Old Kosmik

Hello Wanderer, welcome back.

“Hey, wanna get out your skull and heal your bonce? Come visit Kosmik’s Sweatlodge”

Introducing Kosmik. Kosmik runs a sweatlodge claiming he is a genuine Shaman who can bring you spiritual healing. While slow steam cooking his customers Kosmik drops hallucinogenic herbs into the water feeds. If the dark, heat and steam doesn’t get you hallucinating then the psychotropic steam will. For a deeper experience Shamanic drumming music can be provided for extra by Kosmik’s sidekick Spike playing some bongo drums. Not quite a genuine experience but close enough to Kosmik’s mind. When Kosmik and Spike are feeling mischievous they provide God, Demon or Spirit voices through a pipe just to see what entertainment their customers can provide. 

Kosmik dresses to impress his customers by trying to appear what he thinks a tribal shaman would look like. He likes to appear colourful as possible hence his name. While the locals speculate that he dyed the furs, they came from a mutant critter deep in the hills a hunter claimed was called a “Muppet”. 

The Kosmik figure is a Hexadrex resin figure by Ramshackle games. I found it fun to paint especially with the colourful paint work. The idea about the figure came from the recent Kosmik’s sweatlodge model that I painted up recently. Sometimes one idea leads to another in this hobby. 

Thanks for looking. Take care out there. 

Pressed card packing model WIP.

Hello and welcome back Wanderer, 

This is something I am working on for my Last City setting. I like these pressed card packing pieces. They have a look of old delaminated concrete. Which is great for the ruins of a post apocalyptic world or the remains of some forgotten old colony on a abandoned planet. 

These pieces often remind me of the remains of the foundations of giant old world buildings. In my mind the after people have returned and made the crumbling concrete into a home. 

This build is inspired by the cool models that Ramshackle Games uses in its backdrops. I have no idea what this will become yet, my plan is to let it grow organically as I work on it.  It is slow going so far as I have to wait for bits to dry before continuing on the next part. 

So far the model had some spray foam filler sprayed into the recesses to act as reinforcement. I have built the ladder/staircase using bamboo skewers. The lashing ropes are copper multi strand cores stripped out from old electrical flex. The pipes are card drinking straws while the floor panels are a gift card and beer mat.

Keep watching for more WIP pictures as the build progresses. 

Stay safe out there and take care out there.

Billboards.

Hello and Welcome Back. 

Just to add some detail to an post apocalyptic ruined city scape or roadway I had to get some Billboards. 

These billboards are mdf items made by TT combat. For some reason I ordered way too many sets. I assembled and painted them and then they ended up laying about for years waiting for me to print off some posters for the billboards. At the time our printer broke and then life got in the way. 

Having got a new printer it took a while to grab the billboards off the too do pile and to measure them for the poster size. They are 120 x 60mm if anyone else is in the same boat. After looking around the internet for suitable pictures I dropped the pictures into a word document (or Apple equivalent) on a ipad and then stretched them while measuring the size on the screen. 

There are five of these models but one has gone missing. I put them all down together ready for photographing a few days ago and one of them has escaped. I suspect my cats may be the culprits. I will supply a picture if I ever see it again.

Thanks for looking.

Take care out there.

The Boring Machine

Hello and welcome back. 

The ground rumbles and slowly this boring machine bursts from the ground. 

The machine grinds to a stop and a head pops out of the hatch and shouts “is this exciting enough?” (boring machine - exciting! Get it? I will get my coat!).

The head disappears and some furious clanging comes from the interior of the machine. “Bugger! There is no reverse!”

Ramshackle games makes the tunnelling/boring machine. It was a very quick paint job. At some point I might add a rubble and soil filled base just to finish it off. 

This tunnelling machine will be used as scenery. Unless I get my squat force finished and they might want to break into places. 

Thanks for looking

Stay safe out there 

The old Robot!

Hello and welcome back.

I have had this 40K Blackstone Fortress Robot knocking about for a couple of years. My first problem was how to paint it. At first I was going to go for an ancient machine look with lots of rust as just another hazard of digging through the ruins.

Another idea was to assign it to a particular faction giving it a paint job suitable for the faction. Then I settled on painting a standard military colour so it can be used with what ever faction. The old bot sat in some bunker or cupboard forgotten until someone charges it up and press the KILL button.

This robot will be useful to supply some fire support to my Sci Fi factions and some of my post apocalyptic factions. 

Thanks for looking and stay safe out there.

Warriors of the Wild Galaxy - DCS corporation

Hello and welcome back,

In the Wild Galaxy the more powerful Corporations have spread across the Galaxy. They are a power in their own right having their own armies to protect their assets. The Definintive Colony Systems (DCS) corporation is one such Corporation. 

DCS is the largest and most powerful corporation suppling everything from toothpaste to fully armed battle cruisers (crew not included). It has bases across Human Space trading in with most nations and frontier worlds. Many colonies have lots of DCS items as the corporation is the main galactic supplier of colonial equipment. DCS also owns its own worlds and controls an entire system near frontier space which is heavily defended by DCS’ own battle cruisers. 

On the world of Dehlijeblli, DCS has a depot trading it’s wares with the locals and space crew traffic between the city of Urg Dehlijeblli and the space port. The Corporation security stops the depot from being looted and protects shipments from local criminals.

These figures are mantic GCPS figures that originally came from the Project Pandora box set. They were undercoated grey and given zenithal highlights. They were painted with Army Painter Speed Paints. These paints worked well with the figures and I had the base coats done in a couple of hours. A few bits of detail where added. This was a quick paint job. 

Thanks for looking.

Take care out there.

Starport Scum 5 - Mad Donna and her crew.

Hello and welcome back,

Time for another look at the Starport Scum inhabiting the Wild Galaxy, this time Mad Donna and her crew.

Mad Donna’s name is infamous throughout human space for causing chaos and mayhem where ever she goes. She is wanted across the Galactic Blocks and nations. As a fugitive she seeks more adventure and mayhem on the independent and frontier worlds. 

Mad Donna is a old Necromunda figure/character. This figure was primed grey and painted using Army Painter Speed Paints. As you can see it has left the figure with a rather unhealthy pallor. My thoughts on the speed paints later on. 

Her crew of goons are (now OOP) Stontuim Dogs metal bad guys figures (sorry I can’t recall the name of this set) by Warlord games. I had these figures primed white sitting in the pile of shame and grabbed them to try the speed paints. 

I have tried the Army Painter Speed Paints on figures both primed in white and grey. White primer works best. Sometimes the paint needs more than one coat to get a nice colour. One issue with highly detailed figures is the paint can bleed into the detail or other areas which requires a touch up with white followed by the colour. Details will require normal paints as the speed paints are too thin to use for detail. I found it just as much work to get the details done as when painting with normal mini paints. It did speed up the painting of large groups of rank and file which I suppose is the speed paints purpose.

So in summary - speed paints work best on figures undercoated in white. It is best to use the paints on rank and file figures that have limited detail or it will take twice as long as normal paints. I dare say I will be experimenting more with the speed paints to try different effects.

Thanks for reading.

Take care out there.

New scatter terrain or objectives or whatever

Hello and welcome back,

I got these bits from a pile of stuff my friend Xander gave me before he emigrated to Canada. They where all painted so I hauled them out and added a few touches.

No idea where these weird scary looking plants came from. They fit my plant men faction and Alien world jungle sets nicely. I dry brushed the plants with Coat d Arms Rotting flesh and then washed them with sepia ink. These touches really made the plants pop. 

A couple of Sci Fi crates. All I did with these was touch up some detail. These crates will make nice additions to my spaceport/cargo hold terrain.

Radioactive barrels. These glow in the dark containers got the filler caps and radiation symbols painted. 

Quick easy additions to my table. Thanks Xander. 

Thanks for looking, take care out there.

Kosmik’s Sweat Lodge

Hello and welcome back, 

Welcome to Kosmik’s Sweat Lodge. Hallucinations and stench guaranteed. Just pop in here to sweat and hallucinate your troubles away. Rhythmic bongo shamanic drum music supplied for extra. 

This model was a 3D printed building I picked up back in 2014 (Gah where did the time go?). I didn’t really vibe with the model at the time so it sat languishing in the hobby pile.

My main bugbear was the windows looking riveted on. Wracking my brains as to what I could use it for, the Sweat Lodge idea came to me. The model got a couple of coats of brown textured paint to help it fit in with my frontier world terrain and to also try and hide the hideous printer lines on the model. This was followed by a heavy white dry brush and a sepia ink wash. A final white drybrush followed. 

To finish it off, I dry brushed layers of dirt around the bottom of the model and added some extra weathering using weathering pencils. Lots of graffiti and decoration was added as I wanted the building to reflect the character of the owner, a strange character called Kosmik. 

A few posters where added printed off on my inkjet printer. These are mainly wanted posters. 

Just to keep people on their toes I decided to add a slightly more sinister looking bit of graffiti on the top roof/floor. 

Now all I need to do is find a figure for Kosmik. 

Thanks for looking.

Take Care out there.

Rubble pillars

Hello and welcome back, 

Life has been busy over the last few weeks and I have been approaching the hobby in a scatter gun manner. It’s important to keep the inspiration going as I flit to and from projects. This week I have managed to get a few of them over the finish line so expect a few posts in the next day or two.

I was opening a package a few weeks ago and found a couple of packing pieces of pink foam. Quickly I saw the potential to make some collapsed rubble pillars for my ruins. 

The bases are bits of scrap poster board left over from another project. After undercoating they coat a layer of textured paint. The pillars got painted light grey followed by a white dry brush and a sepia wash. The basing is my usual mixed pot of sand and bits. 

The finished models got some self adhesive grass tufts. have forgone the usual graffiti as I want these in my ancient crumbling ruins set. 

In all a quick and easy project costing only the glue, paint and tufts. I may at some future date return to these and add some rebar and other junk to them. But for now I am happy with them

Thanks for looking. 

Take care out there.