Gaming on a Budget: Blister Packs, Part 1

Welcome one and all to this the first installment of my new Gaming on a Budget series.  As I mentioned in a previous post, this concept has sprung from my new found frugality, directly resulting from my extremely protracted period of funemployment.  The idea here is to not only teach you how to save money on your gaming purchases, but also to show you how to get the most out of what you do buy.  Today we're going to kick this series off by talking about blister packs and how you can divert the entire thing from the landfill.  That's right eco-nuts, we're going Green and recycling the shit out of some packaging. 

Paid $13 for this and am getting more use out of the box than the mini

As we all know, most small metal miniatures from just about any miniature producer come in a blister back just like the one above.  In addition to the mini contained therein you get a cardboard backing, a piece of foam, and the clear plastic blister.  In today's post, we're going to explore the uses of that handy clear plastic that you get, since I'm sure you've all got a few of these laying around.

Dethtron turns the volume up to pink

Palette

If you're too cheap to shell out the 99 cents to get a plastic dry paint palette from your local art supply store (but by all means, don't pay the money for the GW one- $5 are you fucking kidding me?), you can turn your blister plastic into a handy receptacle for all of your gaming liquids.  They can be used to mix paints, glue, gel mediums, pumice mixtures, or even snow flock. 

Drying Surface

Dave from N++ Wargaming Tradecraft suggests using your blister plastic to dry gels, glue, and other liquid mediums on.  Since the smooth plastic surface is pretty much non-porous, most compounds won't stick to it once dry.  This comes in handy for making strands of saliva to dangle from your monster's mouths,  glue icicles, or various water features.  So, next time you're looking to make a waterfall, don't forget to grab those blisters you've been saving.

Just looking at it makes me want to grab some hot cocoa

Icicles 

I'm an avid terrain builder, and as such, am always looking for ways to add a little flair to my scenery projects.  When creating a winter scene (either with your terrain or scenic bases) adding some icicles to a piece really helps to evoke the feeling of cold and will make for a memorable project that stands out against your average terrain.

After I (almost) finished painting and flocking a building that Hoagy of When Canons Fade recently scratch built, I wanted to add that extra little bit of realism to help enhance the snow on the roof.  I knew that a few icicles hanging from he eaves would be just the right touch for the building.  Grabbing my craft knife and a piece of blister plastic I began cutting out rectangular pieces of the clear plastic in various lengths.

photographing clear plastic- not easy

Once the rectangles had been cut out, I began to make angular cuts into them in as random a fashion as I was able.  This left me with strips that resemble clusters of icicles.

Safety tip- don't fucking cut yourself

Applying a small amount of PVA glue to these strips, I affixed them to the eaves of my building and voila: some pretty damn realistic looking icicles.  Here's a hot, money-saving tip for glue.  Elmers white glue is my glue of choice for basing and terrain projects.  By buying it in gallon jugs at the hardware or craft store I save 80-90% versus purchasing it in smaller bottles.

Brrrr!!

Trite aphorism about winter

Put 'em on the glass

Broken Glass

My last use for your blisters today is probably my favorite.  This applies, again, for terrain projects and is ridiculously easy.  Anybody who plays wargames is eventually going to want some kind of ruins to fight over, right?  And those ruins will often have remnants of windows, no?  I can't think of a better way to add a little realism to your terrain than to put in a few cracked and broken window panes.  There are a number of ways to approach this.  If you want an intact window, just cut out an appropriately sized piece of your blister and glue it in behind your window frame- easy.  To get nice little sections of broken glass, simply cut out jagged pieces that are roughly triangular.  Make sure you leave one flat edge.  This will help give you something to attach your window bits to the frame.  Using any kind of non-fuming, clear-drying glue applied to the flat edge simply paste your pieces to the window randomly.  It can be sort of a bitch to maneuver smaller pieces into place, so you might consider grabbing a pair of forceps or tweezers to help you out.  The piece I built for today uses only leftover plastic from the icicle project above.  How's that for not wasting anything?


~That wraps up today's installment.  Have a tip for using blister plastic?  Leave a comment.  Have another money-saving tip that you want featured in a future Gaming on a Budget article?  E-mail it to houseofpaincakes.info@gmail.com.