Fallout APC 3D Print

I really like the retro-futurism of the Fallout series. I was super excited when Modiphius made the APC available as a printable model so here it is!

Printed on the Anycubic Photon Mono X in Anycubic Basic Black Resin.

Base coats were Krylon Camo Green and Camo Tan. Secret Weapon (SW) Dark Sepia Wash for the inside and used as a liner on the outside. Wheels are Tire Black (SW). Here we see a Character from Mantic Games Star Saga for scale.

The model is detailed with an optional troop compartment. If you don't want to open the thing up there is no need to print the interior compartment.  Play Mat is from Antenociti's Workshop's Designed for Infinity range.

Tabletop view of mantic troopers deploying from the APC to deal with some basic Plague. A-Z Mart is from Antenociti's Workshop Survival range of MDF buildings.

Birds eye view. I'm super happy with the design of the APC. As its a file I'm likely to print a bunch in various states of wrecked for post Apoc scenery as well as a few more working models to supplement my Jailbird convoys... and, of course, to use for Fallout!

Back to the desk!
 

Forward Base: Habitat 5 part 6 wrapping up

Wrapping up Hab 5 construction by adding the exterior steps, some resin details, and the exterior light acrylic.

Antenocitis Workshop have recently released some new steps and stairs for Forward Base which use acrylic steps for a super cool Sci-Fi look. I've not used them on Hab 5 because its a Vehicle Garage and Maintenance building so I rather liked the industrial grate feeling of the stock step but I will be using the new kits when some of the entertainment and command buildings show up on my desk.

As steps go these are pretty easy. I set the stringers in first and then set the steps while there was still some flex in the glue.

There are two exterior personnel doors.  In retrospect I might have made the steps removable for ease of storage between games... that may yet occur if the prove too vulnerable jutting out as they do.  The vehicle ramps are hinged and fold flat against the side of the building when not in use so they are much less of a concern. 

Next up are they acrylic exterior lights.

One of the upgrades to the building included full light brackets instead of the tiny resin caps that are usually used for mounting the lights. I really like the full brackets but they have a small disadvantage in that they have a set length... (Doh! I have, somewhat belatedly, realized I "could" have cut the bracket to alter their length a bit.  It would have been fussy but totally doable... oh well... lessons learned!)

  The acrylic rod provided with the kit was just a bit short of what is required to fully fill all the brackets.  With the stock endcaps I would measure the rod and set the individual light length according to rod supply... except... that I think of Forward Base as a modular system with many interchangeable parts which means, for example, all lights used for all "Hab 1" style buildings should be the same length... so it looks wonky fast if that is not the case. 

Left you see the universal jig that is evolving to cover the various Hab light lengths. 

Right we see... I ran out of acrylic rod! Not to worry I'll swipe some from the next building I open and fill it in. Antenocitis also sometimes has acrylic rod available separately which is super useful.

The fixture count was odd.  There were six brackets but 7 scribed locations for them. Its not a big issue as this middle location is a bit camouflaged by the other scribed details.

You can see here the Bay Doors in their closed position. The resin face is inside the bays as thsi orientation gave the best fit.

I didn't have any vehicles close to hand for a comparison but I did have the Forge World Gargantuan Squiggoth on the table for some repairs. The poor thing took a hit to the tail and some of the Big Shootas during the move here. Its all better now. You can see the Hab 5 is large enough to offer even this big fella some cover!

It also occurred to me that Hab 5 might make a good Lair for a Supers Game... Its a really big space with room for a couple of vehicles and multi level combat internally... food for thought!

 

 

Forward Base: Habitat 5 part 5 "Beyond the Rough Guide"

 

From here forward we're kind of on our own. The "Rough Guide" over at Antenocitis Workshop does not cover the interior catwalks and stairs or the external resin bits. This building is from the Forward Base Kickstarter and may have been redesigned when the range was revamped a while back.

First order of business is to identify parts and dry fit everything... and I mean everything! I can't stress this enough.

Here I've found the stringers for the stairs and set them dry into the sockets.

Here I set in the "T" shaped catwalk. My first surprise came here. The catwalk did not fall into position on  the stringers. Like by a full 1/8". I though wow... I've never had a piece, that I was certain was the right part, miss by this much. Turns out the error was entirely mine. I had assumed that the catwalk was intended to be removable and would just sit, unglued, on the frame but this is not the case.

There is a slot on the back wall that accepts the Catwalk. When in position it settles securely onto the stringers. The fit is tight enough, and the snap effect pronounced enough, that I am positive this is intended to be a one-time operation. This really exemplifies why the dry fit is such an important step.

Next up... the steps. I finally identified the yellow frames as steps... I know... I'm a bit slow... I had wondered for a while what those were... and where the steps were... and didn't put it together until now.

On the plus side these steps were loads easier to build than the usual system Antenocitis Workshop uses. they also are very broad and it looks like models with modest bases could actually stand securely on them!

 

I started by dry fitting all the steps to make sure they didn't need any adjustment and to note the way they fit was supposed to work. From there it was gluing the top step and the bottom step into position and then placing the stringers and Catwalk in position before everything had dried.

Once that step had dried I added in the remaining steps and leveled them as I went. The notches are a little shallow so its easy to get something just a bit tilted... you can see through he bay door that the center step droops a bit. This got adjusted after the picture.

A view of the adjusted steps through the regular door.

With the interior wrapped up it was time to look at the exterior details. Here you can see that a resin vent has been added. The upgrade kit also included resin replacements for the two lower square white vents but these were not perforated and I ended up liking the way they looked when painted so will save those bits for another project.

The large resin exhaust fans are in position. The slotted MDF remains as is on the inside and would have looked fine on the outside but the resin caps are very nice and help with the flatness that MDF designs tend to have.

At this point I began dry fitting the ladders and made a major discovery!

The ladders extended downward well below the level of the floor...

... which allowed me to finally identify what these bits were! These are part of the Hab X Booster packets. Apparently the boosters are for lifting the Habs off the ground and allow for cool stairs etc...

I got these Boosters for all the Habitats but now have to decide which buildings can take them. Habitat 3 for example is a small living quarters Habitat that can be stacked on top of other Habitat types via an MDF clip arrangement.  In that case the Booster doesn't get used.

Fortunately the Larger Habitats like Hab 5 will all take them so there is not decision to make... on with the Boosting!

Now that the building is boosted those pesky ladders fit perfectly. Another victory for the dry-fit!

There are three ladders. This long one, a shorter one that is affixed between the Bay Doors, and a very short one that allows access between the shorter roof and the taller section.  These ladders interact very much with the removable roof panels so care needs to be taken when fitting and gluing these into position. Pay particular attention to the fit of the shortest ladder as one of the roof panels has to be able to slot in under it and the other panel slots in from the side. Just be sure that the lower roof panel is not obstructed, or accidentally glued in... either condition would be a major fail!

The other two ladders can be seen here under clamps.

The bay door ladder has a tight fit between the bay doors and should be used to help position them. I did not do this and ended up having to shave  a bit off the back side of one of the lower tabs to get a flush fit.

For next time... non-functional exterior acrylic rod lights, possibly some functional interior (key fob style) lights, and some odds and ends like resin covers for the etched power couplings.

 Other than some weathering, all that will remain is to make some decisions about the various doors. Non of them are "working" doors and are either stood into place, held in place by compression, or Glued in place.  At the moment I'm leaving these unglued and will revisit them if that doesn't work out in practice. When the range was redesigned one of the big revisions was to replace the non-functional acrylic "Hologram" doors with working MDF/acrylic doors, many of which have a structure that implies a small airlock. 
 

Forward Base: Habitat 5 WiP Part 4 "The Ramps"

Today we move beyond the Rough Guide, add the ramps, and begin sorting the left over parts to see where to go next.

First up... I somehow missed installing this workbench which is clearly shown in the drawings of the rough guide. It went in without a hitch but, due to the nature of MDF, there was a risk that the back right corner would separate and tent up. To reduce the risk of that I used a chopstick to press the corner down.

Beyond the Rough Guide...

This is a first gen Kickstarter version of this building and the Rough Guide doesn't address any of the optional resin components.

I assembled and painted the garage door frames and then glued the resin garage doors to their MDF counterpart to get door textures on both sides of the piece in the same way that I did the vent covers in the walls. Unlike the vent resins, which are slightly larger then the MDF they replace, the Garage Door resin is slightly smaller than the MDF it replaces. This will be tricksey later...

The resin frames don't precisely conform to the opening so I used a Sharpie to blacken round the edges. These small spaces will be recessed once the resin is on and won't be visible. More importantly I intend to use this lip to let the garage door sit in the right position when the doors are "closed".

Above the door here you can see one of the resin Vents. Because the resin is larger than the cut-out it sits very nicely and self levels once the MDF vent is glued behind it. 

Time for more adventures with clamps, blue tape, and Super Phatic glue!

At this point I realized that the Garage Doors were going to be reluctant to sit in the door frames resin side out. The largest part of the door is smaller than the opening and the locker wall just inside the door prevents clean access to the inside lip.  I can magnetize the doors, and will probably have to anyway, so they don't fall over when bumped or jostled, but the doors sit very well in the reverse orientation.

 Onward to the Ramps!

The habitat 5 ramp instructions are pretty clear and easy to follow for building the hinges. The hinges were constructed and here you see the top and bottom view of the ramps.

As always I'll go back at the end and dress up the scuffs from where the MDF parts were removed from their frame. Reaper "Nut Brown" is almost a perfect match to the seared brown edges.

I stood the building on end to line up the ramps the way I wanted and glued the hinges on. The ramps work as designed although I'm gonna have to dirty up the underside... not that the building should be deployed with the ramps in the upright position but... ya never know!

 Extra resin bits...

There are a couple of power supply panels that attach to the outside of the building, three fan covers, two vid screen frames, six light fixtures (I actually need seven but one seems to have escaped during the long Winter pause so I may need to fabricate on from the MDF Frame debris pile)

...and then came the five angular pod things... these took a minute to figure out but once I got looking at the spare MDF pile and how the ladders must attach to the building it became clear that these are Feet to support the building above ground level. Its interesting because these are optional resin bits but the ladders require the building to be elevated or the ladders would have to be cut down to fit.

Not shown are a handful of small resin vent covers that I ended up putting in the spare parts bin because the interior etched areas that they cover were not perforated like the main vents. I ended up wanting to keep the interior vent details all MDF and painted similarly. These covers won't go to waste though! Its always handy to have a few extra bits like those.

Next up... finish painting these extra resins and sort out the remaining MDF installation that wasn't covered in the Rough Guide. This is mostly exterior ladders and interior catwalks. I seem to be missing the steps for the catwalk access so I'll have to take another look round to see if they wandered off during he extended time this sat on my desk. At any rate I think general construction should be finished in one more session and then any additional weathering or detailing will be tackled. There is one spot on the outside of the building that just looks unfinished so I'll have to do something to dress that up.

Back to the desk!

Forward Base: Habitat 5 WiP part 3

 

A quickie today as the resin/MDF hybrid vents get installed en masse.

Lots of clamps!

I think there were 9 small vents and 8 Large ones.

These were fussy to paint even though the scheme is simple.

The end result however was very cool.  The vents show well on both sides and the final glue up went without a hitch.  In the bottom picture the MDF inside vents are visible as well as the resin outer pieces.

The important part is to assemble the vents so that the smaller MDF portion is precisely centered on the larger resin bit and the overhang is even all the way round.  This has the effect of lining everything up nicely with no adjustment required during the clamping.

The White Formula is: Graveyard Bone (Reaper (R)) x2 over Black Primer, Dry-Brush Splintered Bone (R) edge with Storm Shadow wash (Secret Weapon) wash interior areas of vent grilles with Storm Shadow on both large and small vents.

Next up for Hab 5 are the ramps to the vehicle doors and the resin upgrades to that same area.  After the ramps we'll be moving beyond the "Rough Guide" to do the remaining interior details, access ladders, additional air handlers, figure out what to do about the area around the side door that looks unfinished and out of place... and finally... add the acrylic light fixtures to the outside.  That should finish the build except for any weathering that I decide to do later.  That will be done as a batch of buildings to help me keep the effects consistent. 

Forward Base: Habitat 5 WiP part 2

Today sees the construction of the main structure. But first a little more painting of panels and resin bits.

A few of the vent panels were not laser cut so were painted in while painting the punched out vents and their resin replacements/additions. All the vents, windows, doors, etc. were punched out prior to assembling anything and dry fitted to see if they could be easily installed after assembly. This turned out to be true for the vents and garage bay doors but not for the acrylic windows and doors which fit very tightly and were installed prior to general construction.

The MDF vents were glued to the resin parts and painted both sides. You can see the left side are the painted MDF and the right are the painted resin. The white is Graveyard Bone (Reaper(R)) and Splintered Bone (R) over black primer on the resin and clear sealer on the MDF.  On the MDF side the vent cavities are Glowing Mist (R). For the resin Cavities Soft Body Black (Secret Weapon( SW)) wash to clean up the dry brush bleed.

On the interior rear wall of the building the rollup doors for the toolboxes got a thinned  Phoenix Red (R) and the clear acrylic door was placed.  

 This was a tight fit and, in retrospect, I might have positioned it a little differently because this wall gets doubled by the outside wall which leaves this door recessed vis-à-vis the outer wall. Its not a big deal just something to add to my lessons learned when doing future builds.

Now construction can commence in earnest!

Before attempting to slot things together I carefully trim one side of the coating off the tiny tabs.  This coating helps give these kits a smooth finish but it often seems to bunch up when going into slots and the excess has to be cut away afterwards. Cutting off just one side retains the strengthening effect of the coating while reducing the bunching and occurrence of too tight fits to practically zero.

"The Rough Guide to building habitat 5" on the Antenocitis Workshop site notes that this kit is a little complicated and should be approached in a certain way. Believe it!

The first assembly is the Lattice with Beam, Support Struts, Top Side Panels and Roof Guides for the rear part of the building.

 True to its name the guide is a little quirky. As is the usual case with these kits all of the components of the model have very specific names but the parts are not labeled so have to be carefully selected and test fitting is essential. Some of the parts have names that imply the existence of other parts for example "Beam 1" seems to be the only part named "Beam" in the kit so I spent some extra time trying to located the other "Beams" to make sure the one I had selected was actually "Beam 1"

Next up come the first aid stations.  Volgren Troller has very generously supplied a full First Aid Station and sink for each vehicle bay. The Rough Guide was a little fuzzy here. It details about half of building the most complicated side without mentioning the small positional markings on the struts or how the First Aid stations are constructed... and do the same for the other side... which I mistook for a comment about installing the other side wall when it really specifically was referring to the First Aid Stations.  The kit is very well designed so once I started dry fits it became immediately obvious how things were meant to go.

The inner framework, complete with matching First Aid Stations and side catwalks. The catwalks are not only great places for miniatures to lurk but help a lot with giving the tool boxes and other etched features an illusion of depth.

Now comes the Interior Rear Wall.  Once this wall is in position the whole framework can be slotted into the floor.

Floor installed. For as many slots as the floor part has this went together very easily.  The precision of the laser cutting is really great. The Rough Guide helpfully mentions that the floor should be worked starting from the rear wall. The front wall is not yet on and the side walls are still a bit flexible at this point making them a lot easier to deal with in the fitting.

Time for the Front Wall.  This slots into the floor and relies on the flexibility of the Top Side Panels to be lifted enough to get the wall into position.

Next comes the Exterior Rear Wall which completes the main structure.  There ae still a lot of things remaining to do but this was the tricky bit.

Remember those resin vent panels? Add them in here as they get painted. The printed side is reversed to show the etched detail on the other side of the wall panel and the slightly larger resin side allows for the whole thing to be glued in flush.

First picture shows the resin side.

Second picture shows the painted MDF side.

These slide in very easily and add some extra detail. 

Back to the desk to work on the ramps, doors, ladders, interior details etc...

 

Forward Base: Habitat 5 - The Workshop WiP

Forward Base: Habitat 5 - The Workshop

Habitat 5 is a workshop with two vehicle bays that should be an early structure for a new outpost.

The kit is from the Forward Base Kickstarter by Antenocitis' Workshop and this one includes the resin upgrade as well as the other additional rewards from that campaign.

I sprayed all the MDF with a dead-flat sealer and began painting the details.  These kits are pre-painted which does not mean that no painting needs to be done but rather that they have a single color per sheet paintable coating which allows for the painted surface to look a lot less like painted MDF.

You can see here the ramps are on a yellow colored sheet and I've painted in details like safety markings, logos, tools, etc... The floors and walls are grey and roof panels white. 

These are weathered panels which means the laser cutter was turned up to do some light scorching. It makes for a nice effect on the large areas that I leave unpainted like the grey floor of the vehicle bays.

I still have tool boxes and some cabinets to paint in before assembly.

Then came cleaning and priming the resin components and familiarizing myself with the types of parts that might be included. I learned from some earlier builds that the resin parts need to be considered from the very beginning as they sometimes completely replace structures early in the build process.

For vents and doors the MDF is pre-cut so the etched part can be removed and replaced with a resin upgrade. I have removed the parts to be replaced, turned them round, and glued them to the back side of the resin replacements. Now I'm in the process of painting both sides. In this way I get detailed vents and garage doors on both sides.

 

More on Hab 5 next installment... I also got a little work done on the body bags and am starting the ice vending machines and porta-loos for the Post Apocalypse table.

Last, but far from least, The massive Etherfields boardgame arrived just as I was coming up to post!

With a 17.5 kg mailing weight this thing is a real beast.  I'll be taking a look inside after my wife gets home so she can enjoy it too.

Cheers