Galleries

Steam Wars – Navy Mole

The recent painting spree that has resulted from the ability to undercoat so much recently includes an Ironclad Tunneller.

Undercoated in Bone, along with a number of other items.

Work in progress still, with silver to the drill and brown washes to the base and wood.

More WIP shots as the silver gets finished on the drill head and more colour is added to the base.

I didn’t get the chance to finish this over the weekend, but I plan to get the rest done before too much longer.  The final metallic parts will be the central bands in brass but I feel that the base will need lightening slightly at this point…

Rogue Stars – Dogs Of War

Another couple of quick painted minis.  Hasslefree Smudgester in both his forms.

These got more attention to their heads and faces than the space suits.  Why?  I don’t know.  I just like them this way.  The suits have enough detail on them to work with a simple scheme.  The character in each figures face deserved more time to really bring it out.

Anyway, gruff cigar smoking space dogs can pull off purple. Can’t they?

Yeah, they can…

Steam Wars – Martian Tripods Completed

So, with a few smaller bits done, and the weather turning wetter over the course of the week again, I have moved the remaining Martian Tripods back up the paint queue.

As I know the painting process for these models now, painting can be done quicker, and with all five on the desk at the same time, they don’t take too much time.

All of the tripods together make an impressive force…

Assault Tripods with Gas Globes, Black Smoke Cannon and Heat Ray.

Scientist Tripod, Science Drones, Bombardier Tripod and smaller personal Tripod suit.

Scout Tripods with Heat Rays.

With all these done I had best get some profiles written up, and another game planned.

Steam Wars – New Navy Tank

The Steam Wars Navy have been well supplied with light HMG tanks and small bore anti tank guns.  Lately they have taken delivery of a new design of tank that will be able to do more damage against heavier targets.

This is a new West Wind Productions model that was in their recent Kickstarter.

Listed as a German War Wheel, this will be a US Navy Marine Corps tank on my table.

Quad anti tank guns might be hard to profile up for Steam Wars so I plan to go with a set of twin linked medium anti tank guns and see if this proves effective.

This should be easy to paint and get finished.

Another quick win if I need one next weekend…

More Undercoating And The Next Martian Tripods

More batch painting while the weather gives me the option.

This time metallic items.  40K objectives and the next batch of Martian Tripods.  Along with a new tank for the Steam Wars Navy.

5 tripods make up the remainder of the Martian armour.  2 Assault Tripods and a Scout Triopd are similar plastic kits to the finished ones I have.

The last 2 are resin and metal kits that I picked up on eBay.  A Scientist Tripod and a Bombardier Tripod.

I have added a few extra arms to the Science Tripod, to give it more scope in the rules for Steam Wars.  The Bombardier will be played, as is, and I will be profiling it up with an artillery weapon of some sort.

With all these now undercoated, I have no excuse not to get them finished…

 

Undercoating While The Weather Holds

Living in the UK we have to take opportunities to undercoat when we can.  Gamers across the land can be seen, on weekend mornings, sensing the weather.  They stand on their doorsteps, with noses lifted to the sky, trying desperately to pick the few hours that undercoating can be attempted.  A wrong decision can lead to a higher risk of those cooler damp days ruining the finish on their prized miniatures…

Recently, a weekend perfect in every way, afforded me the chance to undercoat a few batches of miniatures.  I grabbed as much as I could as the window of opportunity would not last long.  Everything from a resin Ironclad Miniatures tunnelling machine, that has sat for over a year on the shelf, to a batch of newer ironclad Sanwar Infantry and Cephalopods got laid out.

It was also an opportunity to get the Venusian infantry undercoated to match their War Barge.

But I cant stop to chat as other batches need to be attended to…

Steam Wars – Navy Skyship

I am jumping the queue with this post slightly.  I have other posts, that I expected to post before this one, but the month is almost over and if I plan to get something posted for Azazel’s Assembly April challenge I will have to shuffle that queue…

The kit I planned to build for this challenge was one that I bought before Salute.  Its an Oxford Class Patrol Skyship from Blotz.

As with most MDF kits it come in what seems like a trillion pieces… It needed some patience and lots of sets of hands (or rubberbands if hands are in short supply) to put it together.

Dry fitting of parts is essential as I plan to paint the model as I build it. I would need to decide on what stage to stop, and paint the parts, before restarting the build.

A couple of Tesla Guns from Blotz are to be its main deck guns although I will leave these unglued as I then have the option to use my older deck guns when needed.

Bleached bone deck colour

White hull colour.

The new Skyship comes up as shorter than my original steam ship but its wider deck can hold more miniatures when fielded in a game.

Again, dry fitting the parts allows me to see if they need to be painted before gluing them in place.

Those Tesla Guns might be a tight fit when the hand rails are all in place.

Did I mention that it appears to have trillions of pieces, 58 supports are used for the hand rails.

The design is excellent though, as each part fits well, and gives a great visual effect when completed.

As of today the decals are on and it sits waiting for a second coat of varnish to seal them.

I went for a paint scheme that was similar to the original on the BlotZ website.

My decision to paint it while building it meant that the project took slightly longer than normal but probably made it oh so much easier than trying to paint it after it was constructed.   For anyone interested in how I painted the metallic parts, I have to admit that I cheated. I used silver and bronze Sharpie metallic pens as my hand is slightly steadier with a pen than a brush it would seem.

Steam Wars – Martian Flyer

My Martian Flyer has been commandeered by the Venusians as a war barge, so needs to be painted in the colours of their nation (I have no clue as to what colours they will be yet).

As I have undercoated them in Bleached bone at the moment I thought it best to get this base coated in that colour too.

Its an Oshiro Models creation.  Produced by the lovely Jimbibbly, often seen on the Lead Adventure Forum, and at shows showing what wonderful oriental buildings he can create.  The item details are on The Red Planet Blog site.

The flying stand is a design of his as well, and both can be acquired from the Oshiro website.

After two years, sat on my shelf in just a grey primer, it is nice to see it on its way to completion.

So, before I go, I have started to get some paint onto the woodwork.  As I like to undercoat, in a Bleached Bone colour a GW Sepia Shade wash is enough to bring out detail and stain the paint in a light wood colour.  Sometimes I will use GW Agrax Earthshade if I want slightly older/ darker look.

Who knows what colour the hull will turn out as I often (make that always) find myself applying paint before planning.

Salute Bits – Starting To Build Things

The jobs on the go in the shed recently (ever since I returned from Salute with a very mixed bag of purchases) have been a bit varied.  Quick jobs have been completed, in-between other equally quick tasks, as I build a few miniatures here and clean a bit of resin there.  Some older items have been mixed in, as and where needed, to make the batches more worthwhile.

An example of a Sunday afternoons work.

Sci-fi objectives in resin washed, trimmed and filed.

The recently completed statue topper. Basing for the Smudgester Elite. One half of a new Bushido crew cleaned and based to fit the old Bushido crew style. (Of note: The Fire Kami in the back – I have no bloody clue how it is supposed to go together, only 2 parts, and no obvious tab to join them.  Even the manufacturers website fails to have a clear picture of what the final figure should look like.  So, I crossed my fingers and stuck it where it looked like it would go…)

Smudgester 2 basing. Second half of the Bushido Crew and basing.

Resin cleaning and trimming again but this time with a more oriental theme.

Both resin sets are from the TTcombat range.  Their range appears to be growing quickly in a number of directions and mediums.  Resin, MDF and publishing new games on what seems like a monthly basis.  All in a year when other major British companies are going out of business.  If they keep this up they will be running the country in 10 years… Imagine that as a post apocalyptic setting for a game…

Salute Statue Number Two

I am into quick paint jobs and easy wins at the moment. If I could, I would paint this way more often, but occasionally a proper paint job is required I guess.

Queen Victoria has presided over a number of the battles fought across the greens and squares of quaint English towns in our games.

She was recently joined by this trio of world war one soldiers allowing the town to be more European rather than rooted in the Empire.

This young lady, a star of the Red Army, gives me a slightly more eastern feel to my town.

Or, I might just plonk her on the plinth as a change from the other two, every now and then…

If I can find a couple of other plinth styles, I may just be able to field all three scenic statues on the same table.  Wouldn’t that be lovely!