The Mystery Machine Is DONE!!!! (Well, almost...)

I finally got around to adding the various bits of gear to the top of the van, and attached the impaled zombie to the front.  One thing I realized as I started taking pictures is that I forgot to add the license plate to the back to cover the hole there.  But for now I'm making an Executive Decision and officially calling this one DONE!

Here we have the impaled zombie (well, half a zombie) still clawing the front of the van.

Velma shows off the the right side with the pinned-on Scrappy-Doo pelt, which thanks to a suggestion from Brummie now includes the "Urk! I'm dead!"-tongue hanging out.  Thanks Brummie!

Although it's hard to read in this photo,  the back of the van has an Official Zombie Hunting Permit displayed.  Even in the Post-Apocalyptic world the Scooby-Gang follows the rules.  (Except that they're driving around without a license plate!  Urrrghh!  I will fix that sometime soon and cover that hole!)



Nothing too exciting here on the left side.

Let's look at some of the stuff the gang carries around.  There's a bunch of stakes up front, because the gang will be operating in a post-apocalptic world that will have all sorts of nasties, including vampires or vampire-like creatures.  There's a stack of skulls (nice trophies) of significant past victories.  A bloody sledge hammer, good for bashing zombie heads.  A Left-4-Dead health pack.  A bucket of guts to help keep Freddy in line. A basic rolled-up tarp or tent.  A barrel of radioactive toxic goo...I have no idea why.   Several gas cans.  And a burlap-wrapped bale of Shaggy Snacks.  (The Scooby Snacks are kept in the van).

As you can see the van scales pretty good with the figures.  Looks like the Scooby-Gang is ready to start solving post-apocalyptic mysteries, or whatever it is they do in a World Gone Mad...and they'll need all the help they can get as you can see below:

SCOOBY-DOO and the MYSTERY of the HIDEOUS HIVE CAT!

Sam (aka: The Hideous Hive Cat!) made an unexpected appearance a couple of years ago during a game of Necromunda and became the deadliest creature in the Hive.  He's been laying low for long time, but he became very curious as to what I was doing while taking these pictures, so it looks like he might be jumping genres and entering the Post-Apocalyptic Scooby-Doo world...

Be careful Scooby Gang!  If you thought BA Worms were bad, wait till you meet the Hideous Hive Cat!

EDIT!

I added the license plate!  If you don't get the reference then surf on over to the Two Hour Wargames Blog.

Mystery Machine WIP - New Year Incremental Progress

The model has dried enough for me to hit it with some matte spray and tone down the glossiness.  I went and touched-up/highlighted, primarlily the letters and flowers.  I added the finishing details to Scrappy, highlighted the Truck Nutz, did some additional minor cleanup.  It looks dirty but that's the look I want, a Post-Apocalyptic-falling-apart piece of machinery.  One of the last things I'll do is add an overall dusting with powdered chalks.

I've started painting the front zombie and the stuff that goes on top separately.    I've documented pretty much all the major steps I do when making something like this, so next posting will be when the whole thing's done. 

Here's it is in its current state:

Oh yeah, I've got some detailling planned for the back.  Yes, that hole will be covered!

The front will look a lot more interesting once I add the blood splatters and the impaled zombie.

EDIT:

Brummie, you are a mad genius...



(To be painted once it's hardened...)

Mystery Machine WIP - End of the Year Progress

Today I actual set aside some time and made some more headway on the van.  First up was touching up the paint all around and adding rust.

Now comes the DIPPING!  I'm always happy when I come to the dipping part because it means the end is in sight for finishing up the model. 

The van is too big to actually dip, so what I do is sorta "paint" Army Quickshade over the whole thing.

Ah yes, it's starting to get that grubby post-apocalyptic look now.  The next step is to let it dry thoroughly for a day or two.  Then I'll hit it with a matte spray to get rid of the gloss.  I'll be assembling the stuff that goes on top separately.  I'm also painting the impaled front zombie separately.  I'll need to highlight the whole van here and there, and hit it with rust and dirt colored chalks to further dirty it up.  I have a couple of items to add to detail the back too.

I'm hoping to have a finished product by the end of the week.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Mystery Machine WIP - Some more progress

Here's the latest work that I've been able to do on the van.

I started touching up the paint here and there; rough-painted orange flowers in the wheels and on the body; and used black to base-paint areas that will be metal.

On the back I added a pair of zombie heads as a Post-Zombie Apocalypse form of Truck-Nutz.  For those unaware of Truck-Nutz, it's a typically crass American car accessory.  It's probably best if I just let you Google it for yourselves.

Meanwhile on the other side I base-painted the greenstuff Scrappy-Doo pelt that's tacked to the side.

Just remeber everything is in a real raw, rough form right now.  It will look better, I promise!

There's lot's of stuff to do.  I have a LOT of touch-up/clean-up work to do; need to add rust; paint the "steel" metal pieces (patches, back bumper), add details.  Plus the "dipping", highlighting, weathering, and all the junk that'll go on top.  I hope to get some more done this week-end.

Mystery Machine WIP - Update

Okay, I thought I wouldn't be working on this for awhile but I've been up since 4:00 am with coughing fits and a sore throat (Some sort of Creeping Crud is working its way through our family...I just hope I'm not Patient Zero...). 

Anyway, with nothing better to do I thought I'd work on the van.  After staring at it for a while I decided it needed some more "OOMPH!" for the front.  Spikes seemed the way to go so I broke out a box of toothpicks, cut them down to size, drilled a few holes in the front bumper and started adding them to the van.

I was on the right track but it still wasn't providing the "OOMPH!" I wanted, so I thought about it some more and then searched through the bits box.

Ah, here we go!  A Mantic zombie skewered on one of the spikes added that little extra that this addition needed.

I haven't permanently attached him to the van yet.  I want him separate so I can clean him up, add some green stuff guts, and paint him before attaching him permanently.

This is pretty typical of how I work on projects.  I'm usually making changes on the fly, and often really good ideas don't come up until the project's partially completed.

I think I'm going to continue with these mini-updates.  I wasn't planning on it as I usually just post stuff when it's done, but I think it'd be nice to see how a piece slowly evolves into the final product, at least for me.  I have very few pics of my stuff when it's only partially done.  Plus it'll show the difference it makes to go back and clean up the painting, and what Army Quickshade does, and all that stuff.

But as for now, I'm going to guzzle some highly alcoholic cough-syrup.  'Nite...

Mystery Machine Work-in-Progress

This is somewhat of a stop-gap posting to let you know I've been working on the Mystery Machine, but it's going slowly.  Too much non-gaming needs intruding into my gaming/modelling time.  Curse you real life!

The first and hardest thing was to find an A-100 Series van circa 1966ish in the scale of 1:48 or thereabouts.  I scoured the internet and finally found the following:

This "ZINGERS!" Super Van plastic model was cheap to get, it's in the right scale (1:48), and the van body is the correct type.  But it's got lot's of cartoony elements that I don't want (which is ironic, since I'm trying to replicate a cartoon van).

So I started the conversion process.  I ditched the cartoony tires, exhaust pipes and engine sticking out of the top (into the bits box!).  I had to fill the hole in the top with Plasticard and putty.  I switched out the tires with more size-appropriate ones from another plastic car model (which will end up as a burnt-out or stripped wreck - waste not want not!).  I had to carve two of the wheel-wells a little larger to accomodate the front tires, which required me to add couple of sheets of Plasticard to the chassis to block the line of sight past the front wheels.  Otherwise you'd see all the messy glue and markings and miscellaneous crap under the front.

I added wire mesh to the windows, and some additional Plasticard "metal plating" over one of them.  I've added Plasticard "metal" patches here and there, and scuffed and nicked up the body somewhat.  I glued some sand around the wheel-wells, as I intend to heavily rust these areas and want that corroded rusty-texture here.  Cut-up popsicle sticks form a luggage rack for the top, as I intend to fill the top up with gear and stuff.

I've added a few more fiddly-bits since these photos were taken, and have even started painting, but it's got a ways to go.  This won't be a nice bright and pristine Mystery Machine, it's going to be one that's seen battle and is beat-up and dented and somewhat falling apart...not unlike my Zombie Apocalypse Scooby Gang.

Oh yeah, my freehand isn't very good so the painting of the van won't be great, but it'll do.  Also, I decided to keep the van named Mystery Machine instead of Misery Machine, no real reason just liked it better.

It's going to be slow-going from here on out, but I'll try to keep plugging at it as time allows, and post occasional WIP pics.

EDIT:

I took a quick pic of the painting so far:

This is still VERY rough and in the early stages.  There's LOTS of work to do.  So far I've blocked in the blue and green areas, along with some orange text.  I still need to touch up everything; add curves where the green and blue meet; add orange flowers; paint the windows; paint the "metal" patches & back armor; paint the inner wheels; clean up the tires; paint "rust" along the wheel-wells and other places; hit the entire thing with Quick Shade; hit it with matte spray; add highlights; add weathering, and oil splotches and blood splatters....WHEW!  And I still need to assemble and paint whatever it is that's going on top! 

It'll probably be awhile before I can post another pic, but when I do there should be major improvements compared to these pics.

The Zombie-Apocalypse Scooby Gang

I completely blame Vampifan for the following.  Back in September he posted a nice review of Hasslefree's (Not) Scooby Gang, and posted pictures of the painted figures.  I had seen the unpainted miniatures on Hasslefree's website before, and had made a mental note to maybe purchase those figures, but then again maybe not.  But once I saw Vampifan's painted figures on his blog, and saw how nice they looked, I decided that I had to get them and add them to my collection somehow.  So I purchase the set from Hasslefree, and the figures went into the big pile of Figures-That-Need-To-Be-Painted-Sometime.  And they would've stayed there for a year or so as other figures worked their way through the painting queue.

But Vampifan also posted the following picture on his blog:

Once I saw this Post-Apocalyptic/Monster-Hunting Velma, the bells and alarms went off in my head and I knew I had to do something similar with my (Not) Scooby Gang.  Once I get an idea like this that fires up my imagination it kinda kicks me into overdrive, so I fretted over the conversions I needed to do, came up with some ideas, and bumped the Scooby figures to the front of the line.  I finished the last one yesterday.  So without any further ado, I give you the Zombie-Apocalypse Scooby Gang:

So what's been happening to the gang since the undead have risen to feast on the living?

   

Poor Fred doesn't appear to have fared too well.  He's gone from being the gang's leader to being the gang's mascot/house-pet.  An earlier encounter with a zombie that ended poorly for Fred turned him into one living dead.  On the plus side he has more personality now than he did when alive.  Not wanting to put him away for good, the Gang keeps him well-fed with heaping helpings of internal organs, which seems to keep his Must-Feed-On-The-Living instincts in check.   I figured I could use a modified version of the Reich Zombie rules from NUTS! War Without End (Ignores humans within 12" of Daphne). 

Daphne's pretty much the same, still dressing smartly and keeping Fred on a short leash.  She has added a fashionable sidearm to her wardrobe ensemble.

Velma is still the brains of the group.  She's carrying a Left-4-Dead health kit on her back and is brushing up on the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks.

Shaggy's gone from being an over-eating cowardly stoner to being a well-armed over-eating cowardly stoner.  An unfortunate encounter with a Deadite resulted in Shaggy chopping off his right hand and replacing it with a chainsaw.  On his back he carries his boomstick. It's a twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington shotgun with a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. It's S-Mart's top of the line and retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. 

As Shaggy would say, "Like wow man...Groovy..."

And last but not least is Scooby himself.  Here he carries a couple of trophies from one of the Gang's successful encounters.  Careful Scoob!  They aren't dead until you kill the brain!  You don't want to end up like Fred do you?

Whew!  That's it.  I finally got it out of my system!  I have no idea when or how these guys will make it into a game, but I'll make sure they do somehow.

Thanks again for the inspiration Bryan (Vampifan).  It was fun being really fired up about painting/converting again.