Recent Distractions

Ok been sidetracked this past couple of weeks. Last week we had a family holiday in Disneyland Paris. Great weather, great family, had a great time. The problem with going to Disney is that as a model maker I spend a great deal of time just appreciating the level of detail that has one into building each part of the park, that of course leads to the inevitable; I challenge any gamer to go to Disney and not come away wanting to build a new Wild West town , a pirate ship, a Caribbean port, an Arabic town or a medieval town and fortress or in my case all of ‘em. The only reason I haven’t added a Victorian town to that list is that I do have one of those.

I was definitely inspired to come home and look at Sash & Saber 40mm pirates and Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company Old West 40mm figures. But at the moment rationality has prevailed as I am busy painting 40mm French & Indian War figures from the aforementioned companies for my F&IW project which will lead to a participation game at Salute2011.

And then disaster… Another very cool thing to distract me from my purpose. This summer we discovered NERF whilst on the Isle of Wight. We were doing a medieval event at Appuldurcombe House on the Island and during the evening of the Saturday we played NERF zombies in the old cellars of the house. We had a fantastic time and at the next available opportunity we bought a couple of NERF Maverick six shot revolvers. Since then we have built a small arsenal of NERF weapons, pistols, SMGs, shotguns and the awesome automatic Stampede. We have often NERFED after our training sessions, but the real route to madness opened up recently as we have been invited to a Zombie LARP at the end of this month. LARPing is something I did 15 years or more ago and since then I have always looked on in scourn but the opportunity to go and shoot sevenbells out of willing volunteers is too good to miss. Now it could be said that some of us might take this a little too seriously, picking out kit including ordering patches for uniforms and most importantly Modding our weapons. NERF guns are Mod-able. You can take them apart and remove bits to improve their performance and paint the outside and modding has now become my guilty pleasure. Check them out. The first weapon to receive a paintjob is the single shot Nitefinder pistol.

The Nitefinder is a great little gun. Only a single shot gun, pretty powerful, and even better after modifying the airchamber. I was really pleased with thi one and then I found these cool LED torches and had to add one.


Having really enjoyed painting the Nitefinder I turned my attention to my CS6 Recon. This comes with various extra bits like the stock. I am modding the optional barrel to go on the front, but it won't get used in games as it has a huge negative effect on muzzle velocity.

After doing the semie real looking thing I fancied having a go at something a bit whacky. There are lots of Steampunk NERF guns on the net, some of them are stunning, whilst many only have a paintjob. Paintjob alone wouldn't do it for me so I dived in various bits boxes and the result was this. I love it and am going to steampunk some more, not that there is much point really as it is only cosmetic but they just look so cool.


I have really enjoyed turning my paintbrush to something else, working on a different 'canvas' is quite refreshing and the added bonus is I get to shoot people with 'em too. I am sure I will put up more pics of NERF as they get worked on.
Cheers