I kept looking at the Assault Subsection and everytime I saw the beergut I cringed. And then I'd double take and I'd cringe again.

And then I'd sigh and go look at Haqqislam models.

I'm glad to hear about the supply drop! Looking forward to seeing them worked out. I think I'm going to stay on the fence about ALEPH until they drop Atalanta and the crazy Amazonian chick on the motorcycle. Then I won't be able to resist anymore.

 Bruticus wrote:

Apologies for the lack of pics/progress y'all. I'm a pretty slow worker at best, plus very busy ATM and throw in a few silly set-backs equals a whole lot of not much ...I will try to push through and post some eye candy soon when I get a few spare hours to finish up the fine details.

Dog ate your update? Don't worry about it though, it's only page 6, no-one really expects any photos this early in a blog.

I do

nice conversion Big B

 Bruticus wrote:

Apologies for the lack of pics/progress y'all. I'm a pretty slow worker at best, plus very busy ATM and throw in a few silly set-backs equals a whole lot of not much ...I will try to push through and post some eye candy soon when I get a few spare hours to finish up the fine details.

Dog ate your update? Don't worry about it though, it's only page 6, no-one really expects any photos this early in a blog.

Pssh! I started camrea snapping and full steam ahead! Everyone loves pictures!

You can't really complain about the amount of pictures (at least not on my behalf, bad bad real-life-living Rob) there have been plenty and there will be more.
Pictures of painted miniatures is a different subject though, I'm very repentant in that regard, as completing my Naga got delayed by the urge to do a world-first on a proper-looking Agema. (This is partly H+'s fault because he kinda dared me to over at the inf forum)

About that:
I'm making good progress on the Agema. Everything has been cut up and rearranged the right way and I'm in the middle of sculpting the lost areas. His hand is basically done and I'm working on the shoulders and arms now.
It will be at least a two-phased sculpt, so taking into account the delay of letting the different layers cure, it'll probably completely done tomorrow afternoon.
I'll do a (more or less) step by step tutorial of how I did it, just in case someone isn't as reckless when it comes to converting and wants to know what he signs up for.

OK, this will be a big one. Finished two conversions for my Aleph. They might still see some surface preparation to touch up a lack of smoothness here and there, but the conversions are done.

First up is my conversion of the limited preorder miniature from the Campaign Paradiso book, Gogo Marlene.
Which was actually a mere side-effect of my work on the Agema ML marksmen. Every time he had to cure before I could continue, I went to work on Gogo.

It's a nice sculpt as usual, but it didn't get me euphoric. I couldn't put my finger on it until I listened to the 6th episode of the O-12 podcast, when Romeo said he'd take off her pigtails, I knew what had to be done. Thx, Romeo!

So far being a model without rules or use in the game, I wouldn't get to converting, let alone painting, it before retirement. Luckily I had already thought up a way to utilize her.

Since I'm preparing to participate in my LGS's paradiso campaign in january, I've been thinking a lot about what units I'll field and one of my new favorites is Thamyris, the Aoidos.

I know he's a guy-robot, but the converted Gogo is a perfect stand-in once you come to think about it:
Journalist, mostly unarmed, only lightly armored (subcutaenous like a deva's). It all works pretty well and even the more problematic aspects, like the fact that she's also a hacker and is supposed to have a marker, can easily be reasoned to be hidden inside her cute little cam-bot. Cute little bunny hacks your ass and shoots nanopulses and markers.

Here she is with her pigtails removed, which was a piece of cake for the upper part and a pita for the parts that were sculpted onto her shoulders, arms, back and ass. I forgot to take a picture from behind, that could have made you appreciate the work that went into it, but you've just got to compare the final pics to Angel's painted pics to be able to empathise.

As you can see I decided not to go give her a plain bob, but instead kept the hair-grips and added ChunLi style buns.

You can also see I refrained from shaving off half her back-side to remove the hair, so I didn't have to build it up with epoxy putty. Instead I gradually filed, sanded and polished down the areas until smooth and properly shaped and then worked the creases into the the formerly covered areas.

The only other change I made to the model was adding a holster to represent her assault pistol and the fact that she's more than an embedded journalist.

Sorry for the shine btw, but I had to polish most surfaces, even those that I didn't actually work on, to get rid of the roughness from the casting.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, let's get on with the main conversion project, the Agema, which was more invasive and complex.

Since everybody (in his right state of mind) seems to hate the intended pose of the Agema, it can be expected that there will be lots of people wanting to convert it. So I decided to provide step-by-step shots of it, to create something like a small tutorial. Let's go!

Here's the mock-up again, that I've posted earlier. As you can see, my goal was an at-ready-position, like he's making a side step out of cover, raising the launcher to pop a shot at some evil TAG.

You might also see, that his arms and shoulders really don't allow for such a position, which required a painstaking process for me to accept.

The Agema as it comes in the box.

At first I simply filed flat the connecting areas and inserted preliminary pins.

This also is the last picture of that silly coxcomb he had, before I filed it flat.

I knew I had to remove the fist of his left hand and replace it with an open hand that could support the ML in a genuine way.

A vertical side grip would have been the easier option, but it would have looked dodgy and I value a satisfying result over an easy workaround.
So I drilled through the fist and cut of his fingers at his palm. I managed to save his thumb and bent it up to the natural position.

Made room for a pin and enough putty to sculpt the hand later on.

Took off the shoulder as it didn't allign properly with the torso and would have looked unnatural.

Pinned the arm into place and experimented with the exact pose and possible areas for pins.

Now I realized there wouldn't be a way around reposing the right shoulder as well, which I had desperately tried to avoid as it's partly hidden by the launcher and therefore not sculpted and hard to remove.

I managed to retain most the shoulder pad while cutting it free from the launcher and then bent the arm away from the launcher and pinned the pad into a natural position.

As the original pose is the exact physiological opposite of what I wanted (chest out, arms back vs. chest in, arms pulled together), I had to make the upper body a lot narrower. To achieve that the pectorals had to be trimmed and the rib cage had to be shaved off.

At the same time I had also decided that pinning both arms into place would be stupid in regard to painting the thing later on, so went for a magnetized right arm, that could be removed to paint the torso and face.

The reposed right arm received the magnets and was stabilized with filling powder.

After glueing in the second magnet, the new pose was generally set and I could glue the left arm into place and add the shoulder pad.

Of course there were big gaps from shaving off the ribcage and shoulder and repositioning the pad.

These needed filling, so the following 200 steps were just sculpting work. Filling gaps. Adding the hand. Sculting a smaller pectoral and ribcage. Sculpting the right shoulder pad after the left one, as it had none of the shape or details. Adding muscles to the upper arms to compensate for the changed position etc.

So here's my version of the Agema marksman, all repositioned and magnetized to fit snugly (the arm is kept perfectly in position by the armor around the ribcage and the little knob in his palm). I still see some minor flaws, that I might come back to, but the general conversion is done and I'll save the touch-ups and the detailing for when I get to paint him, which will not be soon.

Anyway, hope you like him and that I could give you an impression of what you're signing up for if you want to convert your own Agema!

Nice stuff Big B! I love the paintjob on Marlene!- She is ALEPH? I don't understand the little familiar she has, but she looks great! Just for fun, try the Vallejo air paints with a brush, you'll be pleasantly surprised

Chun Li approves of your GoGo modifications.

The work you did on her is great! And that means more BunnyBots on the field for Aleph! And that is something I'm sure we can all get behind. Every omnipotent AI, when given the choice to make helper robots, would most likely choose adorable bunnies to help them out.

Except the EI, which is why it is bad and must be defeated. I "Dawwwwww." a little every time I see the bunnies.

You are 100% right on the Agema. I don't think Infinity has too many models that need fixing, but that is certainly one of them, and what a job you did! It looks great, and once it's all primed up I'm sure you'll be getting constant questions of, "Awesome! Did they release a new sculpt?"

Thanks for the mini-tutorial. My sculpt skills are atrocious, but I shall have to try it.

Thanks, guys!

 dsteingass wrote:
Nice stuff Big B! I love the paintjob on Marlene!- She is ALEPH? I don't understand the little familiar she has, but she looks great! Just for fun, try the Vallejo air paints with a brush, you'll be pleasantly surprised

No Marlene is not Aleph, go read the wall of text, you slacker!
You're right about Vallejo Air Colors, they are the best paints out there and I've been (brush)painting with them for two years. If a color is available in AC I won't buy it from any other line.

I did! I just really have no understanding of the references you made, sorry.