New Gang: The Santanas

The leader of my Hispanic street gang, Julio, proudly sporting his gang jacket emblazoned with The Santanas' logo

Even though I had painted up nine street gangs as part of my Mean Streets project, something was missing. I'd recently done punk rockers (Indianola Mohawks). I had a martial arts gang (Linden Daos), an African-American gang (Eastmoor Kings), motorcycle gang (Sons of Thor), and a West-side working class white gang (Hilltop Highlanders). However, I had no Italian or Hispanic, leather jacket wearing, "classic" TV gang.

Cruz has tattooed the gang's "S" onto his ample beer belly and keeps his leather jacket unzipped to show it off

So, as I sat looking at the remaining eight figs from my purchase from Casting Room Miniatures, I noticed most had obvious leather jackets. My original plan had been for them to be a heavy metal gang and call them the Head Bangers. However, the chance to do a classic gang with their logo emblazoned on the backs of their brown leather jacket was too good to pass up. I decided to go with a Hispanic theme, and remembering my high school days that rock guitarist Carlos Santana was popular, I decided to go with the gang name, The Santanas!

Margarita looks like she's been around the block once or twice, and "packs heat" to deal with those who give her grief

Once that decision was made, I realized I had a problem. Back when I began painting the Indianola Mohawks, I decided to be efficient and do the flesh tone on both gangs. I did them in a mix of Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic. Oops. They needed to be ALL Hispanic. So, the first project was to darken up the Caucasians and lighten up the African-Americans. There are a range of skin tones with Hispanic people in the United States, of course, just like any other ethnicity. So, I actually liked how the skin palette, so to speak, turned out.

Intimidating-looking El Lobo carries his bat with him everywhere, always ready for a rumble

Next up, I made the decision to go with brown leather jackets over black ones. The Warriors in the movie of that name have brown ones, as (I believe) do the The Wanderers in the more light-hearted movie of the same name. What symbol, though? I Googled Carlos+Santana+symbol and scanned through the hits. There was the musician's trademark, swirly capital "S." There was also a few Hippie-trippy wings in the drawings, too. So, I sketched out Santana's swirly S with wings on it, and liked how it looked. Even more importantly, I was really pleased with how it came out on the back of the jackets!

Ramona takes no crap from anybody, and needs no weapons. She'll wallop you upside your head with her meaty fists!

I had an epiphany, of sorts, while painting The Santanas. And that is I HAVE to use my lighted magnifier when I paint details. I'd always been irked with how the tops of my paint brushed clanked against the mirror as I was painting. In a fit of anger, I snapped off the top half of my tiny, detail brush and was like..."Heyyyy...this works!" So, I think the logo turned out as good as it did because I am using my magnifier religiously on detail work, now.

Mańana's figure began life as a hippie protestor, but I turned him into something more menacing with jewelry chain

Two of the seven figures I was painting did not have leather jackets, though. One of them appeared to have a sleeveless "wife beater" -- sometimes called a muscle shirt. I used paint to turn that into a leather vest, instead. The other was too obviously a t-shirt to do anything with. So, on of the gang members isn't wearing his leather jacket. So, I painted the logo on the back of the shirt, instead. I was tempted, for a moment, to paint Santanas on the front. Then I realized that I am not that skilled to do so. Not even close! The figure has a Rastafarian style haircut, headband, and actually turned out to be one of my favorites from the gang.

Jeffe's sleeveless t-shirt was morphed into a leather vets, and I added a knife to turn the peace sign into V for Victory!

I haven't talked about the actual REAL first step, yet -- silly me! Modifying the figures from Tedious Hippie Scum (one of the packs I bought) or Leather Gals and Boys (the other) into a mostly-armed street gang. The Leather dudes I didn't have to do anything to at all -- bare-bellied Cruz already had a chain, El Lobo carried a baseball bat, Margarita concealed her pistol, and Ramona and Julio brandished their fists. The two hippies needed modification, though. Jeffe was given a knife in his right hand (I guess the two fingers doesn't mean peace, it is "V" for Victory!). I modified Mańana by giving him a length of jewelry chain between his outstretched hands. I was very happy with how it turned out.

In fact, I was incredibly happy with how The Santanas turned out. This will be my last gang for awhile. I now have ten, which is more than enough for the games I'll be running (whenever we get to meet in person to run games again!). Hope you enjoyed The Santanas!

Two Kiosks for my 28mm Cityscape

Smith's Smoke Shack, my latest 28mm MDF building...and there's Mr. Smith in his Notre Dame shirt behind the counter

I often like to modify my 28m MDF Sarissa Precision buildings, but on my latest two constructions, I took that to extremes. I had purchased two of Sarissa's Victorian Newstand/Market Stalls awhile back, and finally got around to building them. One of them I planned to keep as a newstand or bookseller. But what to do with the other one, to add variety? Why not a tobacconist (or as we'd say in modern day America, a "Smoke Shack"?). I liked the idea -- it seemed like something you'd see on the streets of an inner city.

The Morning Crower and its newspapers and magazines (weighted down with resin bricks, of course!)

The buildings went together fairly easily, as most Sarissa products do. Unlike most of its buildings, though, it does not come with a base that the walls slot into. That actually made it a bit trickier, but I managed with no significant difficulties. Later, I would add a styrene base of my own, but not right away. I wanted to keep the bottom open to make it easier to add inside decoration.

Smith's Smoke Shack is a popular stop for inner city denizens, as Ramona of the Santanas eyes the candy jar

Before any decoration, though, was painting. I have to admit, I do dislike Sarissa's tendency to put incised lines as decoration on its products. As I get older, my eyes and hands get less dependable. I often have a hard time painting all those straight lines! I've decided to go back to using my magnifier attached to my painting desk, and took my tiniest brush and snapped off half of its length (it kept banging into the magnifier). My golf pencil sized brush is SO much easier to use with the magnifier, now. And, I am happier with my straight lines now that I am using the magnifier.

The Morning Crower's tacky 3-D 1970s sign features a rooster reading a giant book

I went with a dark red and cream for the smoke shack (thinking Marlboro colors), and for a change, an orange and green for the newstand. After my usual spray priming with Krylon black, and going over it with 50/50 acrylic black paint and water, I painted the two colors on each of the buildings. At this stage, I decided to replace the boring roofs Sarissa provides, and use some corrugated bass wood. On top of that, literally, I decided to do a 3-dimensional sign. These were big in the 70s and 80s (think the Frisch's Big Boy statue). For the Smoke Shack, obviously, it would be a pack of cigarettes emblazoned with the logo. For the newstand, I searched through my plastic, wood, and bead bits, but nothing jumped out at me. I decided since people read newspapers in the morning, and roosters are the symbols of mornings, I would put a rooster on the roof.

Margarita of the Santanas hangs out next to the side door...eyeing the large cans of cola to quench her thirst

Ah, you say, the modifications to the newstands have begun! I also decided that I wanted counters for my newstands. Actually, I added these before I began painting. I used triangular wooden molding as the support for the counters. I'd have a long one in front and two smaller ones at each side window. The counters themselves would be leftover bits of MDF from previous constructions (I always save leftover, "popped out" bits, no matter how small). I trimmed the counters with an X-acto knife to make them angled on each end. With the fancy roofs and the scratch-build counters, I was pretty happy with how the kiosks were looking.

Cruz is a little upset that the Crower doesn't show his favorite comic books in its list of items for sale

But was I satisfied? Of course not! I needed things to put ON the counters! So, I headed off to Hobby Lobby one afternoon. I knew their dollhouse accessories had sodas and various other things, so hopefully some would size out all right. The main thing I was looking for was something small and rectangular for packs of cigarettes to be placed on the Smoke Shop counter. I can wander the aisles of Hobby Lobby for hours, and I threaded my way through the building gathering things and wishing I had snagged one of the plastic baskets. After more than $30 worth of purchases, I had stuff to use as my accessories for the kiosks (and other ideas I had for my 28mm modern city).

 

In addition to the Hobby Lobby accessories, I went online and downloaded images of newspaper front pages and magazine covers from the 1970s. I resized them in Photoshop and printed them off at my local Office Max. I also made several signs for the kiosks themselves. I decided to call the newstand "The Morning Crower" and the tobbaconist "Smith's Smoke Shack." I have been naming my buildings after gaming friends of mine, so it was a no-brainer to name the tobacconist after my longtime (smoker) friend, Steve Smith.

El Lobo is feeling lucky and is planning on picking up some lottery tickets from Smith's Smoke Shack

The newspaper front pages were folded in half, and 4-5 copies of each were stacked up on the counters. Most of the magazine covers were glued directly to walls of the structure (including four on the interior back wall), but I glued copies of Rolling Stone and Time on one of the side counters. As a final touch, I glued a resin brick from a pack I'd purchased at a hobby store atop each pile of newspapers or magazines to keep them from "blowing away." One of my Hobby Lobby purchases was a pack of books from their doll house line. Pretty much everything in the line was oversized, but I glued a row of them to a scratch-built bench and attached it against the far wall.

 

Which reminds me, prior to placing all of these accessories, I wall papered the interior walls. Another of my purchases was half a dozen styles of patterned paper to use as either wall paper or floors for my buildings. I measured and cut each to size, then traced through the outline of the windows while holding them in place inside. This made them very easy to attach by simply painting the inside wall with white glue and placing the trimmed and sized patterned paper in place.

Another of my purchases were tiny glass jars with cork stoppers. I thought they'd make great candy jars. I found a bottle of incredibly tiny, colorful pareils -- used to decorate cupcakes, but looking for all the world like colorful gumballs or jaw breaker candies. I filled two jars up with these, sealing them with a blob of white glue. Another couple jars were filled with the tiniest pop-outs of laser-cut MDF that I had saved. Their dark brown color and rectangular shape made them look like chocolates, in my opinion. See! Don't throw anything away...haha!

Jeffe asks for a copy of the Columbus Dispatch to see if his gang, the Santanas, is mentioned in its pages

While sorting through my MDF pieces, I found lots of slightly larger rectangles that were perfect for packs of cigarettes. That meant I didn't need the beads I'd bought, but oh well. I placed the rectangles in rows on "trays" (also MDF) and then painted them in white and green and red  to resemble cigarette packs. At this point, I decided to add a kiosk patron. I have a handful of 1/72 white plastic civilians used (I think) for architectural models. I took two of the seated ones and created a chair or stool for each using wood or MDF bits. I couldn't resist painting the tobacconist to look like my friend Steve -- down to his dark blue shirt with "ND" Notre Dame logo. Yes, in addition to his bad habit of smoking, he is also a Fighting Irish fan. Tusk-tusk!

Bit by bit, I began gluing down the accessories with white glue. Once I had my miniature Steve sitting inside his kiosk, looking out over his packs of cigarettes, candy, and soda cans, I decided he looked a little lonely in the interior. I put an MDF shelf I had constructed and primed, but never used in a store model, up against the back wall. On the shelves were cigarette cartons -- once again, rectangular MDF pieces painted and covered with printed images I'd downloaded.

Cruz agrees that Smith is one of the smoothest kiosk operators he's run into in Columbus

I am really happy with how these kiosks turned out! I probably spent more than twice as much time on the accessories to trick them out and make them more colorful, but these are the kind of details I think my players really enjoy. Although these buildings won't cover much space on the tabletop (as you can see by the 28mm figures for scale, they will go a long way towards bringing my cityscape to life!

It's done! Mean Streets ready for the printers!

The cover for my upcoming release of my gang warfare skirmish rules

A major reason why I have not been posting pictures of what I've been painting or constructing over these last few months has been my focus on getting my gang warfare rules ready for print. Well, as of today, the proofreading is complete - and the rules are ready for the printer! I will upload them to the Lulu website Friday, and order a proof copy to check over for needed corrections. After that, I'll upload any needed changes and they will be ready for sale!

Back cover with one of Jenny's photos of my miniatures and terrain

The project began in October of 2018, and saw playtesting from August of 2019 to March, 2020. I've had a LOT of fun painting the gangs, creating terrain for my 28mm cityscape, and writing the rules. They are about two months behind schedule -- I had planned on having them available in early April. Still, with the increased school workload during the "distance learning," I'm not that upset about their tardiness.

One of my students created both this inside front cover illustration and the cover art for me

The front cover and inside front cover were created by one of my students -- she is one of the most talented artists I have taught. The back cover, along with lots of interior photos, was photographed by my friend Jenny using my figures and terrain. I thought I'd post a couple pictures of them for a quick update so you can enjoy them. I will post again on here when the rules are available for purchase.

My signature banner image in Lead Adventure Forum advertising our rules

My signature banner image in Lead Adventure Forum advertising our rules

New Street Gang: Indianola Mohawks (and WizKids Gas Station)

The Indianola Mohawks, my newest punk rocker gang, take over the local gas station

While researching the names of manufacturers who make 28mm miniatures that would be good for street gangs, I came up on Casting Room Miniatures. Even though I felt that I had enough street gangs already to run my game, I couldn't resist buying three of these packs. They covered types of gangs I didn't have already, and the figures had lots of characters. So, I ordered them from England, wondering how much extra time they'd take with the Coronavirus lockdown.

Iggy and Julius look around for some civilians to harass and intimidate - I love the hairstyles on these figures!

To my surprise, they arrived within two weeks - faster than my Footsore Miniatures North America order which still hadn't shown up after five weeks (I eventually gave up on them, and got a refund). So, instead of painting Viking bondi warriors, I would be painting punk rockers! The three packs I bought were Street Scumbags, Leather Gals and Boys, and Tedious Hippie Scum. With only five figures to a pack, I decided to break them into two gangs -- punk rockers and heavy metal heads. I split the Hippie Scum bag up, two to each new gang, and filed away the remaining placard-carrying figure for another day.

Ian toasts the other members with his refill on his drink, while Kira says, "Hold on, Ian, this girl is pissing me off...!"

The Street Scumbags would form the nucleus of the punk rocker gang, which I chose to call the Indianola Mohawks. Indianola is a street running alongside OSU campus, north of downtown, and seemed a good neighborhood to locate a gang. Mohawks, well, many of the figure had mohawks, and Indian, Indianola...get it? I did some Google searches to come up with a gang logo, and settled upon a skull with sunglasses and a red mohawk. I also did lots of searches on punk clothes, hairstyles, and t-shirts.

Maybel (with the blue hair) is spoiling for a fight, as is Sid, who has his dukes up ready to rumble

I really liked the Casting Room Miniatures. I did have to give most of them weapons. I took snippings of lead spears flattened with pliers for knives, a wire spear with no spearpoint for iron rods, and jeweler's chain for, well, a chain! I really like how the weapons worked into the figures, and felt they looked natural with the poses. My favorite was how the hippie girl who was holding her hands in the air worked perfect for stretching a chain over her head. In fact, she ended up being one of my favorite figures from this gang!

I gave tattoos, earrings, nose studs or chains and bright, punk rocker hair to the Casting Room Miniatures figures

After looking at images online, I decided all the punk rockers would wear black, with a brighter accent color. The leather jacks and vests would be black with bright silver zippers or studs. The t-shirts, vests, jackets, and Maybel's skirt would get gang logos on the back. However, the t-shirts looked too plain with nothing on the front. So, I looked up punk bands and then added those names to "punk" "tshirt" searches. I picked out the easiest to paint -- a Public Image Limited logo, Dead Kennedys symbol, and Black Flag's logo.

Some of the pieces from the WizKids 4D Gas Station

I spent a lot of time decided on hair colors, too. Bizarre hair has always been one of punk rock's most noticeable icons, so I wanted to do it up right. My favorite turned out to be Iggy's rainbow effect mohawk. I also really like how Maybel's blue hair came out, too. Once I was finished with the t-shirt logos, I decided to go ahead and give them tattoos, as well. I'm happy with how all the extra stuff I painted on these turned out.

Iggy and Sid check out the service entrance of my Sarissa Precision gas station, and more of the WizKids pieces

When it came time to take pictures of the gang, I decided to set up a recent purchase of mine. I am trying to support the brick and mortar gaming stores in the area. One avid supporter of the wargaming scene is Fun Factory Hobbies in Mt. Gilead, north of Columbus. I messaged him on Facebook, and he patiently went through what he had that I might be interested in. I ended up buying the WizKids 4D Gas Station from him. It contains 25 pre-painted pieces, such as pumps, ice and soda machines, propane tank, trash cans, air pump, and more. I may go back and add yellow trim on the pumps so they match my MDF shell station, but these images are straight out of the box.

Sid and Kira help themselves to some ice and soda (with a little liquor in it?), while keeping an eye out

I encourage others out there to support their local hobby stores at this time, too -- especially the
"brick and mortar" ones. I bought a boardgame (Terraforming Mars) from the Guardtower here in town. Dan from Game Table Adventures has some 28mm 3-D printed Viking A-frames for me, too. I essentially decided to spend my state tax refund (around $300) supporting the local game shops. I need to pick up something from the Guardtower East, too -- this week, hopefully.

O'Brian's Pot O' Gold Motel - 28mm MDF Building

The Eastmoor Kings check out the action at O'Brian's Pot O' Gold Motel, my newest 28mm MDF building

Schoolwork has definitely been keeping me busy during our "stay-at-home" time. Another thing keeping me from getting a lot of hobby stuff accomplished is my back injury has flared up, again. Years ago, I herniated a disk while working for the airline. I've kept it under control for the most part in the decade since then, but it has really been bothering me for the last two weeks. I know it is my fault. I spent WAY too much time on the computer -- most of it in a semi-slouched posture in my recliner in the living room. When you add the hours on schoolwork to working on painting miniatures -- or in this case -- painting the MDF building, I aggravated my back. The problem was, it seemed even when I was taking a break from schoolwork I was working on the computer -- laying out Mean Streets, for example.

Full view of the motel, with lift off second floor and roof (with scratch-built sign)

All of this has combined to limit my hobby time in a big way. I will work on school stuff for maybe 40 minutes, then I have to go lay down and stretch out my back. I bought a heating pad to help, but it eats up a lot of my "free time," laying down recovering from the soreness that accumulates when I am doing schoolwork. So, enough excuse making -- it is time to present my latest (and finally completed) 28mm MDF building for my urban terrain. O'Brian's Pot O' Gold Motel is a 28mm Sarissa Prescision MDF building. It is meant to simulate those small, kitschy motels of the late 20th century that have mostly been gobbled up by big chains, nowadays. In keeping with my latest trend, I am naming it after one of our Sunday evening gaming group -- Brian.

Part of my modification - the pillars are meant to be one long piece, but I cut them so one half was attached to each floor

The building was easy to assemble, as per usual with Sarissa Precision. I made a major modification right away, though. The arched supporting pillars at the front of the building are supposed to be all one piece. However, I am so glad I measured them ahead of time, quickly realizing they would make the building too big to fit inside my terrain boxes that I use. So, I sawed them in half and modified how they attached to the building. I also modified the roof, which was simply a flat piece of MDF. I added the trim all around it with square bass wood dowels. I created a sign to sit atop the roof using balsa wood, bass wood trim, paper clips, and felt. All in all, I like the modifications I made to the motel.

The motel with the roof off, showing the second floor guest rooms

The motel would be a small one in the real world, with only four guest rooms. However, it is one of my larger buildings in area, and will need to be split over two of my 13"x13" terrain boxes. The rooms also have a subdivided bathroom, but other than that, it is a fairly simple layout and build. When gluing it together wit Tacky glue, I made use of large rubber bands to hold everything tight in place while the glue dried. The surfaces were prepped in my usual way -- Krylon black acrylic spray paint, followed by a 50/50 mix of black paint and water.

I thought the Kelly green and light gray-green gives it that 1970s kitschy vibe

I decided I wanted a colorful & kitschy scheme for the exterior. If you Google "vintage motels" you see all kinds of turquoise, bright Caribbean colors - you name it. They always seemed to have such distinct names, too. Not the "Days Inn" or "Quality Inn" of today. So, in going with the O'Brian's Irish theme, I decided to do a bright Kelly green for trim, and a light, green-gray for the main exterior. On the inside, I wanted to four different colors for the rooms. I ended up going with a Sky Blue, Golden Yellow, Medium Green, and Burnt Orange. For the bathroom areas, I chose a slightly lighter tone of the wall color of the rooms. One side effect of my black priming method of the MDF surfaces, in essence, is it usually takes more than one coat to give a solid cover of the walls. Three coats, in the case of the yellow.

The stairs are attached to the first floor and are a neat feature of the motel

Next up was the floors. I really like using color-printed patterns for the floors. I toyed briefly with the idea of finding a fabric that would mimic shag carpet, but since the craft stores are closed with Coronavirus, I used patterns I'd printed off with a laser printer at the local office supply store (which is open). For the bathrooms, I chose a black and white checkered pattern and used the same for all four. The other four got either a wooden (or faux wooden) flooring, a patterned linoleum that matched the wall colors. For the heck of it, I decided to put a painting on each wall. I Googled "American landscape" and chose four I liked, gave them a thick, brown border for the wooden frame, and added them to what I needed to print off.

As usual, all signs and graffiti for the building are created in Photoshop or found online and printed off

I also printed off the signs for the building. I learned a few buildings back that my hand is not steady enough to paint the signs. I like the way it looks when I create a sign, or find one online and resize it in Photoshop, then print and glue it to the walls. I also glued graffiti to the side and back outside walls. One touch that I just began doing on my buildings is using Fine Blended Gray Ballast from Woodland Scenics as the concrete areas. The three dimensional aspect of the ballast makes the building "pop" more, in my opinion, and makes it more than simply a printed building made of MDF instead of cardstock.

One of the Eastmoor Kings checks out my scratch-built sign (note the paperclip on the sign's edge)

I knew I wanted to scratch-build a motel sign for the rooftop, but I pondered over how to make it stand up. I just couldn't come up with something for a tripod-like design I could easily do myself. I knew I would use a rectangular slab of bass or balsa wood for the sign, but how to create a stand? I then hit upon the idea of using paperclips, I bent two to be identical, having one arm of the paperclip driven through the top of each side of the balsa wood sign, and another army alongside the edge. Then, the rest of the paperclip was bent to the proper angle and voila! A simple sign. I covered the top of the paperclip with cardstock and the bottom with felt (to make it stick in place on the rooftop ballast). Although it is definitely no frills, I'm very happy with my little sign.

The most unflattering view - the almost prison-like look to the rear of the motel

The final step was to wash the exterior to give it more of a weathered look. I don't always do this, but I am glad I did on this one. I use a bottle I premix of the Vallejo Matte Clear paint with drops of black in it, so I don't have to experiment with the darkness every time. It is fairly expensive, as washes go, so I normally use it only for miniatures. However, I had bought a couple bottles right before the Coronavirus lockdown, so I knew I could mix more up if I ran out.

Close up of the interior of the first floor - note the wall paintings and floor patterns printed off

All in all, I really like the look of this building. I especially like the way the balcony and second story look. I can definitely see scenarios in my gang warfare games where somebody has a rendezvous in Room 4 of O'Brian's Pot O' Gold Motel! Whether to pick up a shipment of something, or take out a rival gang member -- a motel definitely gives me more ideas for missions for the players in my games. What's next on my painting table? Well, I was hoping that my 24 unarmored Viking bondi would have arrived from Footsore Miniatures North America, by now. However, they seem to be backed up and having trouble getting orders shipped, unfortunately. So, I have two new 28mm street gangs primed up and ready to go. So, look for those in the next week or so!

Pack Mules with Handlers in 28mm

My loaded-down mules and their equally loaded-down handlers moving along a path in the forest

So, one of my frequent readers upbraided me for not posting more often during this "social distancing" time. Although I have been spending time regularly on working on hobby stuff, nothing has been finished since my last post -- other than 7 more concrete medians. I didn't want to do another post about that because they look exactly like the first batch of eight. However, Dave and other readers may be happy that I finally did finish something off today!

You can see how many sacks, bags, and other burdens are piled up on these poor pack animals

I honestly have no idea where I obtained these 4 pack mules (donkeys?) from, nor who their manufacturer would be. I did an extensive Google search, but came up blank. I hope one of my readers will recognize them, and I can label them as such. I dug them out of my unpainted lead pile (actually, it's in a very organized wheeled cart, if you're curious...) about three weeks ago, and primed them. However, what with working on the medians, barrels, dumpster, trash bags, etc., I hadn't progressed on them much. Once all of that was finished, though, I began to work on them more wholeheartedly.

The handlers look like French-Canadian voyageurs and Native Americans, to my eye

There are two poses of donkeys (mules?) along with two poses of the handlers. Both are heavily loaded down, which makes me think they are meant to be from the American frontier period -- possibly French & Indian War era voyageurs. One of the handlers looks like a Native American rather than a Frenchman, while the other is your stereotyped, heavily-bearded Frenchie with his cap. So, I painted them up that way, with an eye for them being "generic," and being able to use them for pack animals for just about any period. Luckily, they have no firearms or equipment that would pigeonhole them into a specific period.

The whole line of muleteers make their way through the Eastern Woodlands

One thing they do have is LOTS of bags and loads festooned on them. The handlers are veritable human pack mules (donkeys?), themselves! I certainly wouldn't want to walk around all day carrying what they are carrying. Although this looks very colorful, it does present a challenge to paint. If you paint all of the sacks and such the same color, they will fade together as a blob, and not stick out. If you paint them in distinct and bright colors, they will be overwhelming to they eye, I thought, and look equally bad. So, what I did was to set out all of the faded colors that I have that sacks and bags and such might be colored. The more than a dozen paint bottles were lined up across my desk. I would select one, and then go through the eight miniatures, men and animals, and paint maybe one sack in that color. The effect turned out good, I think. The loads look realistic but not an amorphous blob of the same color.

I used faded colors to show these poor souls have been on the trail for months on end

The handlers I painted in faded colors, figuring they've been on the trail for months and would likely wear the same sweat-faded garb day in and day out. I wanted them to have a very dirty look to them. In fact, when I finished with them, I just had to play a song from Mark Knopfler's latest solo release called, "Trapper Man." It paints a picture of these gentlemen exactly how I imagined them, "...Trapper Man's in from the hinterlands, filth and grease on his clothes and hands..." I decided not to attach a lead from the handlers to the donkeys (mules?) because I wanted the miniatures to be usable without each other, as well. I really like how they came out, and hope they make it to the tabletop one day soon.

What else have I been working on? Well, I have been spending a LOT of time laying out my gang warfare rules, Mean Streets: War in Gang-infested Cities. Sadly, my publishing program, Adobe InDesign finally died. The software no longer works with the latest Mac OS. I got my money's worth out of it, though. I used it while I was editor of the HMGS Great Lakes magazine, The Herald, for years. And I haven't been editor for more than a decade! It somehow made the migration from my first MacBook to the MacBook Pro that I still use for hobby stuff now (my latest MacBook Air is used pretty much just for schoolwork). However, when I went to fire it up, it wouldn't work. So, the long and short of it is I bought a new desktop publishing program -- Affinity Publisher. It has been a slow learning curve using it. Figuring how to do this function or that function isn't as intuitive as I'd hoped, but I am progressing with it. I try to use lots of graphics in my rule book layouts for First Command Wargames, so that makes it slower going.

My proposed cover for my gang warfare rule book for First Command Wargames

Anyway, here's a shot of my proposed cover artwork. I would honestly like feedback on it. Don't be afraid to comment and say you don't like it. Usually, my I fall in love with what I do as cover art, but on this one, I'm still not sure.

Concrete Medians (and Clowns) for my Mean Streets

A car drives quickly past my new concrete medians, hoping to avoid an encounter with the menacing looking street gang

After setting out all of the terrain at Cincycon the other weekend, one thing bothered me a bit as I tried to admire my setup. I had left about eight inches between the city blocks for the main roads. Although I do like my charcoal gray wool felt, and think the fibers in it do a good job of replicating the multiple colors in asphalt, something left me unsettled. That was simply too big of an expanse of featureless asphalt. It needed something 3-dimensional on the road to complete the picture of a city street.

These medians are placed too close to the sidewalk for the photo -- my main streets at Cincycon were 8" wide

I had dismissed the idea of yellow lines on the asphalt -- partly because I hadn't come up with a way that I thought would look good and was practical. Then the idea struck me. What about concrete medians going down the center of the road? And why not fill those medians with decorations -- like trees or flower beds? Fortunately, a vendor selling flower tufts was there at Cincycon, so I picked up three colors (orange, pink, and white with pink) to supplement the purple and yellow flower tufts I had already at home. I had lots of leftover MDF board from my concrete city blocks to cut up into strips for the medians.

Strips of MDF with a flower box created from square concrete dowel sections

Once again, I leaned on handywoman Jenny to cut a section of MDF into 1"x6" strips. I took one of those to Hobby Lobby and picked out square bass wood dowels that I could use to construct "flower box" atop the concrete median. I cut the bass wood up with a craft saw and X-acto knife, using Tacky Glue to arrange them into rectangular boxes atop the MDF. I decided to do a batch of eight first to make sure it all worked out. Doing a lone test one seemed to much of a time waster, and I had a feeling that I would like how they turned out.

Fine blended gray ballast is my go-to for a 3-dimensional concrete effect - as seen in the now-concrete flower boxes

My concrete is made from Woodland Scenics Fine Blended Gray Ballast. I decided to flock the flower box first, and seal it up good so that I would have something to hold onto when I did the flat, top surface of the median. I painted it a light, concrete-looking gray first, then when dry, brushed on full strength Elmers Glue-All white glue. I then poured the ballast over it trying to cover the surface thoroughly. Some places ended up patchy, so I went back and reapplied more later. Once dry, I sprayed it with Krylon clear matte. Next up, I brushed on a 50/50 mixture of white glue and water to fully seal the ballast onto the surface.

Last-minute idea of painting the sides of the medians "traffic yellow" so motorists in my Mean Streets see them better

At this stage, I got the idea of painting the side edges of the MDF the standard "traffic yellow" you see here in America. I am glad I thought of this touch, as you do occasionally see the sides of medians painted yellow for visibility. Plus, it is a splash of realistic color against the asphalt. Next, I painted the top surface of the medians gray, and then followed it up when dry with full strength white glue. More ballast was poured onto this surface. Once again, I sprayed it with matte sealer, then added 50/50 white glue and water.

A line of white glue is squeezed into the flower box, followed up by fine brown ballast as base layer of my "dirt"

At this stage, I realized that for such a simple terrain piece, it was a fairly laborious process to create them. The next-to-last step was to squeeze in full strength white glue into the flower box itself and pour in Woodland Scenics Fine Brown Ballast that I used as my earth mixture on figure bases. Once dry, this is followed up with a Brown Turf flocking from Woodland Scenics to give it the dirt color I use. FINALLY, it was time for the last step. I once again squeezed white glue into the flower box and placed my flower tufts in there. I did two colors per median piece to make it more bright and sunny looking (I know, not exactly what you think of when gang warfare comes to mind!).

The finished medians - each having two colors of flowers planted in the concrete box -- to brighten my city streets

Speaking of gangs, in my rush to get ready for Cincycon I had completed my eighth gang -- the Franklinton Flippos. Named after a Columbus TV clown star, Flippo the Clown, this West-side gang uses figures from the Assault Group. They have two packs with masks, one with clown masks and the other with "anonymous masks." I painted both styles up as clowns, though. To go along with Flippo's costume, I gave them dark blue shirts with white polka dots. I also gave them jeans, shorts -- whatever the figure appeared to be wearing.

Creepy Franklinton Flippos (figs from The Assault Group) hang out next to the median, creating a nuisance

I really like how this gang looks on the tabletop. Some of my favorite photos I took of the two games of Mean Streets that I ran at Cincycon have the Flippos in them. They definitely look creepy. So, when I wanted to pose some miniatures with my new concrete medians, the Flippos were the ones I picked! Now that I have my first batch of eight done, I will probably follow it up with the remaining MDF bases Jenny cut for me (six? eight?). I have the process down, and I have my head wrapped around how long it will take. I'm fairly happy with how they turned out. I think they look better on a tabletop than they do close up in photos -- and certainly better than the plain asphalt street!