Saturday, November 25, 2017

Starship models for Starfinder RPG

Hi everyone,

We've really been enjoying our Starfinder Campaign - been playing pretty much every Sunday now for about eight weeks.

One struggle, though has been finding models for things -- especially Starships.  We're really hoping that there are some nice models released by Paizo or other companies.  But, since there aren't any released yet, have been working on finding solutions.

Recently there was a great post on the Starfinder RPG Facebook group -- a brilliant suggestion to take a look on Amazon for:

US Toy Mini Space Ship Cruisers Vehicle (Lot of 72), Assorted Color

...for under $10!!

 Here is our little bag of "Space Cruisers" from Amazon

Well, after a week or so, ours arrived :)

Here are the little *rubbery* models fresh out of the bag.  Some Amazon reviews mentioned a strong plastic smell.  We didn't notice that.

And, sure enough what a lot of nice little spaceship models!!!

What you get....
  • Some 70+ little models which are just the right size for use on the Starfinder hex flip map
  • They come in three colors - not great - but not horrid
  • There are about 20 or so different ship models - which is a pretty great variety!
  • They are "rubbery".  Not sure if they were meant as erasers - but they certainly do bend easily
 We sorted ours out by type.  Seems like 20 different types of space ships.

We were able to paint them....  First tried our super-shiny gold paint (thought it would be cool to have a gold colored spaceship).  No-go.  That rubbed off the surface of the little rubbery models.  Then tried our "Army Painter" primer (tried grey first).  No issues - these colors worked fine.  We painted some white, some grey and some brown.


Army Painter primer worked well (cans on the left).  Our other fun paint (which is very shiny gold) didn't work - smeared off.  You can see our white, grey and brown models along with the original blue, silver and bronze rubber.

This looked good going on -- by smeared right off.  Painting with Army Painter primer first did the trick tough.

After we added some details and weathering, they looked pretty nice.  By the way - when it comes to weathering, we found the bottle below "Weathering Mix" for $8 online (we searched Model Railroading Websites).  Much lower cost than little tiny bottles for the same price you can find from miniature painting companies....

 Our $8 bottle of "Weathering Mix"

Working on adding some details to our models....

Before and after adding details to the models....

Checking our models for scale on the Starfinder Flip-Mat.  Pretty good fit :)

And, so, pretty happy, overall.  Not sure whether we'll create bases for them - or just use them flat on the mat.  Since they are a little bit rubber, it's actually not bad to have them right on the mat where they don't slip around....

2 comments:

  1. The same day I saw this article my wife was making an Amazon order. I had her throw one of these on it. This is exactly what I'm looking for. My kickstarter for Star Eagles (a space battle game that uses the SoBaH game engine) will be delivering soon, and it will be nice to have some ships for it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

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  2. Very glad our post was helpful!!! We are going to give our little models a first try this coming Sunday :)

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