Daiso ¥100 shop run while waiting for Emily. 6 more scaffolds, two not-Mini diecasts, nine concrete pipes, 17 intermodal shipping container tins, and two fake beer can tins.
That brings my total to 48 intermodal containers and 12 scaffolds. I'll pick up two more of the maroon or blue ones if I see them, as that will neatly fill up the shelf cubby I have them stashed in.
Should I be concerned that the back of the diecast car packaging says "keep out of reach of children"?
Spent the last couple of days basing six packs of Foundry Street Violence minis I ordered last month. The order (which was quickly and efficiently dispatched by the Ansells) consisted of:
The minis required a bit of cleaning, which is to be expected of casts from molds as old as these. If memory serves this line started back in the late 90s and should be old enough to legally order a beer now.
Sergei's Corporation and Juno's Crew, two packs I owned years ago but have since lost or damaged enough to make a reorder prudent, are intended to form the nucleaus of an organized crime force. I definitely want some Russian mobsters and both packs should serve as the core of that force; I will have to experiment with using a pen to add tattoos to the minis's necks and hands. Italian mobsters are also something I will field, but I don't think Juno's crew has the look I want for them... more track suits and guts. I'm thinking more like the guys from The Sopranos, Juno's crew is too hip looking to be goombahs - (which is saying something for twenty-plus year old minis).
My included two packs of uniformed police officers, both six-mini packs. I plan to remove the cast on sleeve patches from each of them, as they aren't placed very well on a number of the minis. Given the 8-point caps I will likely paint these up as NYC-style cops... French blue shirts with dark navy trousers, caps and ties. I may make some water slide decals to use as patches. We will see. Twelve uniforms should be all the police I need to field at any one time, particularly if the are augmented by a couple detectives from the Lovemore packs, or SWAT minis from a future order. The Lovemore Detective Agency is, I believe intended to represent a group of P.I.s but a couple of them are very city detective looking, with what appears to be a detective shield clipped to the belt.
The B Team was picked up to go with one of a pair of 1:50 scale A Team vans I picked up years ago. I have no idea what I will do with the second van yet, but better to have two than only one. Perhaps a Punisher battle van.... hmmm. Anyway this pack is decent, but I must say the new not-A-team minis from Crooked Dice may be better... I havent ordered them yet, but the pics look excellent.
About two years ago I started to switch from washer and token bases back to sports base types. Part of the reason for this was the difficulty in mounting minis with sports tabs. Many newer minis featured much slighted ankles that made it challenging to pin on a base that could be firmly glued to the washer or token.
I found that by creating a void in the slotta base, backed by a 20mm washer glued to the underside, I could get a flush mount for minis with cast on bases. The washer adds some nice weight, and the overall height of the mini is nearly identical to the height of the mini on a token. Additionally slotta bases come in a much wider variety of shapes giving me more options for mounted and motorcycle minis. It also gives a vintage 90's feel to my tabletop that I rather like.
Went back to Daiso on Tuesday to look for more shipping containers. They hadn't restocked, but I did notice these racks intended for displaying diecast cars. They are modular, stackable, and have pin and socket connectors to attach them together end-to-end or even in L shapes.
My immediate thought was of the workers scaffolding you often come across in NYC, assembled over the sidewalk. I think if I remove the cross members on the short ends from a couple to use at street level, I can achieve the same effect by stacking and sliding these up on the sidewalk against buildings on the table top.
I only picked up six, the number of brown decked ones that Daiso had on hand. There are black decked ones as well, but I prefer the contrast, and it's that much less I need to paint. I will probably hit up another Daiso tomorrow looking for more of the brown.
Went to Daiso with my wife this morning to get some garland to redo the wreaths for the door. As we were browsing the home decor section I noticed these tins that were styled after ConEx/Shipping containers. Eyeballing them at the store I realized they were pretty damn close to 28mm. I bought four to take home and check.
Measurments put them at about 1/53, which is a little smaller than the 1/50 I would prefer, but at ¥100 for fully painted containers that I just need to seal and weather... I am more than willing to overlook the slight reduction of size. They come in two basic liveries, ONE - Ocean Network Express (in pink and light grey variants) and CTNRX "Everything you can imagine is real" (in blue, maroon, and dark green variants). The roof of each is actually the lid and is grooved to allow another one to nest on top. I imagine I might be able to make some craft foam inserts to allow them to double as miniature storage as well - probably a small gang/fireteam of four minis to each container.
So after picking my son up from school I went back and bought all of stock they had. Here they are in all their glory. Think I need more...
UPDATE: On Tuesday I was working in Kanazawa, where there happens to be another Daiso... so I bought all the containers they had as well. I am currently at 31.
