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 Deljibelli DCS has a depot trading it’s wares with the locals and space crew traffic between the city of Urg Deljibelli 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. 

Warriors of the Wild Galaxy - Deljiebelli Security Force

Hello and welcome back, 

Time for another instalment of Warriors of the Wild Galaxy, this time the Deljiebelli Security Force.

Governor Inndaloo of the frontier world of Deljiebelli decided it was time for a security force to keep the peace in the various colonies on the world. Deljibelli couldn’t rely just on the Corporate or the security of various sites or colonies because they tend not to get involved in conflicts if the world has no security force.

The Galaxy is a dangerous place with GELF or pirates raids becoming more frequent so the needed for a defence force was felt to be prudent. It maybe useful in the unlikely event that Deljiebelli goes to war with its rival world Immodium. 

The Deljibelli Security Force (DSF) while acting as a military force also acts a police force patrolling the streets of the capital city Urg Deljibelli and around the world’s space port. It is quite common to see them standing watching bar brawls enjoying the entertainment then clearing up the aftermath, hanging around the city gates or spaceport attempting to look menacing and engaged in fire fights with smugglers or armed robbers.

The DSF do have access to some heavy weaponry as you never quite know what trouble you will run into across the world. 

General Kashnkarri leads the DSF and is always moaning to the Deljibelli council that the world’s force needs more equipment. Tanks, speeders, grav cars, power armour the list goes on and on. It is usually justified in some ludicrous excuse such as “you will be sorry when GELFs are using you to slake their lusts”. Old Kashnkarri is regarded as a source of entertainment to many in the civilised parts of Deljibelli.

Kashnkarri did manage to get a few fourth or possibly fifth hand armoured grav cars. They are ideal for crossing the sands of Deljibelli. Although flying over the top of a dune at high speed can cause damage to the grav repulsion drives under the vehicle. The cars usually patrol the main transport routes across the world. Armed with a laser cannon and machine gun the AGC can deal with most problems they are sent to attend to. The Grav car is a trash bashed computer mouse. 

Back in the days of the Terra Empire before the Earth exploded there was a empire wide craze of reacting old Earth Wars with real interest in the wars of the 20th to 22nd centuries. Digi printer files were available freely for most uniforms, weapons and war machines used in those conflicts. After the collapse of the Terra Empire these files found their way to the frontier worlds. The files were quickly adapted with updated plasma or hydrogen engines, better materials, sensor packages and updated weapons. 

This vehicle was printed from such a file. This tank was popular back on earth because in addition to the decent protection it also allowed up-to 6 infantry to be transported. Unlike the 20th & 21st century this vehicle was equipped with a 27th century plasma cannon. Kashnkarri managed to get resources to print a handful of these AFVs. They are usually parked around the space port as the plasma cannons are great for defence against invading pirates, GELFs or whatever fictional galactic menace Kashnkarri has invented this week.  The tank is a 1/48 scale Academy Mekriva. 

As Delijibelli is a arid world I felt that my old GW 40K Tallarns would fit the bill for the DSF. There are a few modified figures. The meltagun figures had 1/35 WW2 land mines added to give a Lewis Gun look.  

Thanks for looking. Take care out there. 

Warriors of the Wild Galaxy - The Tengun Empire

Hello and welcome back.

This is a new feature on my blog as I divide my miniatures collection between Sci Fi and post apocalyptic. This feature will be focused on the military types in my collection especially as they don’t have that post apocalyptic feel. 

In this first “Warriors of the Wild Galaxy” feature we are looking at the Warriors of the Tengun Empire. Tengun is a galactic empire that was founded from three prison worlds that went rogue during the galactic civil war that tore the Terra Empire apart. The “empire” operates in a piratical fashion raiding shipping and edge colonies. The original background fluff was written back in 2012 in a 15mm post which can be read here.

The ideal figures for the Tengun empire in 28mm are the old void Junkers. I had these in my “for sale when I can get motivated pile”. Originally I collected them as I liked the look of the force, plus they are quick to paint. They then morphed into my Garbage post apocalyptic faction based in an ancient garbage dump. I did think of reworking them as a salute to Caesar’s Legion in the Fallout New Vegas video game as they have that Roman vibe. A couple of figures in the collection became Fallout style Vaulties with body armour. 

I chose to use these figures for the Tengun pirate empire as the Junker’s Legion have a similar background. My original figures were painted with red helmets and rusty metal shoulder pads which are rather fashionable in the post apocalyptic world. Sadly the colour scheme didn’t match the Tengun colours. So they got a light grey armour with yellow helmets. The shields got reworked in grey with the Tengun symbol. 

Here we see a band of Tengun warriors. 

The Sarge is a metal figure. The majority of the warriors figures are old plastic void junkers. These are great kits to assemble. There is a choice of two legs. The Torso comes in two parts. The lower torso and arms are ball & socket so it gives the figures an infinite amount of poses. Heads, shields, knives and shotguns are also separate. For me these are some of the most fun figures to assemble leading to the many poses in this force. 

These lads are the force specialists. They are mostly metal figures. Left to right there is a chain gunner, flame thrower, grenadier and a cannon. The cannon is a plastic figure posed to hold an old cannon off a ancient games workshop epic scale Titan cannon. 

This force comes with a couple of fast attack options. A void buggy with chain gun and a saurian rider. The saurian rider is another plastic figure mounted on a rubber dinosaur toy with a green stuff saddle and bridal made from wire. 

The whole force in its raider glory. 

I will be adding to this force as Seb Games have a Void 1.1 skirmish game coming with old Junkers and Viridians figures. I won’t mention the 10 plastic junkers for conversions lurking in my to do pile or a couple of figures that have gone awol. Plus I will be adding to the force in future with the figures Seb Games carries. I really like those sand runners.

Thanks for looking. Take care out there.

New terrain bits.

Hello and welcome back.

A couple of new terrain bits that will work for both Post Apocalyptic and Sci Fi. 

First up a scrap bin. 

This was inspired by a post on the Combat Zone Chronicles. Take a plastic bottle cap, fill it with junk laying about and paint. Simple and quick. Well this one wasn’t that quick. I made it and it sat on the work bench for years. Then I took it out, did a bit on it and back onto to the workbench it went. Repeat every 12 months until I got sick of looking at it and actually finished it. 

Imagine you are digging through that bunker or smash into the shack at the end of shanty town the weirdo lives in and you find this….

A genuine domesday device with the clock counting down. Do you run? Is it atomic as there is no running away from that! Cut a wire to stop it? Hope that it’s a weird practical joke?

The doomsday device is from the GW 40K objectives kit. 

Thanks for looking. Take care out there.