Trash Bash 2013 - The Computer Mouse Battle

Full details and rules of this years Trash Bash competition are now available here. Last year I built an entry - the Imperial French Aeronef le Louis Daguerre, for full details see this post.

I am still undecided as to whether I will enter this year - for one thing, I don't have a computer mouse.

Check out the links and the fantastic entries from last year - they are very inspirational - scratch-building at its very best.

Good luck to all who enter.

Tony

The Imperial French Aeronef Le Louis Daguerre

Over the last month I have chronicled the development and building of the large French Aeronef, Le Louis Daguerre, see;
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Part Six for the on-line modelling competition TRASH BASH 2012. Full Rules here.

Photos One and Two - Show some of the initial pencil sketches, as you can see the finished design followed these sketches quite closely. The model was influenced by The Cygnet from The Disney film The Black Hole - a model that I have wanted to build for some time.

Photo Three - The Juicy Drop Pop Candy (sweet) containers used as the basis of the hull design.

Photo Four - The same Candy container broken down into it's constituent parts. The labels proved very difficult to remove and in the end, I scrapped the surface with a kitchen knife while washing it with white spirits.

The main oval sections (the candy lollipop containers), the yellow handles and the two stoppers were used, while the top of the lid was cut down for use as the forward gun emplacement. Even the clear plastic bottle (front right) was used to mix up the Klear/Future washes that I painted the hull with.

Photo Five - Construction well advanced. The main glue was superglue and accelerator, while the forward area was an elbow joint from a cheap transformer toy.

Photo Six - The basic construction is complete in this image. The tall mast is a hair curler (from my understanding Mother-in-Law) and the domed top is the head of a knitting needle. Most of the small detail is scratch-built from plastic card/plastic rod.

Photo Seven - As above, although there is a great deal of extra surface detail added from sticky-back plastic labels and small slivers of plastic card.

Photo Eight - Undercoated Grey - Charcoal Grey from Foundry, which was brush painted over a spray paint called 'Makes Paint Stick', which is a clear plastic primer used to spray paint garden furniture.

Photo Nine - painting nearly complete, but still awaiting decals (transfers) and varnishing.

Photos Ten, Eleven and Twelve - The finished and based model. The transfers came from a wide variety of different sheets, the cockerel image on the nose was from a WW1 French aircraft sheet and is a little bit of humour. "Watch the Birdie".

Photos Thirteen - Le Louis Daguerre and Le Fee Verte passing over Fort Kell Ben another scratch-built Space 1889/Aeronef model.

Photo Fourteen - Le Louis Daguerre accompanied by two Martian Hull Cutters, on patrol over the Martian Plains.

The finished model is built to the scale of 1mm = 1foot (or 6mm scale) and at just over 180mm long and 90mm wide (over the propellers) is the largest Space 1889/Aeronef model in my collection. I hope that this post proves interesting and may even inspire others to produce scratch-built models. Finally, I wanted to say congratulations to all that took part in the competition, Very Well Done to all who entered.

Tony

TRASH BASH 2012 - The Results

Roebeast's TRASH BASH 2012 competition results are now out. See this link

My own entry, The Imperial French Aeronef Le Louis Daguerre was not one of the three competition winners, but as you can see the entries were of a very high standard and I enjoyed this little bit of fun.

This early Dagurreotype image shows the only know contemporary image of the observation Aeronef while on station. It is believed that it was taken from Le Fee Verte while on a mapping mission over the great red plains of Mars.

The competion rules (see here) state that there should be five images, three showing the finished model set against a neutral background, one set in a gaming environment and a final image of the unpainted model. Here are the five images I sent.

My plan is to write up a fully detailed building and painting log, but for now I thought that these notes would help.

The French Imperial Aeronef Le Louis Daguerre

Trash Bash 2012

The Le Louis Daguerre is an observation and Survey Aeronef built by the French Colonisation Force, Le Mons, Mars in 1899.

It is designed to house the experimental Dagurreotype imaging camera which uses huge 500mm x 500mm silver coated glass plates to map the wild expanses of the Le Mons area of Mars.

The Nef is designed to go for many weeks mapping the surface of the red planet and has four large chemical storage containers mounted in the central hull. The tall observational tower is designed for 360’ viewing of the Martian horizon.

After some attempts, primarily by the German/Prussian Aeronef force to capture this new technology, Le Louis Daguerre was retro fitted with a defensive armament of two Hotchkiss Revolving Cannons and one 90mm Breech loading gun.

Construction;

Built to the scale of 1mm = 1foot or 6mm scale using readily available 6mm metal wargame  miniatures.

The two main chemical containers are sections of the Juicy Drop Pop container the two smaller containers are from the same candy container – the yellow tops. The forward gun emplacement also utilises parts from this sweet container.

The bow (or nose) is an elbow joint from a transforming toy, while the main observational tower is a section of a hair curler topped with the head of a knitting needle.

The rear or engine area is built from various thicknesses of plastic card on a hull of heavy duty insulation foam. Most of the deck items are scratch-built.

Painting was done over a grey primer and using various acrylic paints and washes. The transfers (decals) are from various sources, but I should note that the main markings are hand painted.

The model is 190mm long, 90mm wide (widest point over the props) and stands 180mm tall (bottom of base to top of flag pole).

For more details see http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/ Trash Bash 2012 labels.

Tony

TRASH BASH 2012 - part five

Firstly - Happy St. David's Day.  Today is the date when all entries should be in, see these rules for full details.  As stated earlier there is no reason why work-in-progress shots cannot be shown, but I feel teasers are best until the entries are officially released.

These two images show the Juicy Drop Pop sweet or candy containers in their component parts. Take special note of the pieces as a number of them were used in the building or painting of this Aeronef. Full details should be available very soon. I hope you like the posts so far.

Thank you to all my followers for making February (my four year anniversary of Blogging) another 10,000 plus hits month.

Tony

TRASH BASH 2012 - part four

This morning I e-mailed my entry to the Trash Bash 2012 modelling competition, see; this link for full details.The competition rules state that work-in-progress shots can be posted, but I feel that this would spoil the surprise! I have however included this single teaser showing two Juicy Drop Pop sweet containers which are the basis of the main hull design and construction.

Further posts will detail the modelling, painting and history of Le Louis Daguerre after the deadline for competition entries has passed. Until then you will just have to wait.

Tony

TRASH BASH 2012 - part three

The French Imperial Aeronef Le Louis Daguerre

Urgent Message

The following telegraph message was intercepted and translated by HMAS Intrepid on February 6th at 0600.

+LD 317 on routine patrol attacked by three uHCs STOP+
+No fatalities STOP seven injuries STOP+
+Damage to P Chem 3 STOP+
+Ret to LMons STOP+
+ Permission to arm LD 317 STOP+

Further enquiries by British agents has confirmed that three Unidentified Martian Hullcutters encountered the Le Louis Daguerre (LD 317) on or before the 4th February in the Le Mons sector (S345/E468) and after a brief exchange both sides retreated and returned to safety.

Workers at the main Aeronef Port, Le Mons collaborate the initial telegraph message and add that one of the chemical containers has been replaced.

It is also believed that two Hotchkiss revolving cannons and one 90mm breach loading cannon have been fitted to the Le Louis Daguerre.

Martian Pirates are continuing to harass all Colonial Aeronefs with the increased success having the effect that single craft patrols and merchant Aeronef's are rare.

More to follow. See Trash Bash 2012.

Tony

TRASH BASH 2012 - part two

The French Imperial Aeronef Le Loius Daguerre

A short history

Part two;
The French inventor Loise Daguerre was instrumental in the discovery and development of what is today called photography. The Daguerreotype was a process of capturing black and white images on silver coated glass screens after being exposed and later processed. The drawback was that the early screens were fragile and if clumsily handled were prone to breaking. The image was displayed in a number of ways - firstly re-exposed and processed onto light sensitive paper, or projected through a 'magic lantern' onto cinema style screens. There was also the dual or 'realistic' view which had two similar images situated side-by-side and viewed through a spectacle type apparatus called a Not-Kermode which gives the illusions of a 3d image.

The French military establishment were keen to see if this process could have any military uses and Daguerreotype artists were embedded with existing (or traditional) artists to capture for posterity the images of war. These embedded units were successful in recording both the horrors and heroism of war and in illustrating war journals. But I digress.

The growing conflict on Mars and the inability of the French Foreign Legion to quell and maintain order in their newly formed city-states led to a number of military suggestions as to how best to proceed. One suggestion was to properly map the different areas of the Le Mons area of Mars - The French Sector and the new Daguerreotype process was seen as the perfect solution. Developments in faster exposure times and  lighter glass plates also added to the race to develop an Aeronef-based imaging facility, hence the commissioning of Le Loius Daguerre (named after the inventor of the process).

Operational issues demanded a huge Aeronef, the largest ever built by the colonising powers on Mars to both hold the huge amounts of chemicals needed for the development process and to house the largest Daguerre camera ever built.  The camera was housed in the nose or bow of the 'Nef' and pointed both downwards and rearwards for taking images and replacing the huge glass screens. These screens were 500mm x 500mm and required a number of trained operators to position and replace, however the success of the first mapping expedition quelled all fears as beautifully detailed images were sent back to HQ. The real bonus (and one that was kept secret for many years) was that when these images were taken at fist light or sunset, they highlighted a number of topographic irregularities which when explored yielded sites of special and scientific interest, some of which later produced finds like the Golden Sun which now resides in the Paris Collection.

The process of taking these huge images required a great deal of very specialised men who would painstakingly site Le Loius Daguerre over the area to be photographed and then when all power and services had been turned off (this was required to stop camera-wobble) would expose the glass plate. Processing required a second group of engineers who would 'fix' the images and then safely store them for later examination.

Of special note was the interest (and lack of interest) shown by the other colonising countries. Germany in particular were intent on capturing the Aeronef and examining the camera and chemicals used, while Great Britain showed nothing more than a passing interest - which was due in the main to the fact that they were experimenting with a similar process - The Fox-Talbot camera and plates on board the Aeronef HMAS Canary.

More to follow.

Tony

TRASH BASH 2012

I just couldn't resist it!  With all the part painted miniatures and half-way completed projects on my workbench I have decided that I just have to enter the Roebeast TRASH BASH competition to build a 'Scratch-Built' model from a Sweet or Candy container.

The rules state that I can show images of work-in-progress but I am going to wait until the 1st March (the entry date) before I post any. However there is no reason why I cannot tease you;

The French Imperial Aeronef Le Louis Daguerre

An Observation and Survey Nef currently serving at Le Mons, Mars (French Sector)

Part One;

Ten years after the first human set foot on Mars the Colonial Land-Grab is in full swing with Great Britain, Germany, The United Stated of America and the Belgian Republique leading the assault. Japan and France came late to the table and have never achieved the victories of the earlier states. This is all about to change with the French Government finally agreeing to build both the largest Astronef - Le Gloire and now Le Louis Daguerre an observation and survey Nef to explore and map the Le Mons area of Mars.

The Loius Daguerre is one of the largest Nef's ever constructed on Mars and was built to house the newly developed Daguerreotype Camera which uses huge half-metre square silver coated glass plates to take images of the Martian landscape and 'map' the built up areas.  The process needs huge reserves of dangerous chemicals which are housed in two large and two smaller containers built into the main hull. Early experiments have proven than an area of five square kilometres can be successfully mapped in less than three days, thereby cutting down on man-hours and the risk of being assaulted by rival States or marauding Martians.

The new technology of image capture is causing quite a stir amongst the other Earth-Bourne Governments and Le Louis Daguerre is now accompanied by at least one French Aeronef when ever out on operation's. It is rumoured that The Kaiser has raised a bounty of one thousand gold crowns for the capture of the Loius Daguerre - a rumour that is having quite an effect on the fleets of Martian Pirates.

More to follow.

Tony