A Space Ship Module fully Assembled

Well, I've been quiet the last couple months.  This has been due to a number of things that I won't bore you with.  Anyway, I've done some work on the space ship modules as you can see in the image above.  It's the first module that has all it's parts together.  I've started the long process of filling cracks and gaps so I can make a mold of it.  Come to find out, Greenstuff and Hydrocal don't make the best of friends, though that probably has more to do with my Greenstuff working tools.  While Hydrocal is much harder then Plaster of Paris, it's still a rather soft plaster (Unlike Merlin's Magic or the like, but Hydrocal is the hardest stuff I can get locally... That I know the name of at least) and my tools are all metal.  So if I'm not extremely careful, I scratch the parts up while trying to fill gaps...  I'll probably end up shifting to my (non-hardening) modeling clay and a rubber tipped tool (assuming I can find/make one cheap).

Depending on how well this mold turns out I'll probably work hard and create molds for a number of other sections... Once I figure out which sections are worth casting.  I've had people offer very generic ideas for which modules they'd like to see, so I've dug up my tileset I was playing with using a program called Tiled which I've added with the other pictures of the T-intersection below.  I haven't worked out actual brick layouts for the modules in the bottom half of the tileset, but they're there mostly for completeness sake at the moment.  The image tiles are 36x36 pixels with a 1 pixel spacer between tiles (useful if you decide to try out Tiled).

Anyone with the time and/or inclination, I'd love if you would work out some table layouts and send me a list of how many of each module would be needed to create it, or the layouts themselves and I'll count the modules (Credit will be given for assistance with 'set' quantities, and for any layouts I post here).  The physical modules fit in a 6" by 6" gridwork, so a standard Special Operations: Killzone 4' x 4' table would be 8 modules to a side for a total of 64 modules.  A 40k sized table of 4'x6' would be 96 modules in an 8x12 layout.  I've worked out a number of 3' x 3' and 4' x 4' designs over the months (years now? O.o;; ) I've thought about this project, and have come to the conclusion that I need a lot of other player's ideas on what a maze of sci-fi twisty-winding paths should look like.  My local friends have been completely unhelpful with a 'whatever is fine' attitude.

Starship Module Progress

The Modular Starship has made a lot of progress in the last couple weeks or so as I've actually started casting parts again.  I have 1 new module assembled and 9 laid out (as you can see in the image above).  Three of the modules are missing parts, but they're busy drying when the picture was taken (Wednesday the 9th, sometime).  The obliterators are in the modules due to having been in the way when I started planning the modules out

Below is a closeup of the two tiles in the upper left corner of the main picture.  These two are special as the floor tiles I'm using on them include carpeting and I'm not sure what colour(s) should be used on them.  The rest of the modules will be painted an almost metalic dark grey, so almost any colour should work.



When this new set of tiles is glued together it'll bring my total up to 18 playable modules, halfway to a 3' x 3' table!

Modular Starship Progress

Well, I've actually done quite a bit of work on the modular starship sense the last post about it.  I'm up to 8 modules now, 4 of which are room segments (the ones on the far right in the picture).  I have 3 more modules planned out and currntly stored in baggies due to having to clean up my work area for well...  work.  Anyway, the top two room modules are representing some cryostasis room (I had parts and wanted to know how it'd look ^.~ )  the bottom 2 have conveyor belts on them.  They've been a pain as I must be really careful about making sure they line up and go the same direction.  One of the planned modules is a T-intersection with a conveyor belt.  If anyone has good ideas on what types of modules would make a nice diverse starting set, I'm all ears.  So far it seems the T intersections will be outnumbering the others (except maybe room modules, but it requires at least 4 room modules to make a single room.

I need to restart casting of the parts to make the modules as I'm effectively out of floor tiles with the 3 modules in bags.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some made up over the holiday season and have enough to actually play some killzone on by January.

Modular Starship Tiles - Progress

I've been busy casting from my molds, so I have 3 modules in a playable state, they still need the outside tiles on the walls (mainly for support and so i don't have to look at the scraped plaster side of the tiles...) and a base of some sort.

I've found that mixing in a few drops of black paint to the plaster while I'm mixing it gives the tiles a gray tint which should help to disguise any chips the tiles end up earning in the course of playtime.  My test batch was was too dark (the one really dark gray piece in the corner tile above), and the second was just a hair too pale (the access hatch in the corner above).  The specific ratio I use isn't of much use to anyone else as it's 8 drops paint, to enough water to fill the cup to the 3rd from bottom ridge, with enough hydrocal that it stops having water floating on top.  Which basically fills the cup with plaster.


The three play-able modules beside one busy drying.  The figures are more a time waster while I'm waiting for plaster to cure and modules under assembly to dry.  I've found I dislike the 2 molds that have just the one piece of the wall in them (of which I'm currently using to hold the plastic sheet on the table down...) due to them requiring a lot more sanding then I expected.  The molds aren't all filled as I was lazy for this one and didn't mix a second cup worth of plaster to finish filling them up (and I was helping family use my cutter to make some stencils for some girl scout project of some sort).  The black box with red drawers in the one image is where the fully dry pieces go for storage until I need them for the tile(s) I'm currently assembling. 

Overall, the pieces take an hour to cure enough to de-mold them then about 24 hours drying time before they're ready to be glued together.  So they live on a tray where I slide them down as molds cure and pieces dry.  I don't cast nearly as many as I could be in a day, but I have been casting about a tile and a half to two tiles worth of pieces a day, which should give me enough parts to build my minimal 3' x 3' table in just over 2 weeks.  Maybe I should try stepping up production speeds. >.<


There are about one and a half molds worth of parts on this tray busy drying.

Modular Starship Tiles - More Molds

I did some work on the modular starship over the last couple days, including production of 3 more molds. I should start Hydrocal casting of the molds I have next time I want to work on this project and should have a number of actual pieces assembled.


For this step, I made molds for the actual corners of the corner tiles. Above you can see a mock up made from pieces I had lying around as well as the pieces I actually cast the mold from. I threw some ultra wombles in for scale purposes.


The first of the newest molds, this one is for the both inner corners and customized straights. The somewhat complicated end 'caps' for the pieces were assembled and then cast so they'll be single pieces and less prone to joint breakage.


The above mold used along with the basic decking pieces. The second image is using the pieces cast from the extra space on the outer corner, shown next.


The outer corner actually gave me a tonne of issues as apparently Hirst wasn't expecting me to use some of the blocks the way I did... in any case, I finally worked out something that looks reasonably good. This mold also has the upper part of the door frame on it (the really long piece along the top edge of the mold). that will hold the large bulkhead doors in place. I had a bulkhead door mostly ready for casting a while back but it's disappeared and I haven't been willing to fight with a new one as of yet.


Just the outer corner pieces. i need to clean up and cast from the molds so i can glue one together for the pictures instead of just piling the parts together.


This is just a cast of the wall panels and the bottom edge trim again. I made it as I need so many more of them then any other piece that came with them, I recast those parts.


Last some physical mockups of a straight section with some ultra wombles for scale. Final pieces will be mounted on something (probably 1/4" cork, but not positive) and will actually have the second 1/4" walls on the outside for structural support.

Modular Starship Tiles

Well, I've (yet again) started working on my modular space ship project. This project was started well before this blog so this will be the first posting about it. I've actually been casting blocks for it off and on using the excess resin from other pieces the whole time, but just recently I noticed I actually had enough to start working on the next stage. So I've managed to assemble the basic wall for one side of a straight hallway.




This panel is actually 2 three inch halves so I can mix and match other half combinations. This also allows the halves to be used as part of a number of other tiles, and happens to fit in one of my standard mold sizes, so I don't have to start yet another mold size. I plan making molds to speed up the construction process and so there are fewer glue joints (which are by far the weakest link). You can see some of my other custom molds for Hirst blocks in the background.

Each tile fits in a 6" by 6" space allowing a variety of spaceship interiors to be set-up. Below is an example of a 3 foot by 3 foot setup done in Google SketchUp.


In other news I bought a Piranha last week and have slowly been assembling/painting it. I'll do a blog on it when it's closer to finished.