HIGH TORTUGA PHOTO GALLERY

This page is for photos of miniatures, scratch-built & coversions; plus anything else I can think of

THE SPEEDER

The speeder shown isn't a scratch built, it's a children's toy they used give away at Perkins in a help yourself toybucket back in the late 80's.  Those who've collected the Martian Metal Traveller miniatures will recognize despite the extra rocket pods the Speeder mini MM produced back in the 80's. I managed to pick up only a few of these.  The top two are in the original white plastic with black trim.  The model to the right is Bette Noire's personal red & blue speeder (along with Bette herself).  Other speeders I painted in black like my original MM mini or in dark forest green, though my female Aslan player has one in purple(see top right).

DOMINTRIX HEAVY GRAV TANK

Here's one of those easy scratch built that came to mind.  Take the bridge part from a broken Klingon battlecruiser for the chassis, & a cheap, less than a dollar Leopard II toy for the turret, one extra part. My wife loved it & it became once she acquired part of the House of Lords's assauit landing uints.  Posed with is Bette, once in a 15mm Anne Bonney figure in the left photo.  In the right photo it's Bette in scout battledress on a grav board-a repainted Star Wars scout trooper on a grav made from a plastic paper clip & a thin piece of cut styrene plastic.

DESPOT GRAV TANK

This started out as an attempt to scratchbuild a Trepida that didn't work.  Chassis off a cut up model stand, toy tank turret, plastic rhinestones & pieces off dead Xmas ornaments.

SHIP'S BOATS & SMALL CRAFT

50 TONNE LAUNCH W/LASER

A 50 tonne launch made from a dead flashlight, a pieces off a dead screwdrive,  empty ring from a roll of tape & misc. plastic bits.

30 TONNE BELTER'S BOAT.

A Belter's workboat for asteroid mining complete with manipulative arms & a laser cutter.  Several empty tape rings (one of my favorite raw materials for the cargo hold), a clear plastic vending machine capsule for the cockpit, a plastic gun from a Warhammer gun accessory set, arms from a broken toy, bogie wheel sensor unit, rear hatch from a broken model, & thrusters from lego.  Not very fast (1G) but quite useful for a belter.  Never came up with a name for this model.

MAKTO 20 TONNE BELTER/PATROL CRAFT

Another belter built from tape rings & vending machine capsules.  The cockpit is from a nobbie space toy. The sensor array on the nose, the manuvering thrusters on each side  & the lasers are miscellaneous parts from dead model kits.

RANTHAR G-CARRIER

The Ranthar G-Carrier prototype.  One of the more simple conversion.  A Star Wars action fleet speeder, a turret from the Battle of Hoth model set, 2 plastic rhinestones & a lego piece for thrusters.

50 TONNE ASSAULT CUTTER

50 Tonne arnored (factor-2) assasult cutter armed with three laser cannons, a crew of 4 & 10 tonne cargo or 12 troops. Body from a dead electric shave & a digital watch.  Turret made from a electrical switch cover, wings & laser cut from plastic scrap.  Thruster cone from the foot of an Imperial walker from the Battle of Hoth diorama from AMT bought on clearance.  A lot of my thruster cones come from walker feet.

20-30 TONNE ASSAULT BOATS

Back in the old days there were some interesting things you could pick cheap at Nobbies, like these spaceship whistles.  Modfied simply by making scratchbuilt turrets or simply an improvised hatch to cover the top whistle hole.  The left is an armored boat with only a little black trim.  The right has a bow laser, a single laser turret & is painted flat black.

Trelyn Domain Valandhor Light Cruiser

The Valandhor, which started life as part of a Klingon Battlecruiser with pieces added for the meson gun, bridge, strern, & wheels for the thrusters.

GRAVYACHTS

Two gravyachts.  The one on the left started life as a micromachine toy, recut with a rear bridge off a Nobbies spaceboat. The second is another cannibalized part off my Klingon BC with a few pieces added.  The square in the center once held a bluepainted plastic square & was used as a hottub.  It also was used as the personal grav vehicle for plutocrat Deva des Plaines, Bette Noire's mother.

GRAVCAR

This gravcar is one of my better scratchbuilt vehicles.  A lot of the plastic parts had to be cut & fitted.  It can be the family van, gravtruck or limo depending on the scenario.

ASLAN APC'S

Two Aslan APC's.  The left is a micromachine flying boat with the wings removed, turret from the Battle of Hoth model kit plus misc pieces.  The APC on the right is mixture of variour vehicle parts with peg MG's & a main gun from a Warhammer weapon set.  Got a lot of mileage from those Warhammer accessory packs.

ARTILLERY

Various laser, plasma, & fusion artillery pieces.  Four  of the pieces are Warhammer guns (which make great artillery for 15mm), altered radar pieces & cut & shaped styrene plastic.

DILAUNDRU MOBILE REPAIR DOCK

The Dilaundru is a jump capable repair facility capable of handling anything from ship's boats up to 6000 tonne vessels.  The body in main comes from a used Warhammer armour unit flipped upside down with a bridge & engineering parts from Battletech parts, styrene plastic sheets & wheels.  The last picture shows a Gazelle class close escort under repair.

MORE GRAV TANKS

The left unit is a toy tank turret with a new muzzle,chassis out of odd pieces & putty.  The one on the right is an odd plastic piece, another Hoth turret with plastic & putty extras & a bow secondary weapon from Warhammer. The tank below is an very early attempt at a low-tech grav or air cushion heavy tank.  Odd pieces of plastic for a chassis, plastic rhinestone, & a turret made of a dead digital watch, odd plastic & metal pieces.

WARBOTS

Several warbots.  On the left, the bots are made from treads from my old Big Demolisher tank from Battletech, faceted beads & plastic guns.  On the right, metal snap grav units, beads & various odd plastic pieces for bodies & various plastic pieces for gun barrels.  All are about the height of a 15mm figurine.

VARGYR GAURNAKH GRAVCYCLE

TheGaurnakh combat gravcycle; made from a cheap toy spaceship, the body of Micromachine Formula-1 racers & a piece of  round styrene for a gun.

MOONBASE

Photo of the Vincent di Fate (sadly the only I could afford to pick up went they were on the market) diorama I use display some of my Traveller ships when not gaming.  Featured is the Imperial 100 tonne scoutship & 400 tonne patrol cruiser plus the Aarabella-a reworked Millenium Falcon.

NIHON EMPIRE 'ONI' OGRE  'SAOTOME RANMA'

Not a Traveller vehicle, but for my Ogre miniatures game.  The Oni, the equivalent to the Combine Mark IIIB Ogre.  Built out my favorite Battletech vehicle, the Big Demolisher tank.  Sensor tower from a Mark I Ogre, secondary batteries courtesy of Battletech spare gun parts & missile rack & decals from Warhammer.   Named for the title character of one of my favorite mangas.  I've built a companion named the 'Hibiki Ryoga'  to go with it.  I've yet to figure out how to build the 'Samurai', Nihon's equivalent of the Mark V Ogre.  Eventually this will go on my Ogre page when I get around to it.

MULEITRAN 400 TONNE JUMP TRACTOR

What do you do with an ebay purchase that includes an incomplete clipper miniature.  Make it into a pod module jump tractor-transport.   Added drive unit from a broken mech, & cut sections from solid, square styrene rods, & glue & paint.

AIR/RAFT

The air/raft in top right  started life as a micromachine military assault boat.  A little trimming & cutting, plus adding a canopy off a cheap space toy & repaint.  The other air/rafts started life as micromachine hovercraft.  Two standard size air/rafts, one with an enclosed cockpit from a Nobbies spacetoy, & one with an open cockpit.  The larger cargo air/raft I pieced together an enclosed cockpit made of plastic scraps on the right bow.

HOVERTANK

This hovertank is another neat toy from Micromachine's unfortunately short-lived SF toys.  I could only find this one vehicle.  Used for a hovertank it is or as a gravtank.  A few of the SF line's vehicle showed later as GI Joe vehicle, but not this.  The same line also a nifty grav missile carrier I managed to find 2 of.

DRACHENFEL'S MARAUDERS

The badge for Drachenfel's Marauders.  Silver disc with a black cutlass overlaid with a black naval vessel with two black stars.   Plastic, stone, & metal.  Made for a Traveller merc costume years ago.  I've finished dismantling the outfit but decided to keep the badge for sentimentle reasons plus it would be a neat item to post to my website.

AKHONAAR GRAV APC

The Akhonaar APC was another scratchbuilt design.   Twin VRF  gauss mounted on top,  a beam laser or 20mm gatling mounted in the bow.     One of my favorite early designs.

GRAV MISSILE TANK

Another Micromachines  SF toy, I managed to get ahold of two of these.  The one pictured above I left in its original color scheme, the other I painted dark green.

ARMOUR GRAV ASSAULT SLED

Another Micromachine conversion from a boat.   Scrap plastic, Warhammer gun for a laser/plasma/fusion gun, a half of a tank trap, & some putty.

G-CARRIER

This heavily armed gcarrier is another Micromachine conversion, this time from a LAV.  Also another before I had a source for styrene plastic, so it is made from what I had in my junk box plus a little putty.  Built two of these.

GRAV SLEDS

Combat grav sleds made from speeders from the AMT Star Wars battle of Hoth model set,  the enclosed sleds were modified with buttons & putty.  The open sleds were originally had the cockpits filed down with a simple rectangle platform made from cut styrene plastic.  Either this summer I cam into some prone Stargrunt minis & replaced the platform with.  The gun tips got broken from use so I went ahead & broke the remaining gun tips all three vehicles.  Visualized these as TL10-11 sleds mounting 20mm autocannons, VRF Gauss Guns, Laser rifles, Plasma guns depending on TL.

GRAVTRACTOR

Cab comes from a micromachine vehicle, the cargo carrier from odd pieces from my scrap box.  Designed as a one man grav cargo hauler that carries interchangable cargo modules  much like a small tractor/trailer truck of today.

GRAV SECURITY PLATFORM.

A slow moving (30 kph top speed) armored security platform designed a crew of three (standing), heavy sensors & armed with 4 heavy machine guns & a plasma cannon.

TL8-10 SPEEDERS

Tech Level 8-10 speeders made from toys, canopies from some cheap space toys from Nobbies, & scrap plastic. Designed more as civilian or paramilitary rather as combat machines.

COMBAT SPEEDER TL12+

A combat speeder TL13+.  Designed as a representative of Imperial-derived Trelyn Domain speeders, armed with twin VRF gauss  guns (or autocannons for lower TL's) & twin plasma cannons.  From the same batch of toys as the above civilian speeders with putty buildup & a painted acrylic gemstone for a cockpit.