The British Expeditionary Force and Stellar Debris

I think I have a new name for Prince and his backing group. Now then, yesterday I revealed my first stab at terrain for Star Fleet, and today I shall continue in that vein. After yesterday's post I cut out a spot of 2mm plasticard to the same approximate size as an old chocolate box lid I had set aside ages ago, and glued some stands to each. These little circular blobs will serve as asteroid fields. I will be making some more individual asteroids so I can have a varied table, but a spot of mass terrain never hurt! As well as this, I also went looking round the house for large spheres that I can make into planets. In Star Fleet these are representational, and diameters range from up to 3" all the way up to 10" or more. I have a couple of things that sit in the middle of that bracket now: an old globe, which was once a sort of piggy bank, if my memory of childhood serves me. I'm sure there's a second of those somewhere! The second large sphere I found was a spare bit of plumbing. It was sat in the back of the house, thickly clad in dust, resting after its one outing: I wore it on a chain as part of a ghost costume from a childhood party. Let this be a lesson to all: never throw out childhood rubbish, as it will be useful some day!

Smaller asteroids and rocks are made from torn up foam. I made this decision because the substance adheres well to superglue, but I am honestly a little worried how PVA will work with it when I come to try to glue sand to these things. Next time I shall cover that experiment. I have some polystyrene standing ready in case of disaster. Picture 7 shows a very peculiar thing: the matte varnish applied to my fifth and final Klingon caused the grey paint to retract, exposing the black undercoat. I have never experienced that before. The white spots you can see are a common enough result of the spray, at least insofar as they happen quite often, but not enough for me to tear out my hair in rage. So I at once took the ship aside for some touch-ups. Then the right nacelle came off. Again. After I had superglued and GS'd it in place. I shall superglue it again, and if that fails, I will despair, and drill some bloody great holes in the wing and warp engine so I can pin it with a staple. I'll then have to disguise the pin as a support strut or somesuch.

Anyway, the next picture shows my two planetoids of note, the new one is evidently some sort of iron-rich, ferrous thingummy, and the other one just a dusty ball. I think the third of these will be grey, then if I decide to make any more, then I shall opt for something like our solar system's moon, Europa, which orbits Jupiter. If I find something a bit more malleable as a material in future, or I have by then some more GS, I shall try my hand at sculpting an impact crater. All the GS I had has been used up, as I intend you to see tomorrow. The BEF HMG chaps are coming along. The photographs here were taken before the Devlan Mud wash had dried, so that's why there are some oddities. Anyway, until next time, people!