The Hunger Games (And Why I'm Hungry For These Minis)

Okay, just to start off, I know nothing about the Hunger Games, other than what I have picked up from overhearing others.  I have not read the books, I did not watch the film, I have no interest in following the stories.

So I am not going to recommend either the books or film(s), nor do I want to enter into any kind of discussion about the merits/flaws ideas in them.  I am a guy who works with little plastic guys for use in games.

And that brings me to the reason I am bringing up the Hunger Games at all; NECA, the company that now owns Heroclix, produced a line of collectible figurines based off the movie.  They do not have dials, or are part of any game at all, they are just 27 figures in 28mm scale standing on cool looking little bases.


And they are awesome!

The bases have the district number on them.  I don't know what I am going to eventually use them for, but it should be awesome.

They come 1 to a box, and are about a buck fifty, although they may soon start showing up on clearance shelves, so who knows.  Here's the thing though, if you play modern or post-apocalyptic games, then there are NO useless figs.

When you buy blind boxes of superhero minis, you may get some bizarre figure you may never need (oh look, I got Rocket Raccoon from the Galactic Guardians, he'll fit in great with my ultra realistic gritty urban warfare campaign...)  Because nearly all the minis (with a few exceptions noted below,) are the same thing; a male or female figure with empty hands, wearing fatigue pants and a hoodie.

Some of them are holding weapons (usually hard to identify lumps of silver, but a few have swords or machetes, while others have a staff, a (bardiche-style) axe, or a bow.  If you want bystanders, grab the empty-handed ones and repaint.  But if you want gang members or even PC's, you can use the armed variety and rearm them with a weapon swap.

They are made of the same kind of plastic as their Heroclix cousins, and can be (relatively) easily cut or modified.  The first thing you would have to do is cut them off their decorative bases.  You could slice them off at the soles of their feet (veeeeeeery carefully so as not to mangle their feet,) and then mount them on the base of your choosing, or you could even slice the round, black base off of the grey decorative base below it (veeeeeery carefully so as to avoid mangling your thumb,) and use the black circle as its on base if you wanted.  They won't be the same size and height as other bases, but that could work if you were going for bystanders.

Some of them are quite small, and could work for children or teenagers, while others are very tall (the character named 'Marvel' from District 1 is like a head taller than any of the others)  This means you can use them for a wide variety of individuals.

As I mentioned, there are 27 figures in the line.  In the story, there are 12 districts, each of whom sends a boy and a girl to the competition.  This accounts for 24 of the figures, the various boys and girls sent from the 12 districts, including the main characters.  Most of what you pull from the random boxes will be these, so I will focus on them.

The outfits are all pretty much identical except for coloration (which means nothing for repainters.)  Each is wearing boots (mostly covered by the pants, so could be repainted as sneakers, especially high tops.  The pants are military style fatigues, with cargo pockets on the side.  Paint these khaki, and they become cargo pants (people still wear those, right? It's not just me?)  Of course, you could always scrape/carve off the cargo pockets entirely, and create your own kind of pants if you are comfortable with doing that.  The pants tuck into the tops of the boots, which is fine for 'gangsta' figures, or you could use putty to sculpt cuffs, and cover up the tops of the shoes, turning them into whatever you wish.

Just your average bunch of teenagers on a normal day...

The figures are wearing T-shirts, covered by hoodies, covered by an outer jacket.  But clever repainting can alter this, painting the hood to match the outer jacket changes the layering, and the inner hoodie becomes a vest.  The heads are all well sculpted and have a variety of expressions and hairstyles for variety.

As I mentioned, there are a number of armed figs, including one 'Thresh' who is apparently armed with a buckler and a khopesh for some reason (southpaw, no less.)  If these weapons do not suit you, they are easily modified, as with any other mini.

A bunch of vicious hoodlums spoiling for a rumble.  Imagine them repainted with leather jackets and fleece hoodies over torn and faded jeans.

But what are they good for?  As I said, because of how generic the outfits are (boots, cargo pants, hoodies and jackets,) they could be pretty much anything.   Paint the same mini one way, and you have a stereotypical street gang member.  Paint it another way, you have a person out jogging or just coming back from the gym.  Change the color scheme again and you have a SWAT Team investigator, a safety inspector, or an average citizen out shopping.  Add putty accents, and you could create tons of possible versions.

But frankly, many of you are most likely to use them as criminals or gang members, simply because we tend to use minis in combat situations, and that usually means most of the minis you will own will be bad guys, unless you are playing campaign where the PC's are criminals themselves, in which case they will make fine PC's.  Either way, some of them will make good PC's for nearly any modern campaign.

They work great as survivors in a zombie apocalypse, too.  Add some guns and backpacks and the obligatory stains and battle damage, and voila.  Personallly, I am using some in my Fallout tabletop RPG game as wasteland settlers (innocent bystanders,) and the Followers of the Apocalpse.

Here are a couple of hapless wasteland settlers, caked in dirt.  I converted the quarterstaff that the guy was carrying into a hoe with some paper clip, putty, and painted sand to look like a clump of dirt.

And that's what makes the set so cool to me.  Any time I open a box, I get someone I can use.  Whether it's an innocent bystander or an armed combatant, I get my money's worth.   Well, mostly.

I mentioned that there are 27, and we discussed the main 24.  The other three are special characters, and are apparently more rare.  The first is 'Gale,' who is not a competitor and therefore has a different outfit. He's just a guy wearing regular pants, a long sleeve T-shirt with sleeves rolled up and a vest with pockets.  This is a crazy useful mini to have (he could be a field researcher, a photographer, a hunter, etc.) so of course he is rare.  I have yet to find him.

The other two are alternate versions of the two main characters, dressed in black body suits with capes made of translucent orange flames.  These do not strike me as especially useful as is, but if you remove the flaming cape (keep it for future use, you never know!) and you have characters in skin tight black leather outfits.

And then they're just like regular Heroclix minis, and you can convert as normal.

These minis won't be around forever.  Already they are usually clustered together with all the marked down tie-in items from the Hunger Games movie.  I found mine at Toys R Us, but when they were still hot they were carried at Target and Walmart.

So go find yourselves some fine minis at a great price.  I'd like to end this post with a witty phrase from the story, but I don;t know any.  So...excelsior I guess.

Fallout Miniatures Part Two: Raiders

Ah, raiders.  They are the backbone of Fallout gameplay, and for those pursuing tabletop roleplaying or war-gaming, they will no doubt be your bread and butter.  They are the perfect random encounter, wandering monster, local villains, or mid meal snack.

You will find them holed up in abandoned vaults, infesting ruins, and attacking hapless caravans.  They are, to put it simply, the orcs of the Fallout universe.  And of course they scale beautifully; you can simply add some more character levels and better gear, and voila, those low level thugs you gleefully mowed down in your early levels are now a credible threat to your more experienced party.

Gotta love those guys.

Visually, raiders are unified by their lack of unity.  They are dirty, they wear scavenged equipment, they are usually covered in traditional bad guy markings (spikes, barbed wire, other uncomfortable things,) and they usually have significant amounts of skin showing.  To me, the difference between a raider and a mercenary is the amount of bare skin.

Here is a selection of fresh summer fashions in the raider world, courtesy of Fallout.wikia.com

As to the subject of where to find minis for them (you don't come here for my PB&J recipes,) there are tons of options available to you out there.  Of course to begin, it helps to take a look at the kinds of raiders one sees in the current crop of Fallout games.

Games Workshop periodically produced a well-known game called Necromunda.  It is a skirmish battle game set in a dystopian cityscape within their 40K universe.  The gangs that struggle in the hive are quite similar to the raiders, with plenty of ramshackle armor, mohawks, jury-rigged weapons and lousy fashion sense.   Look especially for the newer versions, which are much more realistic and less cartoony, which was the preferred aesthetic when the game originally came out.

Unfortunately, this route is certainly the most expensive.  They are all pewter (except the plastics that came with the original boxed game,) and are nearly all out of print.  Even when these minis were being produced and could be had in blister packs hanging on pegs in game stores, they were pricey, and now that you have to rely on Ebay or other sources, you have no idea how much you will pay.  They are also a bit clunky, and come armed with 40K weapons, which are not always the look you want.

That being said, if you can get your hands on the plastics (House Goliath and House Orlock,) for cheap, they can fill in nicely for raiders.  The Orlocks are all dressed in sleeveless jackets and headbands like street gangers from an 80's video game (seriously, they totally look like the guys from Double Dragon,) while the Goliaths are massive 'roid abusers in mohawks.

Crappy paint jobs aside, they really get that Mad Max vibe going.

Each has two poses for each gang, and there are a choice of weapons for each one.  Scarcity and uniformity will be your only problems with them.

Another choice is the plastic street gang set from the Judge Dredd skirmish game, "Gangs of Mega City One."  The game did not do well and is out of print, and you can usually find the minis for a song in various places (but for how long that lasts is anyone's guess.)  They are plastic multi part minis on sprues, with multiple weapon options.  I can't speak to how good these are, but cheap is cheap.  I recently passed on quite a good deal for some of these ($12.00 for 48) because every review I've read about them (from real miniatures websites,) describe them as being awful.  Apparently the plastic is just terrible to work with, and the sculpting is poor.  Just looking at the pictures I found online, they didn't really look like what I wanted.  If you wish to pursue this option, vaya con queso.

Naturally, my solution is Heroclix, because that is my solution for nearly everything minis-related.  By using Heroclix for all my minis (vault dwellers, raiders, etc.) they are all more or less in scale with each other.

And what minis from the HC line work as raiders?  Brothers and sisters, the sky is the limit!  There are TONS of minis that can be easily converted into raiders out there, we just need to use our ModelVision(TM) to see them in a different light.

We've spoken before about the different methods of converting a mini, and these are in full effect here.  The first is the simple repaint.  There are a multitude of minis in the line, from both older and newer sets, that need nothing more than a lick of paint to be perfect as Fallout raiders.

Being comic book super-persons, many of the characters are clad in spandex, sculpted as they are drawn, with every muscle showing.  Paint their fancy longjohns in flesh tones, and you have the scantily clad death dealers we all love to decapitate with firearms.

These three fellows are parademons from Apokolips.  They were dressed in green and gold, and I repainted them in their current bondage-worthy finery.  The fellow in the middle had his winged jetpack ripped off and the hole filled in with putty, and one of them got a weapon swap, but other than that, they are as the factory made them.

This little guy was Annhilus.  He too had his wings clipped, and then I used some guitar string to connect his bug face to the cylinder in his chest.  This makes him look like he's wearing a gas mask (I sort of have a thing for gas masks.)  I then painted his weird headdress like scavenged road sign.  I think he kind of looks like the Humungous from the Road Warrior.

Others just need a little modification with some putty to change them into raiders.  By removing details like capes or jetpacks and covering them with armor bits, or simply using putty to add random raidery crap before painting, you can populate your wasteland with awesome, mohawked denizens of your own.

The guy on the right is a Kobra fanatic, and was not modified at all, merely repainted.  The other  two have benefited from an application of putty.   The fellow on the left is a generic 'henchman,' but has had a tire shoulder pad and strap made from putty added, as well as those weird quilted hip pads you see on some raider armor.  In the middle is a 'criminal' with some sports pads and a codpiece sculpted on, as well as a rather lumpy-looking combat helmet (I swear it looks like better in real life.)

Daimon Hellstrom, Son of Satan, from Marvel Comics.  I hated his hair, and really did not need a wacky trident.  So I snipped off his "Syndrome from the Incredibles" hairdo and resculpted it.  Then I sculpted a handgun from putty to replace his infernal farm implement.  Once repainted, he makes either a great raider or modern day gang member.

But what about the ladies?

As I mentioned previously, you will usually end up with a lot more female minis than you especially want.  And while the female minis are often far less versatile for modern era games, there are plenty of supergals that make fine raiders (bondage gear and firearms are popular fare in both comics and video games.)  For many of them, all you need to do is pop them off their clix bases and on to an appropriate individual base and you are ready to roll.

I actually used these ladies as is for a one off scenario to test some rules.  They are fine as they are, but could still benefit from some repainting and maybe some putty additions like armor and such.

Others need no more than a repaint to turn a familiar comic book heroine (or villainess,) into the scourge of the wasteland.

The figure on the left is an older mini, and was the mutant Domino.  She has white skin and wears purple dominatrix gear, so simply painting her skin in human tones and making the straps black with silver studs does wonders.  On the right is Thundra, of the Frightful Four.  I painted her about five minutes before taking this picture (she is shiny from the ink washes still being wet.)  I can equip her with any weapon I like, and she will look fine in any raider warband.

But for some minis, a more extensive degree of modification can result in even more impressive and inspired creations.  With some arm, weapon or head swaps, or even freehand sculpting with putty, you can entirely change the identity of a mini.

Here are a couple of my favorite conversions.  The guy on the left is Magog from DC comics.  I sculpted a gun (10mm pistol) in his right hand, and replaced his funky 'bident' with a rusty kitchen knife strapped to a metal pole.  On the right is KGBeast, also from DC.  His left arm normally ends in a metal box.  I used a GW Imperial Guard lasrifle and modified it to mimic a Chinese assault rifle from Fallout.  Both make menacing (and quite tall,) raider leaders.

And then there's this guy:

This is Matter Eater Lad, a member of DC's Legion of Super Heroes.  They all have ridiculous names, and usually equally ridiculous powers. In this guy's case, it's exactly like it sounds; he can eat stuff.  The mini is a guy in spandex, chewing on a steel girder.  In any other game, this would be completely useless.  But I play Fallout...

Now we have a raider packing a missile launcher (or maybe a variant of the Red Glare rocket launcher?)  Put this guy on the table top, and watch the players wake up in a jiffy.

So I hope this has given you all some inspiration for making raiders for your Fallout games.  In upcoming posts, we will discuss power armor, mercs, and of course super mutants.

Fallout Miniatures Part One: Vault Dwellers

Okay, I love the setting of the Fallout series of video games.  I think it is a great setting for a real RPG (computer games try, but they are never going to be true roleplaying experience, no matter how much we like them.)

This of course opens the door for making minis based on the visuals of Fallout, which is awesome, since I love to convert minis, and always see it as an artistic challenge.  But I am also quite poor, lacking the disposable income I once had (kids, man.)  So I am going to show you the cheap way to get your minis.

On that subject, I am aware that there are tons of other sites who will direct you to manufacturers who make specific minis that are designed to look like Fallout properties.  Brother Vinni's, for example, puts out the most amazing Fallout-inspred minis I've ever seen.  They are amazing, and I can't afford them.  If you can, feel free to cruise on over there now.

The rest of us must make do converting Heroclix.

Now there are a lot of great reasons to limit yourself to using Heroclix minis for a Fallout project, especially if you are starting from nothing.  First off, they are cheap, and become cheaper when you buy them in bulk on ebay.  They have a huge variety, so chances are you will be able to get nearly every mini you may need from them, and lastly, by doing so, nearly everything will be in the same scale, barring a few internal scale inconsistencies we have discussed before.

To begin, let's look at the perennial favorite, vault dwellers.  Begin by thinking of what a vault dweller looks like.  It's all about that jumpsuit, man.

Here is the clean version of the jumpsuit.  Brings back the memories, don't it?
(picture courtesy of  Fallout.wikia.com, an absolutely amazing resource!)

So all you need to do is look for minis that fit those parameters; boots, long cuffs, high collar, belt and the trademark yellow stripe.  These are the primary elements (minor details can be overlooked.)  There are many HC minis out there that fit this pattern.

Here is a selection of minis I put together by simply walking into the next room and rummaging through my collection. 

One of the things you will need to consider is how skin tight you are willing to allow in your minis.  A lot of superhero minis come wearing spandex tights (duh,) which can look silly on the men (of course, that is simply expected of female vault dwellers, but we'll discuss that later.)  But you can still find characters wearing clothes that aren't too skin tight to look like a vault jumpsuit.  Remember also, that anyone whose pants and shirt are more or less tucked in can be painted to look like it is a one piece outfit, so remove color from your sight when you are looking at minis.

While all that is fine for people who still dwell in vaults, many of your characters may have been out of the vault for some time.  In that time, they will have modified their outfit, adding bits of armor, pouches holsters, as well as showing signs of repair.

Armored vault suit, anyone?
(Picture again from the wonderful folks at Fallut.wikia.com)

What this means for you, the modeler, is that the minis don't need to look quite so perfectly matched.  If there is a feature on the mini you don't like, or that makes it not look like a vault suit, remove it, convert it, or cover it.  

This is where some putty or things from your bitz box can come into play.  Character has a clear lines at the shoulder that show his sleeves are meant to be a different material?  Cover those shoulder lines with some shoulder pads made of putty.  your mini is clearly wearing shorts over his pants? add a pair of holsters and paint the cuffs of the shorts as tie-down straps for them.  Mini has funky patterns on the front of its boots?  Scrape em off and sand down to smooth.  Even if you have never converted minis before, with a bit of experience, you can accomplish amazing things in a short amount of time.

This opens up the field for a lot of minis you might otherwise have overlooked.  Several of the minis above have features you would want to alter before using in your game.  Iake a look at what you have, and try to image how you could change it.

And now, a word about the ladies.  If you start to pick up bulk orders of Heroclix (and I heartily recommend that strategy myself,) you are going to end up with lots of female minis.  And pretty much all of them will have skin tight outfits.  If you are offended by such sexist, phallocentric, patriarchal objectification.... I have no idea what to tell you.  It's sort of the industry standard in the comic book, gaming, and video game worlds.  Sorry.

And that means that the minis you find are going to fit that pattern.  cultural issues aside, this is great news for the modeler.  Because if all the female vault dwellers are wearing skin-tight jumpsuits, you can pick from a very wide selection of minis.  Remember that bare skin can simply be painted Vault-Tec blue, and voila, instant spandex jumpsuit.  So if you have a female mini with bare legs (and believe me sister, you will find plenty,) just paint all the bits (torso, legs and arms) the same color to get the jumpsuit effect.

I reeeally did not have to look long to find some ladies in jumpsuits.

The same advice regarding undesirable features applies to the ladies as does to the men.  So if a mini is wearing thigh-high boots (lots of those,) use the holster trick mentioned above.  Exposed midriff?  Paint over it if there is no molded line on the mini.  If there is, scrape it off or disguise it as another feature.  Or just ignore it, if you are not a stickler.  Lots of heroines have swords and guns, even more so than the male heroes, so weapon swaps should not be a big problem (we'll talk about doing head and weapon swaps for Heroclix minis another post...)

But enough conjecture, how about some examples of the finished product?  The following minis are ones I made for a mini campaign I ran to test out the rules I had made to use the D20 Modern rules for Fallout.  The characters were from Vault 42, another 'holdout' vault that had taken steps in the hope of insuring they would never have to leave.  Of course, we know how well that turns out...

This guy was a Vault Security officer.  He was originally the Punisher, and did not require much more than a repaint.

Same mini from the back.

Technician and science guy.  Note the scanner and laser rifle.  This was just a great mini for a vault dweller, with raised bits in all the right places for painting, even had a Pip Boy.  But he was originally the Hulk enemy the Leader, which means his head was like a foot tall in scale.  I chopped it down and resculpted some hair from putty.

Science guy from the back

My wife's character, the medic.  A pretty uninspired mini, she was originally a SHIELD trooper, and because this was a quick campaign, I did not even stop to fill in the gap on the arm.  What an awful husband I am.

My favorite.  I actually did this one after the campaign had ended (we were toying with continuing it, but did not in the end.)  The computer/tech guy, he made some... questionable decisions during the campaign, usually without consulting with the party.  So I designed this vignette to represent his proclivities.  The sign was printed out and then glued and weathered.  The switch is an electronic component I scavenged from somewhere.

The tech from the back.  He was originally the Marvel villain Mentallo.  The antennae are made from a staple, that I actually shoved through his head (drilling a hole first) and bent upwards for stability.  Then I used putty to make the ear cups.  I think it gives it a cool, retro look.

So there you have some advice on making vault dwellers.  I hope this has been of some use to you.  Next time we'll look at how to make raiders, and have some real fun!

Modern Civilian Vehicles For 28mm Minis?

When using vehicles in a 28mm game, there are several approaches one can take.  Now the first thing you need to consider is whether you want to use 3D models and minis, or simply use 2D representations of vehicles.  There are plenty of websites and products (like worldworks.com) that provide printable tiles to represent a wide array of vehicles for your game.

But if you are going to do that, you probably wouldn't be on my blog, so let's get to the good stuff: miniature cars!  But even once you've settled on 3D model vehicles (like a real man,) there are a number of considerations.

Firstly, if you are playing in a game that uses a grid or precise measurements, specific vehicles are meant to take up a particular amount of space (2 squares wide by four squares long for most cars in D20 Modern, for example.)  So you could simply use a miniature vehicle or other stand-in that covers the same footprint.

The other approach is to match your vehicles to the size of the minis themselves, for aesthetic purposes.  A 28mm mini on a 1" base is larger than the five foot by five foot space it is supposed to be occupying.  So the vehicle that uses the presumed scale of the figures will look too small for them.

Of course, the best plan is to fulfill both criteria and find some models that look appropriately sized when standing next to your minis, and have footprints appropriate for the measuring system of your game.

Now this brings up the subject of scale.  I need to mention two important facts about scale measurements for those not too familiar with using them.  Fact number one is that for models, the scale is given in a ratio beginning with a '1,' which stands for one inch.  Thus a 1:60 scale mini is made to a scale where every inch on the mini represents five feet (60 inches) of the real life version.

The second fact about ratios for models is that they are total crap.  If you are buying an actual, plastic model kit from an established company, you can expect realistic measurements that match reality.  But if you are buying a line of toys, you are pretty much eyeballing it for yourself.  So ignore what scale is actually listed and instead hold one up to a mini (you always carry one when you go shopping, right?) and see how it looks.   Then check the footprint and see if it fits closely enough.

All that is fine and dandy you say, but where to find these vehicles?  Well lots of other sites (usually tabletop wargaming sites,) will give you lists of where to find military vehicles for modern games, and mention civilian vehicles as an aside, often summing it up with 'find some dollar store toys that look right' without much helpful info.  But I don't need military minis, I need civilian vehicles, so I will do what I can to help you track those down.

Of course, the whole 'find some dollar store toys that look right' advice is still pretty spot on.  There are tons of good cars (often with those 'pull back and let go' motors inside) in drugstores and dollar stores and Walmart and so forth.  But you can never be sure of finding anything useful.  The best you can do is check out the toy aisle whenever you are in or near such a place and occasionally you get lucky.

Here is a truck of appropriate size that a friend of mine saw at a drugstore one day and picked up for me.  

If you have utterly abandoned the idea of using appropriate sized vehicles, you can always use Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars, which are nowhere near large enough in appearance or footprint, and make your scene look tawdry and cheap.

You're better than that; don't do it.

The first brand name that normally pops up in online discussions on this subject is Corgi, who apparently make tons of cars in the right scale.  But that is because most of those guys are Brits, and I live in America, and I've never found any Corgi cars in my area at least, so I can't speak to that.

There are a couple of lines from American companies in the appropriate size however.  Jada is a manufacturer that makes many brands, two of which I have personally found to be well suited to gaming needs.  Both are listed as 1:64 scale, which is technically the same scale as Hot Wheels, but they are nowhere near the same size, so there you go.

The first is their LOPRO line, which features high end sports cars and tricked-out street machines.  They are not super cheap, running about $5.00 or so for a single car, but are very well detailed and painted.  But their selection is always limited, so I have never purchased one of their cars.  When running games set in downtown detroit or the post apocalyptic wastes of Fallout, one rarely sees a need for a 2009 Corvette Stingray concept car.

But their other line of note is called Hero Patrol, and is a line of extremely detailed and realistic police vehicles with authentic police markings from across the country.  They are like $3-4 and I find them at Walmart.  The scale is good, and they have opening doors and other features.  Now they are all modern cars for now, but I am hoping they do some retro ones in the future for Fallout use.

This is the best choice if you need cops in a modern game, especially if they have the city/state your game is set in.  But that's only cops, as they are all clearly marked and have push bumpers and such.  You could strip them of all that and repaint them, but there is a limited selection of police cruisers (unless you want to populate your town with nothing but Chargers and Crown Vics.)

That being said, I did pick up a CIA SUV that was black with CIA labels all over it.

Here's a stock photo from the interwebs to show how it looked originally.

I simply used some nail polish remover and some Q-Tips to remove the decals, and now I have a nice, plain black SUV for use in my games.

Except for those damn little flag symbols, they just wouldn't budge.

The nail polish remover will remove graphics and decals, but not the shiny enamel coating directly sprayed to the metal.

M2 is another company that makes tons of collectible cars, with great amounts of detail.  Most are in the 1:64 (Matchbox or Hot Wheels scale) but some are on the hefty side, and can pass as a larger scale. This is one where you are simply going to need to eyeball it to match the minis.  They mostly make classic cars (good news for Fallout gamers, but more on that later...) with some interesting 'specialty lines.'  Worth noting is that they do a number of tractor trailers that are nearly the right scale, which can otherwise be hard to find.  M2 prices run about the same as the Jada brands, with the trucks being much higher.

But the best source for readily available, appropriately sized cars?  Cars.  As in the diecast toys from the Disney/Pixar films of the same name.  These are 1:55 scale, more or less perfect for 28mm minis

Here are a couple of (modified) Cars diecast line cars next to some minis for scale (ignore the giant ants.)

They are readily available in toy stores or on ebay, are relatively inexpensive, and have a wide variety of models to choose from.  All in all, you really can't find a more reliable source for the price.

There are a few cons to consider however.  Firstly, they are heavy, die-cast metal bodies, so don't count on being able to cut them up with your trusty craft knife or hobby saw.  If you want to modify one, you can only really do so by adding to it, rather than cutting away.

Secondly, There are some pretty wide scale differences between some vehicles, meaning that some will end up being a bit smaller than the 1:55 scale of the rest of the line.  As with any issue of scale, the best thing to do is always look at each vehicle and compare a mini next to it if you can.

The pickup on the left is pretty much spot on in scale with the 28mm mini (heroclix,) while the four door sedan on the right ends up looking a little anemic (look at the size of the doors, for example.)

For some cars, the scale problem is due in large part to smaller wheels.  "Acer" the Pacer for example, has a body that is only slightly undersized, but has these tiny little wheels (like Hot Wheels size,) that makes it look far too small.  I plan to get some better sized ones and swap them out (since I am using them for gaming terrain, I don't need them to roll,) and make it a much better fit.

With larger wheels, this guy will fit in better with the other cars on the line.

One of the great advantages of these cars is that they come prepainted.  I work in acrylics, and don't own any enamels any more, which is what you would want to use for cars like this.  So if I can find a car in the color I want it to be, I will simply leave it that way as best as possible.  But if a car has graphics on the outside (like racing numbers or flames,) these can often be removed with some nail polish remover (acetone) which takes it right off for most cars, leaving only the shiny paint job underneath.

Here are two copies of 'Darryl Cartrip.'  On one, I have used nail polish remover to strip away all the racing numbers and other markings, leaving only the flame job.

This is an awesome 2-pack of Tex Dinoco and Mrs. The King.   I wanted to remove the brown cow spots from the top of Tex.

Oops!  I didn't stop to think that both the white and the brown were painted on after the gold flake undertone.  So now I have an all gold Cadillac Coupe.  But since it was for a bunch of vampire pimps, that kind of works out fine anyway.

If you do find yourself needing to repaint a car, you can either use your regular spray paint and live with a matt finish (fine if you are using them as junked vehicles,) or pick up some Testor's auto model spray paint at your local hobby center or Walmart.

Perhaps the biggest, but not insurmountable, challenge is the facial features.  Being anthropomorphized vehicles, they all have eyes and mouths to get rid of before they will look appropriate for the tabletop.

On many, the eyes are merely painted on the flat windshields, meaning you can simply paint over them and leave a smooth surface.  But some, usually the ones where the windows and windshields are part of the metal shell, actually have the eyelids sculpted on.  The metal construction makes it pretty much impossible to sand easily (I guess you could use a sanding wheel on a Dremel, but why go through that much hassle?) so your best bet is to use putty to fill in the recessed part and make a solid surface and sand that down smooth.

Here is a work in progress shot on the aforementioned vampire pimpmobile.  I have added putty to make a more or less even surface, and now I need to file it down (carefully, so as not to damage the paint job.)

But the real challenge is the mouth.  Characters have their mouths on the bumpers or grills of the vehicle, and are almost always part of the metal body, making sanding them down near impossible.  Some are fortunate enough to have small mouths (look for angry characters!) which make them easy to fill in or cover over.  The aforementioned Pacer had a narrow little line for a mouth, and I simply made a front license plate over it to conceal it, as you can see in the pictures above.

Others can simply have their mouths filled in with putty and then sanded down, but may still look lopsided because the bumpers are often shaped around the mouth, leaving an uneven shape.  You can sand the metal somewhat, but you still may end up having to simply construct a new, larger bumper out of putty to cover it up.

Here's Bob Cutlass (get it?) who has no front bumper and a winsome smile.  Can't have that, now can we?

I apologize if this picture is unsettling, I am not taking him hostage or anything.  I used putty to construct a complete bumper over the mouth.  Now I simply need to putty over the windshield and paint both.

The finished product: a sleek (generic) sports coupe.

Mater here is an extreme case.  To start, he had no hood, only his exposed engine.  But worse, he had those horrible (and offensively stereotypical as a Southerner,) teeth that simply could not be filed down.  I used putty to build the hood and made a (not great) grill to cover the teeth.

The finished Mater, repainted, and with a better dome light added.  Note that his  windshield was flat, so I simply had to paint over it.  This was my first attempt at painting glass, all future ones were simply painted grey or black.

Here is another Mater, called "Brand New Mater" because it is blue and has a hood.  But those damn teeth were still there, so I made a gril out of plastic mesh and a bumper out of a piece of Plastruct bent into shape with a candle.  I also converted him into a pickup by removing the tow gear and making stake sides out of craft sticks and coffee stirrers.

A standard Cars car runs about $4.18 at Toys R Us, and $3.88 at Walmart.  They are also available in two packs, or other collections, and you can always find them on ebay.  Collectible status can be a problem, and sometimes the car you want (I sooooo badly needed the Sheriff for a '50s adventure!) is rare, and may be too expensive for your budget.  But they rerelease them all the time (which is why I find the Sheriff all over the place now.)

I have seen them on clearance, and I often find them at the discount stores like Big Lots, so stock up when you see them!  If I have one complaint, it is that the bulk of the line are race cars, and there are not enough vans or pickups.  But all in all, I cannot recommend these vehicles enough.

One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Primary Heat Exhaust Interchange Unit

Any miniature modeler will tell you that to be any good, you need to have a steady hand and excellent focus.  But I think the best ones (or at least the poorer ones,) will tell you it takes vision; the vision to look at something and see what it could be.

And that's why I have so much random garbage in my collection.

I don't mean 'garbage' as in things of little worth, I mean garbage, detritus that sane people throw away because it has no real purpose or value.  Many modelers (especially those who build terrain,) begin to collect and hoard weird looking bits for use in a project.

Sometimes you find something and say "wow! that's just what I need to complete my project."  But all too often, what we actually say is "wow!  that thing looks cool, I will hold on to it in the vain hope that one day I will undertake some project that might utilize that piece."

These are the end caps of giant spools of construction paper  that they use at my school.  Can you believe they were going to just throw these away?  I plan to turn these into some kind of industrial turbines with catwalks all around them, or starship thrust nozzles.  Someday...

And so it goes into your 'bitz box,' a term that comes from the fine folks at Games Workshop, about whom there enough opinions, and I can add nothing useful.  More likely, you may end up putting it into one of several bitz boxes, both because you subdivide them by topic (mini pieces from sprues, extra vehicle parts, or terrain elements,) and because you accumulate so much over time.

You might even have to start sorting out your bits into little drawers...

Of course, the first rule of modeling is to never throw anything away.  When you have a model kit, wheher it be a model of the U.S.S. Nimitz or a unit of Catachan Jungle Fighters, the box comes with more pieces than you are likely to use.  Aircraft models, for example, usually have options for building them with landing gear extended or retracted.  If you build it retracted, so that you can hang the model for display as if in flight, you have some very useful landing gear pieces leftover.  Miniature kits will inevitably leave you with extra heads, arms and accessories that can be used again in the future.

But then there are things that were never meant to be used in modeling.  Things all around you can be pur to a new use (think of it as recycling,) simply by looking at them in a new way.  That is the real trick; being able to look at a single object and run through multiple permutations of how it might look in a different context.

Is this just a cap from a tube of toothpaste?

Or is it merely waiting for a quick coat of silver paint and some scrap paper to become a trashcan?

Once you have developed 'model vision,' which can be viewed as either a gift or an illness, you start to see physical objects as disparate elements, and try to see how you could use it to represent something in 28mm scale.

Now to be sure, you needn't ever collect such things; the internet is vast, my children, and there are manufacturers out there that have cast nearly anything you can imagine in lead, pewter or resin.  And if you are able to pay their price (pretty much never cheap,) you can have all the sci-fi control panels and generators, modern era furnishings and soda machines, or stone altars and dungeon grates for fantasy games that your heart could ever desire.

But for those with vision, those with creativity, and for those with children and tight budgets, there is the fine art of making your own stuff.  But to do that, you need raw materials.

This means keeping your eyes open.  Hardware stores are a great source of bitz (other terms for pieces that are there to make a model look good are gubbins, greeblies and mulch.)  washers, odd nuts and flanges (heh heh, he said 'flanges,') can all be used to create just the look you are going for, especially of you are going for a sci-fi piece.  We always expect sci-fi or other high tech setting pieces to have lots of doodads all over it, so slapping a small round washer here and there, or a section of grating made of window screen can go a long way.

Likewise craft stores can be treasure troves of bits.  If you have not been to a craft store to check out what they have in the bead section these day, you really should.  I picked up a multipack of round wooden beads of various sizes, and have put them to use as everything from the globes on a street light to the eyes of a shoggoth.  My next plan is to use the larger ones to make eyebots and Mister Handy robots from Fallout.  Even decorative buttons from the fabric section can sometimes be a great addition to any project, either as wheels, shields, or even wall decorations.

Have a Ghost Rider mini but want it to be a normal biker?  You're gonna need wheels that aren't made of fire.  Enter $1.29 bag of round shiny beads and voila!  Just paint the beads as tires and you're ready to hit the road.

And don't forget the wooden crafts section.  Those little bags of wooden shapes have thousands of uses.  Glue them on to become access panels, hatches, signs, or what have you.  ANd they make 3d shapes that can be surprisingly useful.

Wooden flower pot shapes, painted terracotta.  Add the plume from an Empire knights set and paint green, and you have a lovely potted plant for your house.  If it's a haunted house, just use some green pipe cleaner and now it's a murderous, animated plant.  Thanks again, craft store!

And then there is the dollar store toy section.  The crappy, vaguely sad knock-offs they sell there sometimes conceal real gems.  off-market toy producers get their hands on molds from other (often larger) toy companies, and then package a bunch of stuff together, even if it's not the same scale.  So you can find a really crappy 3.5" action figure packaged in with dungeon dressing originally sold as part of the Mage Knight line.  You will find clunky pirate figurines with melted faces in the same package as some really neat little rowboats that work great in 28mm scale.  Take a peek next time you are there (don't be ashamed, we all do it,) and see what you can find, and what it could be with a little alteration.

Some craft store and dollar store bounty:  The columns are of course cake decorations, and the cage is the aforementioned knockoff Mage Knight toy from the dollar store.  The wood barrels in front are craft store barrels (super cheap,) and the larger barrels and crate stacks are from those "Christmas Village" sets, which are indestructible resin, come prepainted, and go on sale after the holidays!

But the best stuff is free.  People throw interesting things away all time (because they are garbage,) and some of those things belong in your bitz box.  Look at things and take away their color.  Take away transparency and context, and separate them into their constituent pieces.  The handle of that disposable razor- couldn't that be a buttress?  Or a light pole? Or a support pylon for a subspace signal transponder?  That plastic support they put in your pizza box to keep the lid from mashing the cheese- if you snipped those long legs down to an even height, wouldn't that make a great table for the tavern?

I made this awesome vault door/airlock door out of some old bases to a board game and a container of ...the type of medication some women take on a monthly basis.  But it looked cool!

Child or sibling has a broken toy?  Look again, are there any parts there worth scavenging?  You should never throw away a toy wheel to anything, ever.  And nearly any piece of electronics probably has a component or two that could look like something cool.

Pretty soon you are looking at things and just waiting for them to become garbage so that you can scavenge them for parts.

So do not feel ashamed or alone, brothers and sisters, just get yourself some sterilite plastic shoeboxes. and remember the modeler's mantra:

"It's not what it is, it's what it could be."