I love the idea of balloon strafing -- in fact, the first (and as yet only) set I've purchased is Burning Drachens. I do like to play with miniatures though, but I must confess to some sticker shock for the Balloon Busters set (especially considering I would like at least 3 balloons on the board).
I've been augmenting my plastic miniatures collection with paper, and decided that paper would be be a decent medium for a balloon kit. The trick is, of course, to make it reasonably easy to assemble. I've been working on a Caquot and I have to say it's gone together well. Despite the curvature, it goes together quite easily, especially if you use tape strips on the inside.
The trickiest part is the rigging for the observer's basket. As the model is made of paper, it's quite light, so using thread for rigging doesn't really work, as the basket isn't heavy enough to keep the lines taut.
I'm now considering using paper, but the problem with that is that it will be relatively fragile and may not be as realistic as I would like.
To show you what I mean, here are three pictures.
1. The prototype. You can see the paper lines that I was planning
2. A rapidly knocked together unskinned model with no lines. I think it looks reasonable even given that I took almost no care in the cutting and construction of the model (approximately half an hour). It is a proof of concept after all.
3. The problem with the rigging. I realize the lines are held on with masking tape, but you can see how the thread is too rigid for the basket.
I would welcome your feedback on the issue. I realize that I haven't actually shown a photo of the paper rigging. I actually haven't constructed that yet . . .
Assuming I get a reasonable paper model out of all of this, it will be distributed somewhere at some point. . .
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