Sunday 14 January 2018

28mm Bees: Revisited

Introduction

At the end of last year, I showed my recipe for creating a swarm of bees for my 28mm "Wicked Witch of the West" army.  This idea seems to have gone down well, but a couple of responses particularly caught my attention.  Paraphrased, the commenters said "if you did this with a tube or dome then you could place it over a 28mm figure to show that a model was enveloped by the bee swarm".

I found myself returning to this idea again and again; I just couldn't get it out of my head!  Eventually, I thought that I'd just have a quick look online for cheap sources of plastic domes, to see what might be available.  Of course, it didn't end there and so the remainder of this article describes what happened next.


Snow Globes


In the UK, there is a company called "Baker Ross" (I imagine that similar suppliers exist in other countries too).  They make cheap craft kits, often in multi-packs.  It looks to me as if their products are aimed at kindergartens, primary school classes or possibly birthday parties for young children.  However that may be, I discovered that they make a range of small, plastic snow globe "kits".

A box of these snow globes cost just over £5 (including postage).  There were several sorts available (mermaids, princesses...), but as far as I can tell the only difference is the pattern on the cardboard insert for the centre of the globe.  Since I would be discarding this anyway, I didn't really care which version I bought.



Each box contains 4 globes; the globe comes with instructions and is basically a glitter-filled dome covering a plastic insert & base, which in turn acts as a holder for a patterned piece of cardboard.  The idea is that you colour in the card, slip it into the central holder and then fill the globe with water via a plug in the base.


A 28mm African villager surrounded by a swarm of bees

I wasn't at all interested in these items as snow globes, though!  It was trivially easy to cut the dome away from the plastic base.  Once it was separated, it took a little longer to wash out all the glitter and then paint my bees.

The painting was done according to the recipe in my previous article; bees were painted on both the inner and outer surfaces of the dome.  I'm not sure if painting them on the inside (which was certainly a bit trickier) helped to add to the impression of depth or not.


L: spray varnish.  R: brushed-on acrylic varnish

When the bees were dry, I varnished the dome.

My first attempt ruined the model: I used my normal aerosol satin varnish and the dome went completely frosty!  I'm not sure that there's anything I can do to save this piece; I've tried re-varnishing it lightly (which sometimes works), but it remains completely opaque.

Fortunately, I had several more domes available.  For my second attempt, I brushed on an acrylic varnish.  This hasn't compromised the transparency at all, though on close examination the brush marks are evident.  It'll do...


Conclusion

At 50mm wide and 55mm high, these domes are easily large enough to engulf most 28mm figures (excluding pikemen, horses, or models who are waving exceptionally heroic weapons in all directions).  So, they will work as I designed them to do.

Of course, I don't have any immediate plans to use swarms of bees to engulf models in any of my games.  But I could!



Finally, I now have several base remnants, as can be seen in the picture above.  I'm racking my brains to think how they could be used; so far all I can come up with are dungeon doors (or secret doors in fireplaces, as seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)!




22 comments:

  1. Great idea using the snow globes, and I think they've worked REALLY well :-)
    As for the spray varnish, I had a similar disaster when I matted down some diecast cars - the plastic windows all frosted exactly the same way. I'll dig one out and try your re-varnishing trick and see if it works ;-)
    Just a suggestion for one of the base components, how about some sort of "portal"? If you paint the base and frame, then use inks or washes for a translucent effect??

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    1. I suspect that there has been a chemical reaction between the plastic and the aerosol varnish I wasn't able to revive my globe by re-varnishing and your car windscreens are probably similar material. But it's worth a try anyway - you never know :-) .

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  2. Definitely nabbing this idea for my own games! Top stuff

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  3. I am chuckling but I seriously do like the idea.

    Well executed as well. Nice one mate

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    1. Thanks, Clint. This seems to have gone quite a long way from a casual comment :-) .

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  4. Brilliant I don;t know in what game I would use them but I love the Idea - Perhaps force fields and the like. My modern African Congo games might just see me pinching the idea :-)
    Cheers
    Stu

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    1. Bees certainly have a long and proud history of involvement in African warfare, if the Battle of Tanga is typical :-) .

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    2. I think Stuart may be onto something here. We've had encounters with various jungle creatures during games of Congo.
      Angry bees could offer some variety from the usual fare of lions, crocs and gorillas.

      I can also see these getting an outing when a peril gets triggered in Pulp Alley.

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  5. Marvellous stuff, Colgar6 - the dome makes the bees look awesome!! As for the frosted one, I'd be tempted to attach a spider on top of the dome and then it'd look as if the frost is actually webbing and the bees etc are caught in it. just a thought?

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    1. Nice idea for using the frosted dome :-) . I think it's probably not worth the effort, though.

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    2. On seeing the frosted dome my first thought was that the swarm had been smoked (old beekeeper trick).

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  6. Noce work, Colgar. That was exactly what I had in mind when I suggested it and those snow globes are a good find, as I've been looming for suitable and inexpensive domes for use as forcefields, etc. Lime Simon says, the firosted dome coyld be the results of a web spell or alternatively, a smoke bomb.

    Regarding the inserts, could be used as already suggested or suitably painted, as soell or supwrpower effects, like a wall of ice, wall of fire, etc. Or palisades.

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    1. I would probably have gone for a smaller dome if I could have found one, but this type of kit isn't made in very many sizes, it seems.

      Thanks for the suggestions; they're all food for thought :) .

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  7. Well done in the execution of a great idea made even better - I'm truly impressed. Their use to me was immediated as one of the perils in Pulp Alley - Wasps or Bees nest for eample and the consequence of a failure!
    The other opaque version of course is similar for use in a snowstorm (Or even a Frostgrave trap ?).

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    1. I was indeed thinking of using this as a peril in Pulp Alley :-) . Everyone knows that bee swarms are dangerous, especially when it's tropical killer bees (mua ha ha!).

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  8. This is excellent. Shame about the frosted one but as others have suggested - smoke bomb? The smoke that beekeepers use to tend their hives?

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    1. Well, I'm not too upset about the frosted one. The material cost is trivial and although it took maybe 1 hour of my time to make (and 5 seconds to ruin!), at least I learnt from the experience.

      After all, I've still got another two domes that I haven't touched :-) .

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  9. If you are familiar with the book "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" then you could perhaps paint up a character named Hugh, whose 'power' involves being able to control bees. :)

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    1. Hmm, that's my name and I am a bee master :-) - but I didn't go to that school. At least, I'm not at liberty to say that I did...

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  10. Lol what a great idea. It looks very effective as well. No idea what to suggest for the frosted dome. Have had it suggested to use olive oil on figures where frosting has occurred but not to the extent the dome is frosted.

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  11. Excellent modelling - your resourcefulness knows no bounds.

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