Here we are two months into 2010 and I realised I haven't posted any WWG (World Works Games) reviews yet. Well that changes here. I've shown you all of my scenery that I've built so far but what I have not shown are my collection of WWG 28mm scale vehicles. Just like my buildings, these models are printed out onto 130gm photo-paper then glued onto thick mounting board before I assemble them. This does add to the building time but the benefits are more than worth it. These models are incredibly robust. I accidentally dropped one down the stairs and it suffered no damage whatsoever.
I decided to show the pick-up trucks first for the simple reason that the red pick-up shown in the photos was the first WWG vehicle that I made. The pick-up truck appears in the Mayhem Armoury set and comes with a choice of five colour schemes - black, blue, green, red and white. In the photo above, note the WWG logo on the front grille of the trucks. It's a nice touch. If you can't see it too clearly remember that you can left click on any photo and it will open up in a new page at a much larger size.
Another nice piece of detailing are the logos on the tyre walls - Badyear instead of Goodyear - which you can see in the above photo. Yes, it's such an obvious pun but I still like it. Incidentally, you can fit two figures mounted on 25mm diameter slottabases in the back of the trucks.
There is a bit of glare from my camera's flashlight on the red pick-up truck in the photo above. This is because I print the body of the vehicles onto semi-gloss photo-paper. The wheels and undercarriage are printed on matte paper. I like the look of the bodywork with its semi-gloss finish. On a very few vehicles, like my sportscars, I've used full gloss paper because they ought to look very shiny. A few others, like my dustbin lorry have matte bodies, as they'll quickly lose their shine due to the work they do.
If you are wondering why I haven't made the blue and green pick-up trucks, I have. However, I made use of a kitbash to convert them into camper vans and I'll show the results in my next WWG review.
My views on paper or card vehicles are as follows. First of all, they are nowhere near as detailed as similarly scaled die-cast models. Plus, they don't come with interior details, you can't open the doors or turn the wheels. In an ideal world I'd only use die-cast vehicles in my games. But reality rears its ugly head and that will never happen. So I populate my game boards with card vehicles. On the plus side, they are a cheap and viable alternative. Because they are made by the same designers as make the WWG scenery they fit in very well. The texturing on all of the vehicles is extremely well done. Also, as more and more scenery sets appear on the market, so does the number of vehicles. Recent releases like Mayhem Bank, Mayhem Junkyard and Wildwood Grove all feature additional vehicles. I have all of the contemporary vehicles that have been produced by WWG so far, but I still have a lot to make to complete my collection. And, yes, I will complete it! The bottom line is this - as with all of the WWG products I like them.
Bryan, your a witch! I built one of these trucks, it looked like my kids had made it, and then I said to heck with this and bought some die cast stuff. Now here you go making everything look so easy again.
ReplyDeletehow long did they take to build?
ReplyDeleteRob, vehicles usually take me no more than two days to make. Obviously, that isn't two full days, just working a couple of hours at a time, so say about three to four hours all told.
ReplyDeleteWilly, as I said in my review, I'd love to use nothing but die-cast vehicles. I do have some that I have picked up very cheap but I've seen some that I like going for £30-£40, which is far too much to pay for a model car. I think I'll stick with WWG vehicles. The amount of choice they have on offer is quite surprising and they do cover a lot of bases. Over the next few months I'll be offering lots of hints and tips on making card vehicles, so hopefully you'll be able to make a much better model next time you try it.
These are really cool, with the proper weather and everything they look better than diecast.
ReplyDeleteYou must have incredible patience.
Thanks, Roger. I am happy with how these have turned. Indeed, I'm very satisfied with all of my WWG vehicles.
ReplyDeletePatience is definitely one of my strong points. If you are making any kind of card model, be it a vehicle, a building or whatever, then patience is certainly a virtue.
Another big advantage is that while I have found cars pretty easily, pick up trucks have been scarce.
ReplyDeleteThose prices are scarier than real Zeds!
I am capable of having patience when I'm allowed to, but with the kids breathing down my neck to game, time has not been a luxury I can afford lately.
Bryan, do you have the Toys R Us chain in Britain? For a while I was getting some really cheap 1/43rd scale vehicles there. I'm curious what the prices would be over there.
Willy, we do indeed have Toys R Us stores over here and there is one not far from where I live but I rarely visit it. I ought to pay it a visit.
ReplyDeleteThere are bargains to be found here if you're in the right place at the right time time. For example, sometimes our major supermarkets will have a fantastic offer on say, a pack of three police vehicles. I usually find out about them after the offer has closed Lol!
But as is often the case, too many of our die-cast vehicles are English not American. Those police cars I mentioned would inevitably be English police cars. That's no good to me when I set all of my games in Mayhem City, USA. Also, specialist vehicles like say, a snow plough, are easier to find than a run of the mill four door saloon car that Joe Public uses.
I'm happy with my selection of WWG vehicles. You can't fault their compatability!
Bryan, these look great; I only wish that my attempts looked half as good!
ReplyDeleteAs Veloci said - and I alluded to in my comment on your post on WWG - Toys 'R' Us has a series of 1:43 cars/trucks in their "Fast Lane" line that work very nicely with the WWG sets.
Cheers!