Star Crafting Potnoodlandia

When I was a teenager, I picked up my first issue of White Dwarf in my local newsagent and inside was the launch of this new thing called Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader.

Yeah, I timed that pretty fucking well, didn't I?

Anyway, the thing about the game back then was we played it with scenery made from yoghurt pots and hover tanks made from deodorant sticks.  It was much more 2000 ad magazine future shock and space opera and much less rusty catholic church with pipes up the ass.

So I wanted to have a really vibrant psychadelic space opera game table, filled with cool aliens, Chris Foss style patterned ships and Roger Dean style landscapes.

So I gathered up all my scifi minis, bits, scatter and buildings with the goal of bringing it all together into one glorious gaming spread.

Turns out, I had a lot of cool stuff.

First off the bat, I found some Ion Age Crusaders painted in a grab WWII style.  After rebasing, I gave them a once over with light grey ready for their new look, and then made a note to research 70s scifi art space suits.

Naturally all my Rogue Trader minis had to come out to play.  Most are unfinished and painted in a much older style.  They will get punchier contrast and more colors added.  I started to put complementary colors onto a few but didn't far.

I had some Alternate Stars and Irregular Minis aliens, plus a few Chaos sorcerer minis that would make great Druillet or Mobius type aliens.

I also have a few space adventurer types from Reaper.  These can get more punchy colors later, but I slapped on the basic base coats.

Remember that Starwberry Punnet House I made ages ago? Well I pushed up the brightness and started to add extra stuff like dome windows from googly eyes and laser cut base rings, and flyscreen mesh onto the roof.  Think I will get some raised letters in alien font for the sign.

I gave a quick clean up to these Kyromek minis, rebased them and started looking for more vibrant alien markings to add to them.

I think this picture by Peter Andrew Jones is a great start for their new color scheme.  Maybe I could add some bendy antenna using broom bristles and some extra limbs.

Found some Minifigs alien plants, and some classic space cacti I started once.  These will need finishing and painting up.  I think I need to make lots of little alien plants to tie it all in with the olive flock.

Okay let's try to get the pot noodle pots looking a bit better...

PROTOTYPE TIME!!!

First up- let's try foam sheets.

UHG that looks really shit.

Maybe a better paint job?

Nope, still looks shit.  But not that shitty retro kind of shit, but just amateurish.  Needs finer details and panels.

Hold on... back in a moment...

Okay, progressing a bit...

I gave the whole model a dirty wash and daubed grey paint to see how it was working.

I wasn't happy with the crappiness of the surfaces, but I can worry about that late with some decent plasticard instead of cornflake packets.  I will give it a sand and maybe add some more small panels to cover the cruddy bits.  I want these to have a lot of color eventually, with various mints, sage and aqua tones on each panel.  But the panels need to look sharper than this IMHO.

Okay, might as well glue together some other buildings to get a rough idea of what the space will feel like...

I glued some junk to some other junk, but it's tricky to see with the paint slapped half arsed onto it like this.

I think what all this junk needs is some Foss-y blocky panelled raised platforms underneath to give some play options and raise it up a little.

Okay that was a monster session, I shall press on soon.

Ed's first founding.

So last night my brush was tickling some spess mareenz for by brother in law's founding chapter project.  Yep, I have to tackle one of each.  Apparently there are twenty of the bastards.
Ed has been handing me marines in a steady stream and I have been dutifully setting them aside until The Emperor grants me the willpower to paint them.

The thought occurred to me that I have lost track of the number of space Marines I have painted over the years.  It's Become reflexive.  The challenge is not falling asleep.

But here is one for the fanboyz.  I will track down and personally bitch slap anyone who points out that color scheme x is not accurate according to codex Y.  Seriously,  I DON'T CARE.

These guys are mostly done, with insignia and other details remaining, a cloak on the blue dude... and whatnot.  I am no expert, but I also suspect the ultramarine needs a head.  A testament to Ed's delicate take on gluing.   I will let him pick out which of the numerous parts that have fallen off belongs to him.

Aaaaaand with all great modern GW tasks I absolutely had to do an old school Rogue Trader mini to keep sane.  And what a mini... one of the numerous Space Orks from the boxed set.  As you may remember,  I vowed to not collect RT space orks.

Naturally that means I have ten or so and a couple of dreadnoughts.

What a joy!  I decided to go full Rogue Trader tabletop style on them- going right back to their first appearance in WD98 (I think) with strong contrast, titillating pink lips and rich greens.  Quite a different style than my normal muted blends, but satisfying and glorious on the gaming table.

And finally a little 1980's pop culture D&D reference.  First one to get what is cool about this color scheme on a roper gets to act smug all week.

More Scifi progress

More Renedra bases.  More sand.  More glue.
More delicious minis from the golden age of rogue T.

Cross fingers.  Hot day.  Spray can.  Black fingernails.

Brush...

Paint...

Words...

Fail...

Rogues need trading

Hi.  Welcome back.  So hows that itch going?  You should probably see a doctor. 

You know... switching to Renedra 25mm bases with 4mm magnets for my scifi figs has been one of the best decisions I have made since breakfast.  

Renedra feel free to send me free stuff for endorsing you ;).

The speed I can base up figures has made a huge impact on my hobby mojo.  Trays of minis which once languished in the 'too hard' basket, now stand based up and primed and excitingly ready for color.

With 25mm vs 30mm bases I lose stability, however it occurs to me I can snap my models onto decorated 30mm washers using the hefty magnets for some games if I desire.  These bases allow for tighter storage- which is my biggest woe right now next to lack of energy from my recent illness.

Losing base decoration room actually means I don't spend any time worrying about it, and filling that empty space was eating a great deal of time.  Sure my bases wont win any awards but they are fast, unobtrustive and keep the focus on the mini.  I opted to give both my fantasy and scifi bases the same green-grey base coat, and vary the drybrush colors on that.  Keeps it quick and effortless.

I figure all this lacklustre basing gets the figure game ready- I can back and tart up the bases when I am further along.

I like seeing GW minis on non GW sanctioned bases.  Gives me a little tickle.  Not sure why.  But 25mm rounds are game legal... also amusing.  I also like bubble tea.  Also not sure why.

So now I have the excitement of knowing soon I will have heaps of rogue trader, street violence and 2000 ad figures to paint and play.  I am most excited to finally have my RT mercs and adventurers, plus an unhealthy amount of iron claw space pirates out and based, and I found a few gene stealer cultists I forgot I had.

To paint this huge influx of figures I have returned to my trusty prepaint and tint technique, using four layers of overbrushing and dry brushing with a huge soft brush, which I will then glaze over with color at my leisure.

Painting on a preshaded model is much nicer and easier than facing a black surface, plus the tooth the dry brushing gives the surface a paper like quality that helps take the color layers.  

Heres are some test figures (still have to finish the marines- the skin is flat color and the shading on the armor is a bit rough.  Anyway. .. enjoy. 

"You sure your readin' that right Orinocco?  That's inside the room?"

Generation 2 SPESS marines hanging out with an Iron Claw pirate.  A zoat passes by on the way to Iits painting apointment. mmmm... Oldspesshammer.

Start from black spray, apply these starting dark to light using ever softer, drier, drybrushing.

This makes me happy.  I am happy now see?

Citadel rogue trader and 2000ad minis with cryomek and hasslefree mini.

Genestealer karyoke.

Saturday was sunny and dry...

Yes, the only saturday better than mr.saturday is a warm, clear, dry one.

Yes.  Its spray time!

Today I based and primed 149 minis.  The only reason I stopped is I ran out of superglue accelerator and superglue.  Nuts!

  Rather than facing my usual wall of unfinished minis to work on I decided to freshen everything up by raiding my storage tubs and giving me something totally fresh to play with.  I stopped enjoying the other ones so a little new-new shiney was needed for a morale lift.

In all that frantic work I did manage to do a few key things which I am excited about.  The main thing was a war on my procrastination.  I seem to have struck a good pace toward that end.  So here are the key achievements.

  One- I got all my oriental heroes and ninja collection well into the path of playable.  These have been sitting in a tub for years in an embarrassing state of just undercoated.  Not the biggest collection so far,  but its nice to see them finally based the same and progressing.  Its equally nice to know no more are lurking in my unpainted draws.  I don't know about you,  but I have a horrible tendency to buy doubles because I forget what's in my draws.  Ooh missus.

  Two- I got my part painted skaven tub rebased and mostly painted.  I still have a huge collection of unpainted metal skaven- but my Skulldred warband is well decked out for now.  They may have to wait.

  Three- my whole minotaur collection is assembled bar the skull faced minotaur lord, (a pinning nightmare I couldn't face without kicker or vodka) and is primed. Some even have color applied.  This is a huge deal for me- as its one of the areas of my collection that I have owned the longest and it was furthest from done.  A BIG morale boost.  Plus I do get a fair number of emails asking about them.

Threes a fair number, right?

Four- raided my Fiend Factory and monsters draw and got well and truly stuck in.  Everything from giant spiders, boars, snakes, assasin bugs and merbeasts got based and primed.  I still have a handful to go,  but its going to be good to have all these creatures playable instead of rotting in zip bags.

  This required a huge mental shift for me.

   You see I suffer badly from perfectionism- and its been holding me back horribly from completing my paint jobs.   I originally planned to have every FF and FA model on hand sculpted flagstone bases- but this would just take forever to do.   I had to negotiate with my brain and say- "look brain... stop eating that book on coding c# and come listen to me.  How about we just get them ff figs all done to an okayish standard on 25mm textured bases and worry about all that... brain... are you  listening to me?  Put down that abstract concept and.... BRAIN!  (Sigh) I dunno why I bother..."

So after that little tirade I did indeed go the simple,  quick basing route and tore through the lot in no time.  Satisfaction!

Perfectionism is a cruel affliction- one I am working on reducing so I can enjoy life more.  It goes beyond being finicky- it actually stops you doing stuff you enjoy because the anxiety of the outcome not being up to your unreasonable standards puts you off. Any advice is appreciated in the comments below.

I plan to have a full set of FF minis done and based for retro dungeon bashes at some stage.  Hence 1 inch rounds instead of my usual 30mm skirmish bases.  I picture using some of those pen and ink dungeon tiles you can get from rpg drive through for some seriously old school action.

Er.. Four.... no... Five.  Nurgle and Slaanesh warbands undercoated and some tzeench demons nearly colored.  Bet your itching to see that project roll off the line!  I sure cannot wait to finally have my classic Realm of Chaos skirmish board ready to play.  Some batreps perhaps?

Six... I kicked off my classic rogue trader figures with battle brother Orrinocco the comms officer from the first 40k relased marines (C100 predated release).  What chapter?  Crimson Fists of course.   And not the modern colors- that slightly purple toned grey blue from the cover art of 40K first edition.  This mob will be seperate to my c100 kill team Charlie project as the marines are all second generation. A set of space adventurers, mercs and iron claw pirates will join forces with them to battle ambulls, zoats, space orks and space elves surrounded by chocolate mousse tub buildings and red tipped giant cacti.  Zoatibixalicious!
I dropped using the brilliant Fenris resin bases for now, because I simply do not have the inclination or time to drill and pin all my 40k minis- plus some odd the rarer ones I want to keep the tabs on.   I highly recommend these bases- the sullaco ones are just fantastic... but for now I will set them aside in favor of discs with glued grit, just to get me roaring along into RT nirvana.

Lastly I managed to go through a great deal of my collection and start weeding out the doubles.  These will be ebayed off shortly, the dirty swines.  It's a pretty darn good haul- something for almost everyone.

Anyway,  glad to be back.

Links. Warmallet 60,000 and the Missing Links.

Skarsnik just made me realise that I missed off a links section to all the blogs I follow- you can now find them on my sidebar.  Happy browsing, and send me a message if you want linkage loving!

I also found a widget for page counts, and look at that... I am rocking up to 60,000 views.  How about that?   I was going to post up a whole heap of Rogue Trader pics ready for 40,000... you know, but it slipped me by.

Rogue Trader minis, with a Paranoia Troubleshooter (purple hair)
Citadel 80'

So here is my Warmallet 60,000 (hits).

[ It took 20 thousand years after someone accidentally pulled the plug on the Emperors throne, and mankind freed from his psyonic opression cheered the hell up, allowed women equal rights and stopped pissing around with Catholic Church Iconography... the Eldar then started to respect humans as intellectual equals instead of a dirty, pipe ridden mob of skull worshipping cultists and a new age was formed where everyone, you know... mostly get along.    Turns out the Astonomicon was like a dog whistle to the orcs and what has making the more or less peaceful orcs go a bit loopy.  The Necrons turned out where just escaped animatronic Terminators from James Cameron Theme Park World that got a virus and went a bit squiffy in a freak video programming without instructions incident.  Easily turned off once you had new battereis in the remote.  Zoats showed back up (still eating Zoatybix) - they had been off on this great party planet with some insanely good pineapple and cheese on sticks.  They appologised for being late, but did bring along some pretty awesome Kryomek... sorry...  Zerg... sorry... Tyranid repellant (same formula as Bat shark Repellent funnily enough)  - turns out the Tryanid where attracted to cabling plastics used in power armor all along- just like how cockroaches are drawn to the wiring in my bloody microwave.  Humans suddently realised they could take the Eldar and Necron antigrav technology thats been laying around for decades actually was better than tank tracks, and switched over.
Anyhoo- everyone gets back to some space pirate shooty explory space adventure action!
 No one ever did find out what the little venty, jetpacky nozzles where for on the Marines backpacks.
 In the future there is only war whatever you like! ]

I am basing all my paranoia, 2000ad and Dredd figures on 30mm resin Sulaco bases and giving them all a 'lit by neon' in the dark blue future cities look.  Vibrant feature colors on drab base tones, so every single scifi figure I own is compatible in style for gaming.  I am daydreaming of building a cool game table to play it on in the distant future once I have space.  Oh, for a garage.

Jumping in my blue box we hurtle back in time to the early 1980's and after defeating a nasty outbreak of Sontarans using a jellybaby we arrive in time to photograph some of Citadel's first releases- Fiend Factory and Fantasy Adventurers (aka FA and FF to us collector types).

Fiend Factory Gnome Theif, Wraith, Medusa and Fantasy Adventurer Dwarf

 I have been slowly collecting these since I discovered the joy of ressurecting old school lead using modern painting and finishing techniques.
I have decided to base them all on 30mm modern with moody, torchlit dungeon lighting.  The monsters are all lit brighter and warmer at the front, as if caught in the adventurers torchlight, and lit by the eerie blue glow all dark places appear on TV.

I think these need a bit more work, but I am just so excited by my new photographic lightbox (and the fact I now have photoshop again) that I wanted to take some pics of SOMETHING.  Something Like this...

Lord Aquila from Citadels Heroic Fighters Boxed Set

 This is actually one of the first miniatures I finished painting at the time I started this blog.  I recently rebased him onto a 30mm lipped base from his original hex base.  I find the base makes him feel really proud and draws focus to the model.  I guess psychologically it suggests a little display plinth.
  It was a practical move, since the main reason I switched was it gives extra support and protection to my Skulldred skirmish games.  All this box set brethren, some Paladins, 'Battle Lords' and 'Big Fighters' all recently got the base switch, and its amazing how much more character they seem to have.  They have been on my shelves for ages and I barely look at them... but pop them on chunky decorative bases and whoomp- they get some presence.
Though not entirely happy with the paint job, I feel I should preserve him so I can see how far my work has progressed over the last two years.  At some point I may decorate his base with some 80s mushrooms, but for now I think he is good to go.


For those of you who are eagerly waiting some new Bederken releases, you may be happy to know this little blog photo session was squeezed on the back end of photographing the new models.  Yep.  Pics soon.
Well I have to go back to the land of work-work-work.  Webstores and miniatures do not build themselves.

F'Nurgle old tat

Since I have not had a chance to post some finished work in a while, what with being far too busy with sculpting work, I thought some old tat would suffice.  Here are a couple of old photos I took of some paint jobbies I did on my brother in laws Nurgle army a while ago.  Yep, my bro' is a big 40k mythos fan- though he never plays the game itself.  He buys me figures in exchange for painting and assembling his.
Now he gave me a chirurgeon back pack to add to another figure, but when I tried it on the early 1990's Plague Marine, it was love at first sight.  He looks made for it, and so fiendish I have to make myself one first chance I get.

Forge world aero bars and my fave plague marine conversion

I call them Aero bars because they are full of bubbles.  Note the dude with the speakers gun arm and wire pipes- practically all that had to be rebuilt from scratch after breakage from under the surface bubbles.  The pipes where virtually non existent to begin with.  Really a shame, because these two are some of the coolest looking minis GW produce.  Hopefully once all the issues with finecast is ironed out, they may transition over to the main range.

Two more early marines.

Damned grenade!
WIP of one of Ed's, modern Legion of the Damned
I like these minis.  One of the better releases of modern times.

I actually painted my original plastic marines as legion of the damned back in the 1980s- I think its a bit of a shame how the mythos has changed them to a pop in special unit.  Never mind, not like I am playing the game any time soon.
I do have some placcy marines laying around that one day I may paint up.  I think probably original mentor legion- back when they had the owl logo.  Then again, maybe I will go get a life instead.

15mm madness, Stick Putty, Kill Team Charlie Update

So now a break from the normal, after another food allergy related fit of insomnia, I went to the light side of minis and attacked some 15mm scale figures I have had sitting around forever- and you know, darn it, I really, really love 15mm figures!  When they are well sculpted, they are total gaming joy.  Nil time commitment, no fussing over details and repainting, basing and converting takes minutes- you can pack your whole game in a lunch box!

At about 2 am, I decided sleep was not going to be an option, and decided to go play with the stick putty I got recently.  Stick putty is a new product from procreate, and its supposed to glue together minis.  I tried it on a Ral Partha Djinn, and it does work to this end quite well- about as strong as superglue.  However I probably wont use it for this purpose much - its just begging for basing and armatures!  Why?  It has a 5 minute cure time.  Yes!  Five minutes from mix to a firm, but flexible set.  And its utterly brilliant for filling and gripping minis to bases, and blocking out mini armatures.  I will be buying lots of this stuff.

5 minutes.  5 freaking minutes.  Awesome.

Once set, you can tear up any left overs it to get nice ruined concrete effects for bases- so there is no wastage.
Now if you think its going to replace your sculpting medium, think again- five minutes is just too short to do much work, so cut off small amounts (I use artists palette knife) and do it in stages.  Now if you mount on washers, procreate stick putty is your beotch!  It fills the hole and sticks the model onto the surface, and rounds the edges so your scatter does not show that little integral base give away that makes some armies look crappy.

Now the down sides.  It smells awful for starters.  Keep the clam shell it came in to save your nostrils.  I am not allergic to epoxy putty usually- milliput, that little rascal has no perceivable effect on me- however this stuff is nasty.  As part of the test, I used bare skin.  My palms have been itching like mad all day.  Short story- wear gloves.

I decided to base up my post apocalypse road outlaws, and if sleep denied me after that, paint them  I managed to greyscale two packs, but only painted two- but it was delightful!  Definitely going to build a post apocalypse game board when I have some time.  By the way, if you want to be able to write little names on the side of a 15mm base, paint a white stripe, then using a 0.005 technical pen, etch in the negative space of the letters.  Far easier than trying to paint the letter strokes.

Khurasan Road Outlaws (15mm scale)

 I feel I am getting much better at 15mm- my first attempt was for a small Gauntlet style dungeon bash... I grabbed these minis from 15mm.com.  They need some baddies to fight now- but I have yet to find anything that floats my boat- it may be time for Bederken to release some 15mm!
For my 15mm I decided to use non metallic metals and work up strong contrast, so they pop off the table.

15mm.com dungeoneers.  In... er... 15mm scale.  Strangely.

If you have been wondering about my other projects, Kill Team Charlie has progressed a little since last I posted, though I just have not had the time to clear my sculpting desk to get the hyperbowl bases cast up- so its stalled until I finish the Lead Adventure Mutant Sculpts (which, btw, are soooo going to be part of this game set once I have finished).
Here are some work...

Kill Team Charlie progress continues!  C100 forever!

For those who missed earlier posts, these classic C100 space marines are mounted onto home made custom resin bases featuring a modular detail insert.  The actual outer base forms a deep bowl for scenic features such as deep puddles, hatches etc- and the sides have been extended so you can easily pick up the model by the base.  The bowl has been widened to fit a 10c coin, which is what I sculpt all my inserts on.  The whole lot is cast in resin.  I only have one polished and finished here, the others are pretty crude at this stage.
The Kill Team features mostly natural C100, and converted C100 models (20 odd at the moment), some early rogue trader era figures and a host of scratch built and converted figures from Reaper and Hasslefree- do check out the earlier posts!
I am also moving my Judge Dredd collection onto the same basing system- but thats way off in the future!

Hope you enjoy these!

Casting up the Sci fi bases

Been casting and mould making today... got a half dozen or so of the squad bases casted up.  That and drinking beer, cooking gourmet sausages, making tiramisu and swimming in the sea to get away from the heat.  Sydney is a great place for summer weekends.

The cast up deep dish base I made works a treat- the caps pop in and hold nicely- plus I discovered the caps fit perfectly on to a regular round plastic base.  The deep dish bases can be picked up even with a heavy marine on it, just like I planned.  Chuffed to bits!  So eager to paint them I forgot all about the tiramasu in the fridge.  Oh well, miniatures over calories is a good thing I guess.




So the first six are based, though the paint job is a while off being finished, and already I am feeling the glow of a project coming together.  I cannot wait to sit back and look at the whole team finished now.  Quite a bit of work to go, but damn its a fun project!

I am thinking of getting some 3D models printed for resin casting now.  Hell, since I am a 3d artist on one hand and a miniature sculptor on the other I probably should make some 3d sculpted miniatures or busts at some stage.

I also find myself toying more with ideas for a science fiction figure range after I finish my current batch of comissioned sculpts.  Sort of NASA at war, rather than anything that would fit in the 40k universe... besides IP issues, its either 40k gothic, pulp era retro, Aliens or manga... that leaves a gaping hole of 70's and early 80's sci fi.  Space opera stuff.  Taking a bit of Chris Foss inspiration to bed to flick through.


Anyway, pics shortly.

Kill Team Charlie recruits

Kill Team Charlie - Reaper Chronoscope bot, Hasslefree female marine
Citadel C100 space marines and Rogue Trader Adventurers Assasin

Okay, so my favourite project just got a shot in the arm after this weeks Stripathon.  Here is a family pic of the team, missing the six dudes rocking out in a jar of dettol right now.  Yay.  More scrubbing.

C100 ultra rare Female Marine, C100 Marine

Okay, I am just messing with you... there was no female marine in the c100 line.  But there is now, thanks to the wonders of green stuff.  The model on the left was made by taking the model on the right and carefully whittling out the torso and head section.  the key word here is whittle - only work with a brand new blade and peel away thin layers at a time, like scraping off tin foil- never apply force, as your knife will snap and probably take out an eye.  Always cut away from you and use safety goggles.  A round blade is safer than a pointed xacto for this job.  A dremmel is better!
Anyway, the face and torso was scratch built using greenstuff over a bent paperclip.  I widened her hips too, to give a better female proportion.  I also added some more tech and wires to break up the model a bit more- I have several of these figures that need to look different.  I will start the next one with correcting the pressed down nose cone... it looks like the master was not reinforced and got squished a bit in vulcanizing... all the other marines masks are sharp and pointy.

C100 marines

Not sure you can see it, but her face is pink and scarred on one side from a laser burn.  Forget bullets in THIS universe!

Converted Rogue Trader Assassin, Hasslefree Libby female marine

Two more recruits are Libby, from Hasslefree and a broken Assasin from the Rogue Trader Adventurers.  She is actually quite rare, but arrived in a bitz lot - so languished in my bits box for a long while.  The original owner had converted her to be a superhero by shaving off her backpack and shuriken.  What better job than joining a Rogue Trader inspired team!  I fixed up her damaged torso with GS and upgraded her arsenal.  I also improved her weaponry (boom tish).  Note her arm weapon is a copy of the one built onto the captain figure from the c100 range.  A cool weapon that should have stayed in 40k!

The Hasslefree conversion is a no brainer... anyone can stick a back pack on her and she is a great stand in 40k model.  However I wanted to go a bit deeper into the conversion, trying to integrate her into the look and feel of the c100 range.  Kevs sculpt is so clean and crisp, and just aching for smooth shading!  (Do grab yourself one, its a great figure).  As you can see I took the chainsaw arm from a c100 death guard and am currently constructing a C100 style 'wobbly' backpack and another cool fist mounted weapon arm.  A little bit more work to go on her before she joins the team, but you can see the gist of it coming along.  Note the under support layer I am building is a mix of milliput and green stuff - giving a rock solid support so the arm is nice and solid for gameplay.  Mixing the two putties allows you to file and drill the result well.  Great for armour.

See ya!

Convert or die! Chaos Bertha, Modernised Red Goblin, Kill Team Charlie and the Hyperbole Base

First up today is a couple of conversions...

Left. Vintage Chaos warrior.  Right.  Big Bertha.

I always loved the figure to the left, but by the time I was in the hobby he was a faint memory in a citadel journal.  I was rubbing my hands together with glee when I finally found one on ebay.  I was horrified when it arrived badly broken.  Fortunately another appeared in a job lot chaos army I rescued.  Then Big Bertha made the pain all go away with a relaxing night at the sculpting block.

I love converting figures.  I always start with the best intentions.  Fix a weapon, add a little hood... but I always end up going a teensy bit over the top.  I have some converted figures that it would have been just as quick to scratch build.

Kev Adamsified red goblin

This classic fiend factory red goblin (see previous posts) was too near my brand new sculpting block I have made when I needed something to test sculpting on it.  I decided to fix it up a bit.
  I started by grinding off the shield boss to make space for a decorative shield.  To give him a more stooped look I sliced off the head (easy with this old soft alloy) and pinned it further down the chest.  Its amazing how this little change stops the models head looking too long.  A hood was added to exaggerate the hunch.
  I then filed back the fingers and toes slightly and added freshly mixed green stuff putty.  After leaving it to set for a while I poked in the fingers with a dremmel blunted and rounded off xacto knife- my 'Tom Meier tool'.  The blade was filled with milliput so later it can be filed to a flat, sharp blade.  Finally I added the missing eyes and lip, some belt string and a strap for his shield.  The whole job took about ten minutes of actual work, and turned a few cents of figure into a perfectly good dungeon critter!

Converted citadel Fiend Factor Red Orc

Pre-Rogue Trader (Warhammer 40k 1st ed)  C100 Space marines
And the Dave King Hyperbole base.

I was going to call my next trick the Dave king awesome base of utter brilliant awesomeness, but shortened it to the hyperbole base instead.  My new motto for this year is if it is broke, quit winging and fix it, and one thing I whine on about is how lipped bases are great, but impossible to pick up during a game.  This leads to sticky fingers on models, and that just ain't cricket.  But oohh, they look pretty, and the extra size makes for more stable models with more protection against scratching.  Whine, whine, whine.

So I fixed the damned things by making my own.  Taking a regular base, I extended the depth down using plasticard and bevelled this to create a rounded lip just big enough for fingers to find purchase on and fingernails to roll under as you lift.  I then sanded and polished the whole thing shiney smooth and hollowed out the base to create a deeper, wider bowl.

  The deep dish allows for integral bases to sit inside, flush with the lip, deeper scenic features and cappers.  Since I only had a few lipped bases, I decided to cast the cappers separately.  That also means I can make a couple of cappers that have slots already cut, so all I have to do is just fill in the gap.  Rather than cut out custom discs and sculpting the cap onto this, I widened the dish so it would accept Australian 10c coins.  Whenever I feel like making a new cap, I just work on a 10c coin and know its going to fit.  Nice.

The final change was to glue a 10c coin to the bottom of the master to act as a pouring spout.  This means the lip of the base is perfect without having to grind flat.  A quick adventure with Pinkysil and Easycast (Barnes casting supplies) and my first test base was ready a half hour later..

My pre-rogue trader c100 space marine team, (Kill Team Charlie) are my first victims.  I am basing them up for corridor sci-fi skirmish gaming.  I have a few more in the post, and some in the dettol at the moment, and have bravely decided to convert some of my doubles.  I am toying with the idea of making a second team to go up against them using more of my old Rogue Trader, Judge Dredd and Paranoia minis.  However I think these guys may need some retro alien scum to blast away instead.

Well thats me for today.  Later lead heads!

Kill team Charlie upgrade

KTC just got a some new recruits this morning thanks to the wonderful world of Ebay.  I am now toying with the idea of going beyond the full set and including a few multiples.  The charging troops will look cool together flanked by heavy lasers.  Perhaps even an imperial robot or dreadnought could come along for the ride.
  Should be fun.
You just know its going to spill out into the full series 2 marines.
Resist.  Resist.

Imperial Space Marines: Kill Team Charlie

If your a fan of this site you would know your Warhammer 4000k: Rogue Trader,  from your Warhammer 40k. The original was Weird, wonderful and- as most of us remember it- rich and full of promise.  It was like 2000ad punk, smashed into the good bits of Tolkien (no poems), presented by Max Headroom (look it up gen y- theres an awesome film you need to see)..
Okay, so the modern child of Rogue took a few interesting turns, but slowly has become a smaller, more restrictive and exclusive universe.  Women marines?  No.  Halfling cooks.  No.  Beastmen troopers.  No.  You cannot wear power armour unless you have implants, you cant do this, you cant do that.  Roll 4, 5 or 6 on a D6.  Oh, I have an invulnerable save on that- check the codex.
Sigh.

So for my next mini project I decided to tackle some of the earliest Warhammer figures in a different way- pushing them away from gothic and towards early eighties science fiction.  I wanted them to be able to walk into an episode of Rogue Trooper or ABC warriors and look the part.  So lets take a look at the figures!

First edition space marine with heavy laser

Now with the first ever 40k figures, you notice the evolution start straight away.  Batch one is prototype, with built on backpacks and absolutely chock full of detail and equipment.  They hit white dwarf before 40k did- although a cryptic ad for a Rogue Trader role playing game was seen on a flyer about that time, we had no idea a new battle game was in the making.  You can spot a first edition marine easily.  Those ball jet thingies on the backpacks point up like exhausts, and there are many more science fiction stylings such as wiring, piping, letters, scanners and laserguns.   Bolters do not yet exist, but a lot of the trappings we have come to know and love are seen in embryo- such as powerfists.  Interestingly, the sergent model hints strongly at the future, with his nazi inspired skull eagle and skull emblems.  A cool touch to this model is that he has a helmet hanging from his waist, from which dangles the middle breathing pipe.  It gives the model a very visceral, pragmatic feel- especially when you notice his helmet is modified to make room for his cyborg eye.

First edition marines

I decided the best way to exaggerate the science fiction feel of these characters was to pick a totally new scheme based on the colors common in science fiction at that time.  In the late seventies and early eighties Orange, White, Black and Beige where the future.  Take a look at Star Wars, Buck Rogers, Disneys The Black Hole, BattleStar Gallactica, Robotech- you name it.  White, Black, Beige and Orange.  Thats why commodore 64's where that awful monkey shit beige.  It was proper high tech.
I found VMC medium grey was a perfect offwhite beige with a slight warm note.  Citadel Blazing Orange would counter this nicely, once thinned and glazed over the beige.  I wanted my troops to be dirty, but not rusty- this is futuristic plexisteel or ceramite- not iron.  They have been in toxic environs, been blasted with lasers and space dust.  VMC ocre and green-grey dirtying up the palette nicely.
For the bases, I was considering round, however a glance through Heroes for Wargames, all the 40k models where on hex bases too- fortunately I have bags and bags of them.  Easy choice.  I also decided to give the base a moon dust feel, keeping with the science fiction angle.

So after taking these pictures I got most of the way through six marines, including the limited edition power armoured marine released about the same time.  I am calling them Kill team Charlie now, for some reason.

Hope you likey.