May Hobby Progress

 Hello and Welcome back, 

Time for my hobby Progress report for May. 

May has been an incredibly productive month hobby wise. I managed to get a pile of figures by BMT3D painted (and one from Bad Squiddo and Borderlands). 

Thanks to inspiration by Skim and Billmakingstuff I turned out a pile of junk piles and converted & painted up two factions for the game. Big Red Mining Company and DEAP. 

The Diehard Miniatures jetbike, another bead bot and some Borderlands Skags were also finished.

There was a fantasy chaos Knight too, which will be used in my Rustlords factions.

There has been no further work on the dusty space port town building. 

It hasnt been a good month for incoming figures (well it has, but the pile of shame is growling at me). The order from Ramshackle arrived and in true Curtis style had a couple of extra figures thrown in (thankyou Curtis). That lot are mostly painted and will be turing up in June's blog posts along with a recently finished old 40k pirate. 

EM4 order also arrived but I am waiting on Heresy. I also picked up some Black Powder Woodland Indians, which I will be using to make some Rusters for Skirm. I also got a handful of figures for making colonials. 

Figures finished* = 0 (total 7) *Figures that needed bases finishing from 2024

Figures painted = 42 (total so far 60)

Figures reworked = 0 (total so far 6)

Vehicles finished = 0

Vehicles reworked = 0

Figures bought = 43 (total so far 44)

Vehicles bought = 0

Drat. If I managed to paint just one more figure I would have had parity this month. The box on Woodland Indians bumped the figures up (24 figures). Still my painted tally still out weighs my bought figures. 

That's all for now.

Thanks for reading and take care out there.

Mercenaries by BMT3D

Hello and Welcome back,

I am on a roll with keeping on top of the Blog posts and productivity. 

Mercenaries are a common sight across frontier space. They are hired usually as a short term solution to protect assets, VIPs or to perform certain tasks that their employers want to deny. Mercenaries have a reputation for ruthlessness and sometimes a lack of loyalty. 

On worlds like Maddans world, they are often hired to deal with bandits. Some colonies and corporations also employ them to do their dirty work such as taking control of other (usually independent) mining settlements. 

The Maddans Independent Mining Corporation is now wealthy enough from mining the Ultesium ore to be able to employ mercenaries to protect their mines from Corporate or foreign takeover. 

With the exception of the Mech, these figures are a limited run by BMT3D and are inspired by some of the art work in the orginal 40K RT art work. They have that old school vibe that I like.

Mercenaries don't just arrive as infantry. Some free lance mercenaries bring big heavy Mech suits, which disappear from their orignal detachment usually during an intense battle. Such as the "Ursa". This walking tank soaks up damage and sports four rapid fire heavy machine guns. The Ursa's arsenal is powerful enough to take on lightly armoured opponents, swarms, hordes of GELFs and fast moving targets such as jetbikes, speeders and aircraft. 

Ursa is a Bear mech from the Borderlands box set. 

Thanks for reading and take care out there. 

Introducing the DEAP from Skirm

Hello and Welcome Back,

The DEAP (Deployable Environmentally Adaptive Peacekeeping) Troops are a faction from the Skirm game by Bill Making Stuff. As the name suggests, they are a peace keeping Bio Weapon designed to be dropped as seed pods in troubled areas. They then grow absorbing absorbing local DNA so they can survive in the local environment. 

These DEAP were living happily at the bottom of the Neon Sea in the Gutterlands where they were dumped, until some bright spark decided to go fishing with a black hole grenade. The vortex forced the DEAP onto dry land were their peace keeping and law enforcement programming has kicked in. 

In my own settings the DEAP are a kind of GELF and will make appearances in the Corrosion and Mattblackgod’s worlds settings (except on MBW they will be seen as mutants). 

These figures started life as Borderlands game Psychos I had laying about. In true Bill Making Stuff style, I cut off limbs and added toy crab parts. The psycho heads were replaced with GW plastic ghoul heads. Two heads has their eye sockets drilled out and glass beads added to make bug eyes. 

A suicide psycho had the grenade drilled out and a wire spear added. I didn't like the look of it as the Spear head was too small...and sharp! It was snipped off and a trimmed pole weapon from the bits box glued on. A peice of wire was stripped from it's insulation. The core were twisted and then wrapped around the join like rope. 

Making these guys has been a interesting learning experience. Hopefully I have picked up a few new ideas for future conversion work.

I think the DEAP offer interesting conversion potential. How would they look if their spore pods had landed in a forest, jungle or tundra? I bet those DEAP won't smell as fishy as this lot.

Thanks for reading, 

Take Care out there. 

Rusty Scrap Piles

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While useful for a Post Apocalyptic setting, I made 6 of these rusty scrap piles as objectives for the Skirm game. A further 2 were made and a larger pile as terrain was also produced as I was in the zone. 

The objectives were based on 50mm bases. Skrim needs 25mm but I thought that would be difficult to make a decent looking scrap pile on such a small base. The inspiration for making these models came from a Bill Making Stuff video on YouTube.

All of the scrap piles started with a pile of tin foil flattened to make a heap shape. These were then superglued into position. Hot glue may have been a better option as the glue would have filled the gaps between the base and foil heap.

Then piles of junk salvaged from the bits box (in this case bits of hexagon platformer kits, cut up plastic junk, on toy bullets, model kit parts, figure casting tabs by Ramshackle games, model missles, bits of wire, 1/32 car wheels and other scrap) were then hot glued onto the piles in a random haphazard fashion.

The piles were primed with Matt Black (what else?) spray primer. When dry the piles were given zential priming with white spray primer. The whole thing was painted in textured paint which was a mix bicarbonate of soda, dark brown craft paint and pva glue in equal parts. This takes a while to dry but gives a nice old rusty pile effect. 

The piles got some orange and brown spots added and some light rust paint (army painter). A dark wash was added to make the details pop, such as they where.  

The bases then got a coat of textured paint which is a mix of bicarbonate of soda, fine sand, course sand, pva glue and yellow ochre craft paint. I tried to get paint on other areas of the models as sand gets everywhere. Once dry they got a Coat d arms Bone drybrush. 

I added some flame grass tufts as I figured anything growing would be contaminated by the rust. 

These piles were quick and easy models to make. It is deeply satisfying raiding the bits box and grabbing items of plastic to cut up to make junk. I recommend it. 

I have plans to make larger peices in future. Time to get those bits box emptied! Although I can guarantee that I will probably want those bits for another build a week later.

Thanks for reading,

Take care out there.

Splut

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With all the conflicts across human space, pirate activity and hazards of space travel there is quite a few drifting wrecks and hulks. When discovered these drifting wrecks and hulks often attract explorers and salvage teams. 

A small number of these hulks have strange amoeba like creatures nesting aboard them that Spacers call "Jellies". It is not known where these bugs orginate or how they get aboard the wrecks. One theory is that they are a form of mutated bacteria. They are hostile and some teams never escape the hulks as the Jellies swarm them. It has been found that lazer and plasma weapons are effective on these creatures. 

Splut is a different form of these creatures being larger and polymorphic. It is intelligent and able to produce limbs or weapons. Splut was found living peacefully with the Jellies. It seemed he could keep them tame and under control. This link was discovered by Splut's next "companion" as the creature formed a psychic bond to them. 

"Just what are you?"

Due to Splut's nature it is hunted by corporate and government agents from across human space. It's previous companion lost his life creating a distraction so Splut could escape. This effected Splut and he has become hesitant in forming a link with another human. Splut fled by hiding on vessles to frontier space, Spluts polymorphic nature allowing it to hide with easy. 

Currently Splut is carefully looking for a new companion to form a bond with, but it knows it is being hunted and doesn't want to get another companion killed.

The figure came from a small Sci fi play set, from Home Bargains for a mighty £1. The set provided a few useful bits for models. It was too good not to use.

Thank you for looking and take care out there.

Another Beadbot enters the Fray

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I started this beadbot last year for the Bangarang game. It was stalled for some time after the spray primer went strange giving the model a strange grainy effect. 

I can only surmise that maybe there was some bicarbonate soda still on the model. In future I will have to spend more time cleaning a model before primingit. After some time trying to scrape and sand the primer off, it got close to being ready for a repaint. 

Some of the dodgy primer remained so I decided that this bot would now be a bit ccorroded. Some of the details were lost during the clean up, mostly rivets. The missing rivets had holes drilled to make it look like they had fallen out.

My plan was always to paint this bot in a style similar to the Wigan Warriors Rugby league kit. It was to be the beginning of my plan to paint a few more Beadbots in other sports teams paint schemes. All I need to do is build more. That said I have 2 beadbots and a scrapbot, so I think that's enough for a game of Bangarang. 

Thanks for reading and take care out there.

Starport Scum #10 Ladies Night

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Time for another installment of Starport Scum. I can't believe we have had 10 of these! In this episode, it's all about the ladies. Hence the tag line - Ladies Night. Cue music!

Finished dancing? If that's what it was? On with the show. 

Bounty Hunter's are a common sight around the frontier Spaceports, on the trail of fugitives or other targets. Bounty Hunters use code names rather than their real names to protect themselves from future repercussions. This figure is a limited run bounty hunter by BMT3D and is inspired by some of the art work in the orginal 40K RT art work. 

The Moggi Sisters are "splicers", using Human Gene Manipulation (HGM).They have some feline like features. They thought it would make them more attractive. Still the improved hearing and retractable claws prove useful in their role as bodyguards to wealthy Patrons touring Frontier Space. These figures are limited run figures by BMT3D.

Orbital Starports often see crew wandering about in space suits. Sometimes the crew or station personnel have to go out to effect repairs on their ships or station. Or occasionally as a punishment, sent to give the outside a fresh coat of paint. The figure is Alice the Astronaut by Bad Squiddo miniatures.

Thanks for reading and stay safe out there.

Big Red Mining Company- Skrim faction

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The Big Red Mining Company is a faction in the Skirm rulebook by Bill Making Stuff. A summary of the faction background is that they are a space dwarf Mining company that orginated from the world Vermillion which orbits a Red Dwarf star. In addtion to their mining activities they are also good at recovering old technology from junk piles (The world of Gutterlands is one giant junk pile). 

I do wonder if Bill is a fan of the Red Dwarf TV show?

In Skrim factions only need 6 figures a side, but I expanded the numbers up to 10 so these guys can be used in other games such as Stargrave. 

These figures are Chobs Space Dwarves carried by Ramshackle games. 

There are also some metal Squats from Macrocosmn. The guy with the mohawk has had a shotgun added. 

This small guy is a old 40K Squat from way back. 

These three are converted Warhammer Dwarves. I had fun doing these conversions. That triple barreled heavy weapon makes me think of the Tribarrel power guns fitted to the Combat Cars in Hammers Slammers.

The BRMC will also be used as a Dvargs faction in my Wild Galaxy setting. Company scouting teams have arrived on Maddans World to check out the mining opportunities. Wreckage station has also had a team arrive. In addition to the giant ball of ancient technology that is the station, the dead world below offers untold salvage opportunities. Or it will as soon as they atmosphere is balanced. 

Back at company HQ on Vermilion the company is comparing their old space charts against the modern Human ones to find dead or lost worlds. Will they find Mattblackgod’s World? 

Looking at the pile of shame I have collected a few of old 40K squats. I think I will create another Dvark company using another colour as a rival faction. My tortured brain is also thinking about a way to include my old Squat Engineers Guild figures as a possible free lance squat squad to beef up either faction should I decide to use them in a bigger game, such as facing off against Orks. 

Thank you for reading, 

Take care out there. 

Skags

Hello and Welcome back, 

Those of you familiar with the Borderlands Computer Game will have come across the Skags that are native to the world of Pandora. 

For those of you not familiar with the Flora and Forna of Pandora, the Skag is canine like alien creature with a three way hinged jaw. They are pack Hunters and are able to eat anything, vomiting up the things they can't digest. Skags are a constant threat to anyone wandering around Pandora on foot. 

These figures come from the Borderlands tabletop/ board game. They painted up really quickly using speed paints. It took The basing took longer than it did to paint them.

I am going to be using these Skags as a threat to the miners of Maddans world. They fit into the world's theme nicely.

Thanks for looking 

Take care out there.

Die Hard Miniatures George and Mildred

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Being a lawless world Bandits are a growing problem on Maddans World. They attack ore and supply convoys with ambushes or by simply chasing them down. 

Jetbikes give a great speed advantage for the bandits while avoiding the pitfalls of crossing the deserts. 

This figure is George and Mildred by Diehard Miniatures. I guess they took inspiration from a certain post apocalyptic movie for this pair. It was too cool a model to ignore. 

Thanks for looking,

Take care out there.