Love those car conversions... How are the windscreens made? And the painting - is that a dry brush effect? They look great.
Shenanigans in the north of Scotland
- Thread starter Doghead13
- Start date
The windscreens are card out of packaging. The back of your average blister pack works just fine, as does the cardboard you get superglue tubes attached to. I cut it into roughly the same shape as the windscreen using a brand new craft knife blade, then cut a series of slots in it with same. It's then painted Bestial Brown (as it makes the perfect rusted metal colour) and glued on -after- painting - that part is important as you can make out the back of it from through the rear window of the car.
Dead on about the drybrushing. Underneath it, the car's colours are just blocked in over a black undercoat - there's no highlighting or shading at all, don't need it on these things, it'd get lost in short order under all the drybrushing. Half the time I just pick out metallic parts and block in some rust with Bestial Brown then drybrush straight over the top of the black; the more cluttered and 'ugly' a vehicle is, the more likely I am to do that.
It's had about half a dozen go-overs of drybrushing. Each is done starting at the front and moving backwards as the amount of paint on the brush goes down. Each one is very heavy as drybrushing goes - if it was any heavier it would stop being drybrushing and start being flicking the tip of a loaded brush against the surface of the model. The Bubonic Brown is the key part; if you look at the vehicles in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome they're very much that sort of colour.
Dead on about the drybrushing. Underneath it, the car's colours are just blocked in over a black undercoat - there's no highlighting or shading at all, don't need it on these things, it'd get lost in short order under all the drybrushing. Half the time I just pick out metallic parts and block in some rust with Bestial Brown then drybrush straight over the top of the black; the more cluttered and 'ugly' a vehicle is, the more likely I am to do that.
It's had about half a dozen go-overs of drybrushing. Each is done starting at the front and moving backwards as the amount of paint on the brush goes down. Each one is very heavy as drybrushing goes - if it was any heavier it would stop being drybrushing and start being flicking the tip of a loaded brush against the surface of the model. The Bubonic Brown is the key part; if you look at the vehicles in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome they're very much that sort of colour.
Mine is barely above basic mate. If it'll look okay on a tabletop with dice bouncing around its' ears, it's good enough - besides, that's about the total extent of my not-so-mad painting skills at the moment.
I can get a bit beyond the 'badly painted miniature with bits of white undecoat showing all over' stage (largely as I use black undercoat) and that's about it. I don't think I've got the patience to become a master-painter; I haven't ever spent more than about an hour painting any one miniature and excluding drybrushing on vehicles the most layers I've ever used on any one part of any one miniature is about six including the undercoat.
I can get a bit beyond the 'badly painted miniature with bits of white undecoat showing all over' stage (largely as I use black undercoat) and that's about it. I don't think I've got the patience to become a master-painter; I haven't ever spent more than about an hour painting any one miniature and excluding drybrushing on vehicles the most layers I've ever used on any one part of any one miniature is about six including the undercoat.
Yeah... The green stuff was showing through on my most comp entry... I found undercoating with a can of black car spray paint works nicely, if you have a few to do. I can cope with that!
So, back home from a riotous evening's roleplaying session and it's scale comparison time again!
In the spotlight this time is Warlord Games' Bolt Action 28mm WW2 range, in the form of one of their resin-and-metal vehicles and a quickly tacked-together one of their plastics. Before I say anything else the truck kit is a bit... yeah. Some cracking to the resin chassis and shitloads of flash all over the farm, and one of the metal castings appears to be missing from the box. However I'm not going to be an ass and presume this normal without supporting evidence, I've been in retail long enough to know that perfection 100% of the time just isn't happening for any company anywhere ever, and the plastics are -superb-, enough so that they just went shooting right to the top of my list of conversion sources for random humies. Catachans? Feh! GW can keep 'em, especially with decent lasguns available from Victoria Miniatures!
With an old plastic Orlock. Just held the Jerry up to an Empire Free Company torso I've got kicking around and he's about a mil narrower, but height wise he's eye-to-eye with the Orlock.
Makes you notice how tall the Catachan plastics actually are, doesn't it? Note the Bolt Action kraut is dead on height-wise with Fred the Scalecadian. In the background, head on views of the old 1/43 Beetle, the Bolt Action truck, and something else I just took delivery of - a 1/43 MkI Ford Transit van, courtesy of Corgi, that comes pre-weathered (with entertaining graffiti 'drawn into the dirt') and is essentially table-ready straight out of the box.
And an overhead shot of vehicles and miniatures. Speaking only for myself of course, kit the Jerry out with a GW-sized gun andI wouldn't bat an eyelid at seeing all of these minis on the same table together. The Bolt Action plastics are right in the middle of GW's range of sizes for human miniatures - that said they need weapon swaps for our uses as their guns are actually in scale with them - a lasgun is bigger than one of their MG42 machine guns in every direction.
Warlord's range is well worth checking out; they now have multipart plastics for German, British/commonwealth, Japanese, Soviet and American forces, and if their 'Huns' are anything to go by all any of them need is suitably 40k sized weapons and five minutes of justification. In sumnation they're a reasonable price - 25 multipart plastics with a bunch of options for £24, compare to £18 for ten Catachans with a sight less in the options department and a bit more in the way of usable weapons - and I can't fault their shipping; I ordered some stuff from GW the same night as I ordered these kits and I'm still waiting for the GW stuff.
In the spotlight this time is Warlord Games' Bolt Action 28mm WW2 range, in the form of one of their resin-and-metal vehicles and a quickly tacked-together one of their plastics. Before I say anything else the truck kit is a bit... yeah. Some cracking to the resin chassis and shitloads of flash all over the farm, and one of the metal castings appears to be missing from the box. However I'm not going to be an ass and presume this normal without supporting evidence, I've been in retail long enough to know that perfection 100% of the time just isn't happening for any company anywhere ever, and the plastics are -superb-, enough so that they just went shooting right to the top of my list of conversion sources for random humies. Catachans? Feh! GW can keep 'em, especially with decent lasguns available from Victoria Miniatures!
With an old plastic Orlock. Just held the Jerry up to an Empire Free Company torso I've got kicking around and he's about a mil narrower, but height wise he's eye-to-eye with the Orlock.
Makes you notice how tall the Catachan plastics actually are, doesn't it? Note the Bolt Action kraut is dead on height-wise with Fred the Scalecadian. In the background, head on views of the old 1/43 Beetle, the Bolt Action truck, and something else I just took delivery of - a 1/43 MkI Ford Transit van, courtesy of Corgi, that comes pre-weathered (with entertaining graffiti 'drawn into the dirt') and is essentially table-ready straight out of the box.
And an overhead shot of vehicles and miniatures. Speaking only for myself of course, kit the Jerry out with a GW-sized gun andI wouldn't bat an eyelid at seeing all of these minis on the same table together. The Bolt Action plastics are right in the middle of GW's range of sizes for human miniatures - that said they need weapon swaps for our uses as their guns are actually in scale with them - a lasgun is bigger than one of their MG42 machine guns in every direction.
Warlord's range is well worth checking out; they now have multipart plastics for German, British/commonwealth, Japanese, Soviet and American forces, and if their 'Huns' are anything to go by all any of them need is suitably 40k sized weapons and five minutes of justification. In sumnation they're a reasonable price - 25 multipart plastics with a bunch of options for £24, compare to £18 for ten Catachans with a sight less in the options department and a bit more in the way of usable weapons - and I can't fault their shipping; I ordered some stuff from GW the same night as I ordered these kits and I'm still waiting for the GW stuff.
(DISCLAIMER: I don't actually speak a word of German. Please forgive my terrible grammar, I learned it from cheesy dialogue in old war movies.)
ACHTUNG! IST EIN LASGEWEHR!
It's striking how well your basic GW lasgun from a Catachan sprue fits into the Warlord Games mini's hands; I only had to shave a little plastic off the inside of the lasgun's stock to allow it to tuck in closer to the right side of his chest, then he shouldered it like a pro. I stress that the Bolt Action plastic here is completely unchanged and just cut off sprue and tacked together with a little glue, and that he is indeed holding the pistol grip that GW cast onto the lasgun. It fits so sweetly that the lasgun isn't even glued, can be lifted off the mini, and yet stays in his hands if I turn him upside down - so long as I don't flip him forwards.
I'm pretty sure that the set of arms used here were designed to hold an MG42 - the ones for holding KAR98 rifles are rotated too far forwards to hold the style of grip on a GW lasgun, but would probably work with a Victoria Miniatures example. Going to have to get some of the latter and find out - I'm running out of lasguns anyway, so... In the meantime I'll do a little refining to this chap's interaction with the lasgun, then get him painted up and the lasgun glued into his grip. Too easy a conversion not to go with it.
Every time I look back at them, I find myself liking Warlords' plastics more.
ACHTUNG! IST EIN LASGEWEHR!
It's striking how well your basic GW lasgun from a Catachan sprue fits into the Warlord Games mini's hands; I only had to shave a little plastic off the inside of the lasgun's stock to allow it to tuck in closer to the right side of his chest, then he shouldered it like a pro. I stress that the Bolt Action plastic here is completely unchanged and just cut off sprue and tacked together with a little glue, and that he is indeed holding the pistol grip that GW cast onto the lasgun. It fits so sweetly that the lasgun isn't even glued, can be lifted off the mini, and yet stays in his hands if I turn him upside down - so long as I don't flip him forwards.
I'm pretty sure that the set of arms used here were designed to hold an MG42 - the ones for holding KAR98 rifles are rotated too far forwards to hold the style of grip on a GW lasgun, but would probably work with a Victoria Miniatures example. Going to have to get some of the latter and find out - I'm running out of lasguns anyway, so... In the meantime I'll do a little refining to this chap's interaction with the lasgun, then get him painted up and the lasgun glued into his grip. Too easy a conversion not to go with it.
Every time I look back at them, I find myself liking Warlords' plastics more.
Looks really good, but for some reason I see those helmets and think "zombies" :-D
If all else fails, google translate is a good approximation.
If all else fails, google translate is a good approximation.
Seven-way scale comparison with an age range somewhere on the high side of 25 years, and representing every currently-known source of female miniatures in my collection as yet. I've got a bunch of others bought at an independent games shop down south twenty-odd years ago, but haven't a clue who made most of them.
From L to R; Statuesque; Grenadier/EM4/Mirliton; Dark Eldar wych; Mantic zombie repurposed as a mutie; Brother 'In Putin's Russia, we name our products using Google Translate' Vinnie; 40k Rogue Trader; and about the only unaltered and painted in anything other than black undercoat Escher in my collection. I'm afraid that the way the poor Mantic ex-zom's sculpted, she can't stand up straight; apart from her, they're all picked on the basis of similar stance.
I stress that the Mantic ex-zombie's gun (and arm changes to get her to hold it) is the only alteration to any of these seven - incidentally, her gun's from Alternative Armies' Flintloque range. The rest of them are straight out of the box.
Funny how the tallest and (apart from the poor stooped-over scavvy) shortest of them are both from GW, both made for 40k a quarter of a century apart, isn't it?
From L to R; Statuesque; Grenadier/EM4/Mirliton; Dark Eldar wych; Mantic zombie repurposed as a mutie; Brother 'In Putin's Russia, we name our products using Google Translate' Vinnie; 40k Rogue Trader; and about the only unaltered and painted in anything other than black undercoat Escher in my collection. I'm afraid that the way the poor Mantic ex-zom's sculpted, she can't stand up straight; apart from her, they're all picked on the basis of similar stance.
I stress that the Mantic ex-zombie's gun (and arm changes to get her to hold it) is the only alteration to any of these seven - incidentally, her gun's from Alternative Armies' Flintloque range. The rest of them are straight out of the box.
Funny how the tallest and (apart from the poor stooped-over scavvy) shortest of them are both from GW, both made for 40k a quarter of a century apart, isn't it?
You have to give them a certain amount of credit as the really tall one is supposed to be some sort of space elf.
The 1987 Guardswoman and the 1995 Escher are, going by eye level, within about a millimetre of each other; I can't say what size a modern-sculpt GW human female would be as I do not have any., but grabbing a plastic Orlock from the original Necro box and a modern monopose cultist, they're shoulder to shoulder; the height difference between those two is all in the Orlock's pin head, which looks equally strangely small beside a lead mini of the same age.
Catachans have grown since the 1990s; standing a plastic Catachan beside a lead one in a similar pose, the plastic is a full millimetre taller than the lead, though it's all in the plastics' upper half; at belt level they're bang on with each other. The plastic Catachan's shoulder is at the DV cultist's nose level while the lead Catachan is shoulder-to-shoulder with the cultist.
The 1987 Guardswoman and the 1995 Escher are, going by eye level, within about a millimetre of each other; I can't say what size a modern-sculpt GW human female would be as I do not have any., but grabbing a plastic Orlock from the original Necro box and a modern monopose cultist, they're shoulder to shoulder; the height difference between those two is all in the Orlock's pin head, which looks equally strangely small beside a lead mini of the same age.
Catachans have grown since the 1990s; standing a plastic Catachan beside a lead one in a similar pose, the plastic is a full millimetre taller than the lead, though it's all in the plastics' upper half; at belt level they're bang on with each other. The plastic Catachan's shoulder is at the DV cultist's nose level while the lead Catachan is shoulder-to-shoulder with the cultist.
I just wanted to have a cheap shot at GW to be honest 
I've actually got a couple of extra models from dark age and anima tactics in my escher gang. Quite like the variety in height. Juves should look a bit tiny and meek in comparison and I like the leader and heavies to stand out and be a bit more imposing.
I've actually got a couple of extra models from dark age and anima tactics in my escher gang. Quite like the variety in height. Juves should look a bit tiny and meek in comparison and I like the leader and heavies to stand out and be a bit more imposing.I'm un-fussy enough to use 25mm miniatures right alongside things like 1995-vintage Necromunda stuff, and given that I've got a conversion who ended up as much taller than that Wych as the Wych is than an unmodified Escher and I'm not talking a mutie character, I expect I wouldn't bat an eyelid at 32mm stuff either - I'll find out as soon as Wayland Games -finally- manage to send me those Malifaux boxes.
That said, I'm growing increasingly particular about sizes of vehicle, so I find myself feeling sympathetic to people who are bothered by height discrepancy in miniatures. That (and a glaringly transparent excuse to go 'Looke me new shiny!') is the idea behind the scale comparison photos I've been putting up.
The first step in deciding whether something's within the range you're OK with is to know what it actually looks like sat beside whatever your baseline is, regardless of what range you're OK with, so I figure someone who's very unfussy and just flat-out likes miniatures might as well do the finding out.
That said, I'm growing increasingly particular about sizes of vehicle, so I find myself feeling sympathetic to people who are bothered by height discrepancy in miniatures. That (and a glaringly transparent excuse to go 'Looke me new shiny!') is the idea behind the scale comparison photos I've been putting up.
The first step in deciding whether something's within the range you're OK with is to know what it actually looks like sat beside whatever your baseline is, regardless of what range you're OK with, so I figure someone who's very unfussy and just flat-out likes miniatures might as well do the finding out.
Counting the Opel's driver, the Kempfgruppe are currently sixteen strong and I could easily continue making more of them until the cows come home. It's time to start looking at making them a game-usable group, and there's two particular purposes for this lot.
Firstly, as essentially NPCs in Inquisimunda, who show up to fulfil the role played by random Nazis in Indiana Jones movies. Goons, essentially.
Secondly, for use in 'vanilla' Necromunda as a scavvy gang.
For the first I can easily continue merrily creating weird mutants and jackbooted thug archetypes, but they're going to need some suitably officery-looking variants, at least one machine gun nest, and preferably a motorcycle courier type - that last I'll struggle to contrive with what I've got handy, so I may end up simply getting a 28mm WW2 motorcycle courier.
For the second, to become a scavvy gang they're going to need some scalies and a leader. Happily, the scalies can very well be of full utility to the Inquisimunda-goon-NPC use, and one of the officery types can serve double-duty as a scavvy leader, I just need to kit him out right.
That's a thought...
Hmm, all she needs now is a less Eldary gun, huh?
These are their 'Heroic-Scale Heads'.
http://www.statuesqueminiatures.co.uk/p/8774376/sma012-heroic-scale-female-heads.html
They're visibly bigger than the rest of Statuesque's head range, which would look a bit small on a Dark Eldar but are a pretty good match for the somewhat smaller original Escher.
Hmm, all she needs now is a less Eldary gun, huh?
These are their 'Heroic-Scale Heads'.
http://www.statuesqueminiatures.co.uk/p/8774376/sma012-heroic-scale-female-heads.html
They're visibly bigger than the rest of Statuesque's head range, which would look a bit small on a Dark Eldar but are a pretty good match for the somewhat smaller original Escher.
Bit of zombling going on round here. Taken experimentally down in the living room where there's more daylight.
Once more my near-pathological inability to paint a new and unmodified miniature shines through. Mashups from the two different Mantic zombie sprues. The guy with the hair is the inevitable Iron-Maiden-fan attempt to make a zombie look like Edward the Head, and represents my first bit of greenstuffing in quite a while. I totally misjudged the quantity, however, leading me to...
... arm a Squat.
Once more my near-pathological inability to paint a new and unmodified miniature shines through. Mashups from the two different Mantic zombie sprues. The guy with the hair is the inevitable Iron-Maiden-fan attempt to make a zombie look like Edward the Head, and represents my first bit of greenstuffing in quite a while. I totally misjudged the quantity, however, leading me to...
... arm a Squat.
And in reference to that last, Urist's been joined by another old pal from back 'haem';
Jock 'Spleenripper' McRambo, who seems to have brought some transport with him.
Jock 'Spleenripper' McRambo, who seems to have brought some transport with him.
Saw some mantic zombies on ebay the other day, but they ended up going for more than I was willing to pay (cos I am cheap), really wishing I had more funds right about now. Your zombies look pretty damned awesome
Re; Green Stuff. When I was starting back into miniatures (what, 4 or so months ago now?) I read a bunch of tutorials, and two things that were mentioned stuck into my mind:
1) Always mix less Green Stuff than you think you'll need - it always goes further than you think.
2) Having a few projects that need Green Stuffing sitting to the side is always a good idea, be it a Ymir/Squat that needs some arms or planning to use excess/left over GS to make Grots/Mushrooms/hive vermin/small press moulded gear.
Re; Green Stuff. When I was starting back into miniatures (what, 4 or so months ago now?) I read a bunch of tutorials, and two things that were mentioned stuck into my mind:
1) Always mix less Green Stuff than you think you'll need - it always goes further than you think.
2) Having a few projects that need Green Stuffing sitting to the side is always a good idea, be it a Ymir/Squat that needs some arms or planning to use excess/left over GS to make Grots/Mushrooms/hive vermin/small press moulded gear.
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