My recent dabblings in 6mm Sci-Fi, and the on-again/off-again 2/3mm Sci-Fi project has had me casting around for some ideas regarding scenery, and whilst as the regular reader might have noticed, Hobby activity has been a bit thin on the ground of late, I did manage to source these interesting candidates in Lego via Evilbay....
What could be more futuristic than Bio-Domes, from worlds-in-a-bottle archetypes a la Logan's Run, to the Agri-ships of Silent Running and Battlestar Galactica?
I think these particular examples relate to some sort of undersea diving toy, and most tellingly of course, the cockpit glass of a Lego T.I.E fighter, however when placed on a suitable base, could do duty as protection from the poisonous atmosphere of most Alien worlds.
They're not particularly large, but this example from the outbuildings pack available from Brigade Models looks pretty good ensconced in its 'bubble', I think:
Talking of worlds-in-a-bottle, how about this City base from Mighty Empires - this would certainly go well alongside the 2/3mm Sci-Fi stuff - adds a sort of super-villians lair look to the whole:
The smallest dome, seen here alongside the large MHU from Angel Barracks, with one of those ubiquitous plastic bottle caps for scale, is not going to fit much in the way of habitat, but would look pretty spiffing housing the mutant product of a deranged experiment in a laboratory complex, or maybe a single earth tree specimen the colonists couldn't part with when they travelled off-world:
Given the pocket-money prices these can be picked up for, (or free, of course, if you raid the kid's toy box...) they are never going to be big enough to contain full-on 6mm buildings, but they still scale well alongside some well-known characters from a certain Space Opera:
These are from Irregular Miniatures, and are among a few dozen cool minis I've been inspired into painting up recently, joined as you see below by my version of a unit of Decontamination Troops - Power Armour from Brigade Models, and the excellent Comms set from Michael at Angel Barracks:
Who of course are here to deal with any ugly and troublesome Alien Infestations that they come across - to whit the excellent Drill Worm Nests from Angel Barracks:
I'd like to see any parasitic Alien fauna, or even face-huggers take on these guys, in their hardened Hazmat suits.....
These bases still need finishing off, of course, when time permits, and I keep telling myself that this is all just a sideshow to all the rest of my projects, but I guess only time will tell.....
SWEET!
ReplyDeleteAre the space opera figures from the posh pack?
ReplyDeleteHi Guy, I've tried the same thing in 2mm with the bottom of a 591mm soft drink bottle (not sure what the UK scene is like for those though!), but I painted mine to look like a city in a dome, rather than actually put a city in the dome.
ReplyDeleteRecently though I broke a blue-tinted champagne glass right at the neck, and looking at it, realized it would make a pretty good dome too. Just need to figure out what goes under it (I'll leave this one as glass) and whether it should be for 2mm or 6mm.
Are those space opera figs really 6mm Irregular items, i.e. the two robots, the two white guards, and the black-caped overlord? If so, do you have their codes handy? I've never seen them on the website.
Thanks for the comments guys, glad you like the ideas so far!
ReplyDelete@CJR the champagne glass idea sounds a little expensive! You must lead a very privileged existence ;-)..... although I think IIRC there are plastic 'picnic' versions of such glasses with removable stems out there - I'll have to keep my eyes open.
The 'not' SW robots are NSF8 Robot Mechanic for the R2, and NSF24 Fighter Pilot for the 3P0 with some detail filed off to make it seem more robotic - the 'troopers are NSF9 attack infantry - the other figs are from what Irregular call 'Posh Packs' -sets of character figures in various scales - if you go to their 6mm web-page and look at the index column on the left, click on 'Battlepacks' just under the title, and then scroll all the way to the bottom for PP8 'Sci-Fi robots, heavy weapons and personalities' this gives you a small variety of characterful single figures, although sadly, not all the characters you might want/need - I have a Chewie, an Obi Wan, and a tauntaun rider left to paint up from mine.
Thanks for the codes, that helps - I've never looked at the Battlepacks before, who knew?! I could have gone there rather than 2mm Star Wars.
ReplyDeleteThe champagne glass was a one-off left from when I was a uni student (and has never been used for champagne that I know of - I was using it to hold spare change), but it looks good as a dome. I'll try to get a pic up for twothreesixmm this week.
I'm making some sci-fi cities in 2mm scale at the moment and this gave me lots of ideas. I don't know if you've noticed them but clone wars monopoly, star wars monopoly and spiderman monopoly all have amazing little buildings that are perfect for 2mm sci-fi. You can often 30 or 40 of them for £1 on ebay.
ReplyDeleteHi there - thanks for the comment, I'll have to check those versions of Monopoly out!
ReplyDelete