Over the past year and more I've gone back to a hobby I've not touched for years. I last built a model at university in the early 1990's, and last painted a miniature more than two decades ago. I wasn't particularly great at either, if I'm honest. I only got back into the hobby because of Mantic Games and their Kickstarter for the Hellboy Board Game. Nothing like starting small, and this was indeed nothing like starting small! I ended up with literally hundreds of Hellboy minis, and have bought others since.
A scenario popped into my head for the Hellboy RPG - another Mantic Games product that I backed on Kickstarter. I decided that I wanted to push myself, to challenge myself to do stuff I've read about, seen others do, and watched YouTube videos about. I wanted to build a diorama for the primary setting for the scenario - the Cracked Pipe nightclub.
In my head, the LGBQT+ club was in a converted church. It was run by a guy who had been a gangster, but had retired from all of that after finding the love of his life. Moving from London, he opened the club so he and his husband could start fresh. Supernatural shenanigans ensue, and the BPRD are called in.
I started by building a small. Well, small-ish. I used the Gothic City model range from Pegasus Games, now sadly out of production and awaiting a re-release. I built a small church, which is where the diminished congregation from the larger building went after they had to sell-up. That build was moderately successful, and so I was ready to have a shot at the bigger diorama.
I hope the 'making of...' photos that follow answer any questions you might have about how this was built. As well as the Gothic City kits, I bought materials and sought advice from the following companies and individuals:
Sarissa Precision (7 small kits from them!!), Mantic Games (various Terrain Packs), Green Stuff World (for various weird and wonderful little things, including the street lights, bottles and bin bags), Warpainter Scenics, WWScenics, War World Gaming, Model Scenery Supplies, Army Painter (their paints are fab), Firestorm Games (for Gamer's Grass products in particular), and the brilliant, brilliant Jennifer Maddox of Small Scale Lights.
I had not intended originally to put lights in the model, but then I went insane. Having built and painted most of it, I gave in to the nagging voice and tried something that had always scared me a little. Jennifer made it all so easy, with help and advice and amazing products. The results were well worth taking the chance on.
I think that kind of sums up the whole project, really. Take a chance. Surprise yourself. Stick at it through all the mistakes and the results will scare you, in a good way. I am by no means an expert modelmaker. I am not a great painter. I'm still learning loads about both. (Especially to plan things a little better, especially the electrics.) I hope all of these pics encourage you to just give it all a try. It's totally worth it.
(At time of writing this, the Cracked Pipe diorama is still not finished. I will, of course, update as I go along.)
OK, so the above are pics of the small church that I built first. Having learned a lot building the larger model, I'm very tempted to go back and re-do the grass and stuff outside. Dunno. We'll see. :)
Having finished that, I of course decided to go for a model more than three times the size, and a gazillion times more complicated. Here goes!
Sort of.
First, I got distracted and made this...
I mention this only because I decided to experiment with lights. Nothing complicated for my first time - just a green LED battery-operated source built into the base, and fibre-optic string to bring the light to the eyes. I saw a video that said to melt the end of the plastic fibre to make a 'bulb'. It worked, as you can see below.
The reason I wanted to mention the above project was that it sowed the little seed in my mind that grew into a nagging monster that kept telling me that I should put lights in the big model. I talked myself out of it so many times, scared by the enormity of it all. Switch boxes! Power boxes! Wiring! Drilling!
All that fear did was make things complicated. It meant I didn't drill holes and do all those very simple things during construction. Doing it after is a nightmare that I do not recommend. All it does is leave you having to repair and tidy-up paintwork after the fact. Seriously, doing the lighting was not hard, and all the components were bought in one place and were a lot cheaper than I expected.
Don't be scared. Just do it.
Now, on with the show. These pics are in chronological order, showing how my brain jumped back and forward doing various different jobs, starting on the 29th of December, 2020.
I felt slightly bad about breaking the windows.
The pipe in the picture above is what gave the nightclub its name. It became the sign for the establishment.
The base board ended up cut down drastically. Glad I did.
This above was a plastic sheet sprayed with aluminium car paint.
I scored in the edges of the tiles and then gave the floor a grubby wash.
I've seen that plant now in quite a few dioramas online. Mantic must sell a lot of them!
This shipping container is the staff room for the club. I work in video games as a writer, and always enjoy environmental narrative. That works its way into projects like this.
I gave the smokers somewhere to stay dry.
As you can see above, I used little magnets to hold some things on. The model is designed to come apart during the scenario so action can happen on multiple levels.
The portacabin loos were a late addition, as I suddenly realised the club had no toilets!!
The first light. This was done simply with a cell battery and LED. Same for the interior version. Trouble is, this got me thinking how much I wanted to do other lights. I decided eventually just to do street lights. The pit was looming before me.
By now, I got myself a little dust-buster. This sooked-up all the scatter that would otherwise have been lost after the glue dried. Saved me a fortune in scatter through a £15 vacuum cleaner.
I made a complete arse of these paths, starting with this glue accident - the top fell off the tub. Too much all at once, the wee stones I used were too heavy and big, it all went very wrong. Don't do paths like this. Really don't. It worked out in the end, but it was way more effort than it should have been.
The lumps in the ground under the turf are the rest of the rubble left over after the old vicarage burned down so long ago. See?! Environmental storytelling. (And what happens when you spend time doing archaeology at uni and for a summer job.)
Above is the start of 'procrastination gazebo'. My lighting stuff had arrived, but it still scared the crap out of me. I built the gazebo (and a gate) while staring at wires and bulbs.
Then some more scenery bits - including tiny, tiny moss - arrived, allowing me to procrastinate even further!
Oh, alright. I'll start on the lights... ;)
After a bit more gazebo...
The only problem was that, now I'd started, I wanted to do even more lights. I had planned to just do the street lights. However, that had been so simple to do that I went a bit mental.
Not long after this, I did an experimental wash on the gazebo that ended up a complete disaster. The lights are pretty though. I did them this way because the gazebo isn't always on the model for the scenario I'm planning to run. It only comes out at night in bad weather. Can you tell that I gave this all way too much thought?
These are filament LEDs. They are impossibly fiddly and very fragile, but the results are frikkin' incredible at this scale.
I am many things. One thing I am not is neat at wiring...
Small Scale Lights were able to provide a circuit board that created a chase effect on the lights in the club. The result is deeply satisfying, and far beyond anything I'd ever hoped I could have done.
It's now the 30th of May, about a year and a half since I started this. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon!
A nightclub needs staff, a scenario needs NPCs, so I spent some time painting up minis from
Hasslefree Miniatures and others. Turns out that finding decent unarmed modern civilian minis is really difficult. Regardless, and after hacking off guns, knives, and other implements, here we are!
The groundskeeper for the cemetery and the small church.
The boss of the British section of the BPRD. You can totally feel how condescending this guy is.
The Twins, who are bouncers for the Cracked Pipe.
The boss of the business that hires out the bouncers. Also, the Twins' mother.
This guy leads a local gang.
This person is in that gang. It's an odd gang.
Assistant manager of the club, and husband of the owner.
The owner of the Cracked Pipe. Former gangster. Played by Rahul Kohli, if only because I'd love to direct him in something.
One of the staff of the club.
I'm thinking this lady is also part of the nightclub staff. She has the hair for it.
A local who is a constant pain in the ass to the good folks at the Cracked Pipe. He's a failed property developer called John 'Ronnie' Macdonald.
"Why do you call him Ronnie?"
"Coz he's a f###ing clown is why."
The team from the Cracked Pipe.
There will be more minis to paint (I'm looking at 9 at the moment), but here's a few more pics of progress on the model itself. It's now August 10th, btw.
Back to doing roof sections. For the narrative of the model, these sections had to be different. They had to be cleaner, to indicate they were new, and they had to look a little shoddy.
I was happy enough with the results. I've reached the stage with this project where I just want it done. I still love it to bits, but I'm ready for it to be finished.
On to the toilet interior. A friend is 3D printing the toilets and sinks, so I got on with the urinal and the stall dividers.
In situ, the stalls worked out to be quite large. I decided to leave them that way, as the trade-off would be that minis would always either fit in the stalls or in the bit by the sinks. I figured players would likely be in the stalls more often.
Not my best work, but it will do for what's needed. Once the loos and sinks are in, the model will actually be done!!!
In the meantime, I also added a couple of benches and bins. Just a little fun detailing to help add life to the model.
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