Toys to Models – Converting a Corps Elite Ship for 28mm scale tabletop gaming

Following the black undercoat I applied a dark red using an airbrush to the lower hull, followed by a series of progressively lighter greys for the main body of the ship.

There is plenty of detail work still to do, and the roof of the bridge needs replacing, but I did manage to set sail and get the ship into a game recently.

The maiden voyage saw a battle between the forces of Baron Ironblood’s Red Shadows and the combined might of UNIT/The Doctor, SG-1, Mulder and Scully and various others!

An initial undercoat (using Halfords Matt black) has been applied.

I removed the top canopy first because I am going to do some conversion work on this separately to make it look more realistic.

Having opened the box and inspected the ship, the scale looks pretty spot on for 28mm scale minis (see photos).

There are a few things that will have to be removed and replaced to really hide the larger scale aspects of the thing, namely:

• The turret and ‘machine gun’ on top of the bridge will need removing and replacing with something more realistic (aerials, radar etc. maybe)
• The clear plastic ‘fin’ and aerials will need some work
• The large hatch/doorway molded on the side of the bridge will need hiding

Painting wise, it looks like a relatively easy job and will be down to a combination of spray cans and airbrush.  It looks like the existing decals / stickers should peel off quite easily.

I noticed this 3.75 inch scale action figure toy in the local Poundstretcher a few weeks ago and immediately thought how well it would scale to 28mm scale minis.

My intention is to do some conversion and painting in order to make it look the part.

On initial inspection the vast majority of the components look like they can easily stay and represent the ‘down-scaled’ versions of themselves.