Mayhem City Broadcasting Company- WMBC Channel 13 News

Well after deciding in my last post that I would call the TV Station (and Radio Stations) Operated by Mayhem (City) Broadcasting Company WMBC, I needed a vehicle for the News team. I have the eM4 Female Reporter and Cameraman for the team. The vehicle I have for them right now is the now Out of Print Ebbles Miniatures M11 4x4 (pulled it off the also now Out of Print Ebbles Archive DVD that I purchased back before Christmas 2010), I chose the Grey version for the News team. For the transmitting equipment I tried to see if I could find a Satellite dish on the Ebbles Archive DVD, unfortunately i wasn't able to, so I went with the Helios Thermosolar Generator from the 2008 Farmstead set on the DVD, since it looks like it might pass as a satellite dish of a sort.

I am planning on building a Jeepvee 4x4 also for the News team, as a newer vehicle, that the Channel 13's top reporter will use.

Here's some pics of the cardstock model with the eM4 Female reporter and cameraman (along with some eM4 Bikers as security) for scale, and one of the Ebbles Helios Solar Generators that is a stand alone unit.

The Channel 13 News team with their new ride and some body guards.

The News team close up. Note the Helios Solar Generator (Helios Satellite Transmitter/Receiver) on the M11's roof.

 

 

Another Helios "Satellite Transmistter/Receiver". This one received a small mod, I added the "antenna" you see on most satellite dishes, its made from a piece of wire bent into a U shape and a seed bead.

Just a small note the Helios Thermosolar Generators were printed at a Reduced scale. When printing I chose the option for multiple pages to be printed on one page, and had it selected for 4 pages. Since this is only a one page model it only printed in the top left corner of the page, feeding the page through the printer 3 more times, with each time feeding a different edge netter me 4 of the generators on one piece of cardstock, more then enough for the New Team, with an extra one or two for use by the Military or even a community of survivors who use it to communicate with other pockets of Humanity.

Ebbles miniatures Sale

I just scored me some Copplestone Casting Zombie troopers (1 pack of 5 figures) and a pack of the Copplestone Casting Bio-Chem Troopers over on the Ebbles Miniatures Forums. Christopher Roe (aka Mel Ebbles) is having a Clearing out the Closet Sale! on his forums to liquidate various miniatures he has no use for. You can find the thread here http://www.ebblesminiatures.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=2503 The thread is already a couple days old, I forgot to post this the day he put the thread up. He requests you contact him regarding the figures you would like with an offer, he isn't accepting an offer of trades or gift certificates to other companies for additional minis, and if he feels its a reasonable offer he will let you know the total cost for the figure(s) you would like with the shipping.

Also Chris is currently liquidating his entire physical stock of supplies in his sites supply depot. He has a thread in his forums announcing the reason behind this which I will not go into here. Everything he has left is currently 50% off, other then the down-loadable card stock models, these aren't included in the sale. Also unfortunately he has suspended international shipping to Canada, since he gets very similar USPS (US Postal Service) shipping rates on both domestic (USA) and Canadian packages.

While I am happy I scored some figures I have on my wish list, i am saddened to hear that Chris is getting out of the physical inventory business, I would rather order glue and replacement Olfa blades from him then order them from somewhere else or even shop locally at Wal-mart, just so I could help out a small business owner here in the USA.



BTW this is not the surprise I mentioned in my previous post, that I am currently working on finishing up the last of the little details so I can post it here. I am hoping to either have it finished and posted tomorrow or Sunday, if not one of those two days, I am aiming for Tuesday April 26th. Everythign all depends on if I can as mentioned finalize the details and find time to post it between working at my job, eating, and getting house/yard work done.


Update: Chris is also going to be getting out of the direct to customer sales of his cardstock models. He will continue working on cardstock models for personal projects such as his Saga of the Uppity Robots (the models he currently has on his site for sale), though these will be through his blog http://melebbles.blogspot.com/ I believe he mentioned over on his Ebbles.com forums the models on his Blog will go back to the Free, but if you like please donate some money format, but please don't quote me on this I may be wrong.

Ebbles Paper Craft Starter Kit Part Deux

My last post was about the Ebbles Papercraft Starter Kit and I said I would post a more complete review. Well I did get use use the Kit's contents some more this past week while I was not at work, and my observations in my last post pretty much are spot on.

The Olfa Knife is a great little knife that I am definitely going to use more then my X-Acto style knives. The Alumicutter 12" ruler is great nice and solid and has a foam strip on the bottom to help avoid the ruler slipping. The Gatorblade II is a nice little tool that has proven to be real handy with sandwich folds and even providing an edge for creasing all other folds. The replacement blades for the Olfa knife haven't been used yet, but they are the same exact blades (well one is, the other is Carbon Steel) that came installed in the knife. Havent used the Blade Disposal Can yet but cant imagine it failing to do its job. The glues are nice, I have been using the No-Wrinkle glue for a bit now, and will primarily use it for sandwich folds from now on while the Tacky Glue is used for everything else, the Tacky Glue has enough tackiness to allow me to work with it and still it sets in short enough time for me to continue assembling the model. The Restickable Glue stick is nice for attaching temporary signs and markings to the models, the test sign I made is still sticking and resticking even after removing it from the model every other day then re-attaching it. I haven't use the Cover Stock yet, that I am saving to try out on a special model (one of Ebbles UD-41 Dropships for Castle Pharmaceuticals White Rood Division to use in my games). Note if Ebbles offers these kits in the future they wont have the 40 sheet Cover Stock Sample Pack, Mel assembled the 5 initial kits with the cover stock to help clear out the few sample packs of it he still had left.

I highly recommend this starter kit to both beginners and experienced card stock modelers, it contains everything you need to get started (other then the computer, printer and ink), and also makes a great back-up set.

Ebbles Miniatures Desert Pink vehicles

First off thanks for the congratulations on becoming an Uncle.

Now on to the meat of this post.

Previously I mentioned using the Ebbles Desert Pink Jeepvee 4x4 as the vehicle for my Reaper Anime Heroines to travel around in. I also mentioned possibly putting Hello Kitty on them. Well after searching for some good pictures, I decided to cheat. I bought some Hello Kitty Stickers to use. I currently have two of each of the Desert Pink Jeepvees, Onagers, and the 6x6 APV's printed out, with Hello Kitty on one of the Onagers (currently in build process), one of the Jeepvees and one of the 6x6's. Unfortunately these wont be finding their way into my fleet, instead they are going to the 5 yr old daughter of one of my friends. I was talking to her (my friend) online and mentioned the Ebbles Models, well she ended up going to the site to look at them and her daughter seen the pink Jeepvee and said she wanted one. I said it was easy enough for me to build her one since I already had the files, and then me and my big mouth mentioned thinking of putting Hello Kitty on one and next think I know my friends daughter wanted Hello Kitty on hers.

Build process is going slow since I have been hanging out with my family over at my brothers and around my little nephew. When I have been at home, I have been playing on the computer (after doing what I need to actually do), the game I have been (re)playing is one from 1999/2000, Planescape Torment, the first and only PC game to be set in the AD&D Planescape setting. I am also going to be pulling out my Baldurs Gate (one and two with expansions) discs and Icewinds Dale (again both one and two) discs to play those games, since it has been quite awhile since playing them, and I want some good old fashioned AD&D 2nd edition adventuring (granted Baldurs Gate 2  actually uses a AD&D 2nd Edition/D&D 3rd Edition Hybrid rule system), that was quick and easy to get started withough having to pull out all my rule books and try to find players who want to play 2nd edition.

Update: Heres the Onager and the Jeepvee with my Anime Heroines for scale:

The Jeepvee has the Hello Kitty heads printed off on reagular printer paper, the smaller ones unfortunately didnt turn out that great and I had to fix them using a black fine point pen. The Onager used the Hello Kitty Stickers, though I did use some of the flower stickers on the Jeepvee as headlights. The rear of the Onager also has tulips on the hatch door that came from the sticker sheet. Both vehicles have custom made licens plates (my friends little girls name followed by either a 1 or a 2, Jeepvee is 1, Onager is 2). I do have the 6x6 with stickers on it waiting for me to cut and assemble.

Some more Ebbles Card Stock Models

I still am short on Card Stock, haven't had a chance to get to the store and pick up more. I did find 4 blank sheets of cardstock that I had tucked away in one of the manila file folders I use to organize my ATZ campaign notes and also for spare parts of my cardstock models (such as the extra wheels for the M11's and the weaposn for said M11s that I didnt use). With these 4 sheets I printed out a copy of the Barrack Prop set off of my Archive DVD from 2007. I primarily wanted to see how they look in the Folding Unit Structures.

Here are 3 pics of the Medium Urban Gray FUS (with doors cut open ala Bryan/Vampifan).

A close up of the table with the laptop

A zoomed out view showing the two double bunks two tables, a desk,and two large lockers. Both doors do open, and the walls are straighter then they look.

Another close up, this time the Cowgirl (Reaper Chronoscopes Ellen Stone Cowgirl) show all the viewers her cleavage, while the Anime Schoolgirl (Reaper Chronoscope Candy, Anime Heroine) hides behind the bunk with her pink hari and pink gun. eM-4's Road Warrior is heading out the door, now what was he doing in the same barracks as two lovely young ladies???

Ebbles Miniatures Redux

As previously mentioned I have been busy building some of the Ebbles Miniature models. So far I have a couple of the M11 4x4's and M9 6x6 vehicles from the Archive DVD built along with some of the newer GPV (JeepVee) 4x4's and the Folding Unit Structures.

First Up some of the Folding Unit Structures:

Large FUS Side- Helo Drab

Large FUS Front (Back side is the exact same) Helo Drab.  The Helo Drab FUS has the Ebbles Miniatures logo on both the front and back to the right of the door.

Large FUS Side- Urban Gray

Large FUS Front/Back- Urban Gray

Small FUS Front (the back side is only a wall with two windows, no door)- Urban Gray

Small FUS Front- Urban Gray next to a Desert Pink GPV 4x4 (this will be the vehicle used by my Reaper Chronoscope Anime Heroines)

Small FUS Front- Urban Gray with Ebbles Sign next to Desert Pink GPV 4x4

Small FUS Side- Urban Gray again next to Desert Pink GPV 4x4

Now on to some of the vehicle models I have built:

M9 6x6 with turret- Helo Drab. For this I actually placed the turret off center on purpose, as you can see why in the following photos

M9 again with turret

M9 with turret mounting location

M9 with additional cupola instead of turret

M9 with Missile/Rocket launcher in place of the cupola or the turret

M11 4x4 UN Scheme w/ Missile launcher next to Prototype Black GPV

M11 UN scheme and Black GPV again, notice in back between the two the HMG with magnet on the base of the platform. Magnets are used to mount the various weapons (and the cupola and turret on the M9) to the vehicles

Showing off the license plates I made UN01 for the UN and 359 LPM for the GPV, I am trying to add a different plate number to all the vehicles, both card stock, styrene (plastic) and die cast (metal).

More M11 license plates. Top Black M11 ZED SLR, Bottom Left Helo Drab US13A, Bottom Right Police scheme P0L1C3

M11 Helo Drab w/ Missle Launcher

M11 Helo Drab w/ Missile Launcher rotated off to side, this is the advantage of using magnets to mount the weapons, you don't have to keep them in a fixed position and can have then rotate 360 degrees.

I do have to go back and finish edging all the models, they white doesn't look as bad in real life, since I was using a small pop up on camera flash it hilighted every little white spot on the models.

I do have another M9, a couple more M11's and a Medium FUS assembled along with some of the M.A.S.H. Containers found at www.topsolitario.com to further populate my Military Outpost/Refugee center. I am also planning on using the FUS as a survivors community further on in my campaigns.