I was lacking only one model for my 28mm fantasy dwarf army and it was something that I had wanted for a long, long time but always assumed I would eventually have to resort to buying it outright.
But this past week, after finishing off the last of the other special units and characters for my dwarves I wondered if I had indeed already possessed all the components and bits I needed to make my own dwarf airship.
This is where my life-long OCD paid off in gold! I just might be the neatest modeler and painter on the planet. I am super ultra-organized and my bits are no exception. After building several fantasy armies back in 2017 and a 40k army in 2018 I carefully labelled and packed away in boxes dozens of leftover sprues of stuff, mostly GW bits but also quite a few resin bits and metal components from various other purchases.
Sure enough I had hundreds upon hundreds of left over GW dwarf bits. And not just heads and weapons. Whole unused cannon options, banners, shields, an observatory telescope, a field observation telescope, spare ammunition shells, etc. Suddenly I realized that a dwarf airship had been packed away in my closet all along, but was just waiting to be put together!
There was one major component that I honestly can't call a random "bit". I DID purchase the ship hull and decks specifically back in 2015 as a complete kit. I originally intended to build it and use it as a generic terrain piece on rivers and lakes for my fantasy games. But I never got around to building it. It was Grand Manner's Roman merchant boat. So I took the hull from that kit and instantly had the bottom portion of my dwarf airship.
But ultimately I purchased nothing new for this project, it was all old purchases and utilizing bits from previously purchased stuff.
The one major component for which I had no specific "bit" and that I would have to make myself from scratch was the actual balloon itself. I chose a simple foam craft egg that was close to the size I needed.
So I laid out all the bits I had that I thought would work for the project:
After looking at the foam egg I realized it was a bit too small for the overall scale so I resorted to using some leftover cutouts from some old miniature foam tray inserts. I glued them to the outside of the egg until I had sufficiently increased it's overall size:
With the balloon now a sufficient size I chose an old technique for covering the balloon in a proper texture. I used paper towels soaked in PVA and simply laid it over the surface of the egg shape:
Now with the egg looking more like a canvas balloon I need to make some tail fins. I cut some shapes out of ordinary cardboard and sealed off the edges with masking tape.
I then had to work out a way to actually attach the whole model to a base. I made two placement holes out of Green Stuff and drilled two holes in the bottom of the hull. I used two pieces of sturdy copper rod to pin the model to the base. The game The 9th Age requires the "Grudge Buster" model to be on a 50mm x 100mm which at first seemed VERY small. I was doubtful as to whether I could balance it on a base so small. So I decided to add as much weight to the base as possible to stabilize it. I use a bunch of craft glass and just glued it in piles underneath the ship:
End of Part 1!…
