Checking Out Your Own Self

[Angel Barracks]

Do you ever set up all your models and just look at them?
I used to set up my 6mm naps and move them around into interesting positions and admire/imagine.
Same with my 6mm sci-fi to a lesser degree.

Not done that yet with my 15mm fantasy though, I suspect once I have more scatter terrain for the town then I will, as yet I think maybe it would be unfulfilling as it is still quite bare..

Of course if I actually played some games then maybe I would not see/feel the need to be just looking…

[Deleted User]

Angel Barracks wrote:

Do you ever set up all your models and just look at them?

 

In what’s a visual hobby, it seems to me pretty well everyone would do this.

 

donald

[Paul]

I play with my stuff, but still like setting them up just to admire (and pester my wife with “Come see how cool this looks”).

This is especially true when a new terrain project is completed. Its all very nice to build enough jungle bases to cover the dining room table, but you need to see the terrain inhabited by guerillas to see what the effect will be on the wargame table.  And then, since the terrain is set up already, you might as well see what it looks like with some 19th century explorers. And dinosaurs. And Catachan jungle fighters.  So then you’ve seen them with the 28s, so you need to check them with 15s, so you put your 15s on… And so on and on. It’s a nice way to pass the time and helps motivate me to finish painting figures (I find it easy to motivate myself to build something, not so easy to motivate myself to paint figures sometimes).

So the short answer is, yes, I love setting things up just to look. But, at the same time, I can’t see myself ever making dioramas.

Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them!

[Tony Hughes]

Not often. I only have a 1.6×1.2m table and that is also my workspace when folded down so not much space to lay out some of the stuff.

Mostly they are stored in boxes & drawers so I can browse through them but they tend only to see the light of day when in use.

Mostly this is 2mm-10mm armies plus some 15mm DBA – but there are a lot of them.

Tony of TTT

 

[Thaddeus Blanchette]

All the time! It’s the memorynof playing with toynsoldiers that is rooted deep in our praxis. 🙂

We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

[Radar]

Looks at feet, shuffles feet, kicks imaginary stone. Mumbles “might do’

https://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk

[Altius]

Oh thank god. I thought I was the only one.

When I add new units to one of my armies, I like put the whole thing out on the table just to see how things are shaping up.

Where there is fire, we will carry gasoline

[kyoteblue]

Yes.

[McKinstry]

I keep most of my units/figures in snap lid boxes (steel lined box/rubber magnets on the bases) and have been known to open all the boxes for a period/scale and just gaze he says sheepishly.

The tree of Life is self pruning.

[Les Hammond]

I often get some boxes out with the best intentions of putting decals on 6mm turrets but when they’re lined up so neat and tidy I get distracted…

6mm France 1940

http://les1940.blogspot.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/386297688467965/

[Thaddeus Blanchette]

In fact, when I finish an army, I usually take them all out and do a review for the blog.

We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

[Otto Schmidt]

A decade or so ago I bought about  a dozen American Standard Bookshelves with moveable shelves and cut myself extra shelves   so I can make storage cases  with  shelves about 5 inches  high. For these resulting 5″ by 32″ wide spaces I made “drawers” out of wood  and lexan that allowed me to slide them  in and out of these  spaces. The Lexan was on the front so you could see into the shelf which was electrified  and you could see all the minis therein. There were about 8 shelves per case  and the lower 3 feet of the shelf was  large open space to stack up board games and books. So the minis are sort of always on display. These are in my hobby room.

I like to see my minis.

The shelves are quite handy. You can pull them out of the bookcase and take them over to the table , pick out the figures you wish, and then return the self tray to the  case.

They can be made for any case. Simply take a piece of pine  5″ by 12″ and saw diagonally  from two opposite corners to make two right triangles.  On the 5″ side rabbet with a router a grove parallel to the short side and 1/2″ in.  On the long bottom side cut a piece of white faced Masonite  to the size of the shelf. Screw and drill and glue the supports to the white Masonite, and to each upright screw a small handle  to move the shelf around with. Place a piece of 5″ by 31″ lexan in the rabbeted grove and you are done.  I use a top reinforce of a dowel glued in to the sides because my figures are rather heavy.  This  is what I call the carry-shelves.

I originally tried a heating element across a larger piece of lexan  to make the base and front of the shelf in one piece, but it was too weak.

I got fancy  and used address labels printed out with the name of the unit affixed to the base so each unit had its own  shelf and place. The lighting was provided by using those small “under lighting units for kitchen cabinets. I’ve not mentioned above a lot of fuss and fit fidgets I developed over time. For example, a 1/2″ back lip to prevent minis from sliding back off the shelves, and stops here and there, but it works well.

By the way for transporting troops to and from convention I use the 15” white mailers you can get at any STAPLES or OFFICE DEPOT store. To the bottom of these I attach thin strips of cardboard scarphed from any old packing case. These are glued on top of ribs of basswood so that the stand can be “locked” under the lip to prevent the stand moving around in transit. The boxes nest exactly into a larger packing crate, also available from staples so whole armies can be “unitized”  for transport. The lips and ribs in the bottom of the box lock the stands in and I have dropped them on all sides and the stands rarely come out of the guides. Best of all, the way I do it on the bottom it does not prevent the mailer from being knocked down flat for compact storage after the convention or distant game.

 

[Harry Faversham]

Real soldiers ‘train hard to fight easy’… so I frequently have mi’ little warriors out on manoeuvres and combined operations training. Helps you to avoid traffic jams and units masking others from shooting when the dice are rolling in anger!

 

"Wot did you do in the war Grandad?"

"I was with Harry... At The Bridge!"

[Gone Fishing]

I do all the time! My wife and daughters think I’m quite mad.

[Etranger]

Yes, doesn’t everybody?

[OldBen1]

Oh God, all the time.  I’ve made a special portable table top diorama to push the minis around on.  It has storage underneath for quick cleanup.

Display box desk portable by oldben1[/url], on Flickr

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