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Great little conversions (I'm sure I've seen them somewhere before though).

The paint jobs look great and the press mould came out very well. It might not be up to your OCD standards but by the time you've painted it up I doubt you'll notice any difference.

So, what's next?

Why, more ordnance of course!


here is the prototype for the 'Europa class bomber' sitting next to the already completed 'Jupiter class Interceptor'

yeah I'll admidt they are all over the place at the min, but bear in mind that I've not got much to work with plasticard wise at the min.
Some is on the way.
on the next builds all the bodies will be made of 2mm square and the canopies 1mm square.
that will help them look more uniform.

all the wings will be cut the same from the I-beam; 2mm at one end, 1mm at t'other.

for now I'm sticking to these two designs but perhaps more variants will follow.

I've also a grand cruiser planned amongst other things...

Very nice indeed! Things get awfully fiddley at that scale. The bomber could do with a sloped cockpit.

Looking forward to seeing this finished Grand Cruiser.

Your work is impressive for such small shapes! I fear I would need the painting microscope goggles for such ships.

Love the work, the BFG looks great!

Thanks guys.

a little side project today, clearing out the bfg bits box and I found some gems.
A dauntless with no bottom/'wing' section,but I did have a strike cruiser's bottom/'wing' section so problem solved there. Also my last metal cobra too, to keep it company.
So I decided to try an old classic on these:

Clearly inspired by John blanche's cover art for the game and, in extension, his own bfg paint jobs themselves.

Beautifully done.

What's the recipe for the white/bone?

Yeah, cheers lordB!

It's a surprisingly dark start of steel legion drab. Next allover wash/shade with 50/50 agrax and nuln.

Now dry brush steel legion drab then zandri dust then ushabti bone then wraithbone .

Now edge highlights wraithbone. Mixing white ink incrementally over several highlight layers.

Re shade some areas using reikland flesh shade, some with agrax and some (mostly the rear engineering sections and areas that need more contrasting recesses) nuln oil.

The red is simply as on my crimson fists; gal vorback, khorne, mephiston, orange and yellow dot highlights to finish. Some reikland or agrax to shade if needed.

The engines are my usual dark steel but this time shaded with reikland and agrax to get the ruddy tones in there...

Gold is just tinbitz and Balthazar. Then Balthazar and retributor armour, then retributor armour and mithril silver to finish.
Black is my usual highlights of skavenblight, admech grey, dawn stone Yadda yadda Yadda up to white...

All based on John's own ships, here;

For those that forget or don't own a rulebook.

Yes, if I'd had the original 'wings' with the plates on, I'd have done the checks too! Lol

Wow, mate! I just love these interpretations! Really nice painting efforts.

Y'know, I am currently in the process of re-embracing my love for BFG - a few escort sized projects on the go at the moment. Feels good, man.

Check your DMs by the way.

Thanks Ragsta!

So, after the success of the blanchitsu cruiser and cobra, I decided I liked the new way of painting.
So, rather than buy new models, I figured I'd repaint a few of my older voss minis in a new scheme:

This brown and blue scheme starts as a base of steellegion drab, followed by an all-over shade of nuln/agrax mix.
then drybrush steellegion drab. then drybrush zandridust.
now edge highlight ushabti bone.
now target shade nuln oil
rehighlight ushabti hith and yon.

the blue is the fang base with successive streaky highlights of russ grey and fenrisan blue.
also target shaded with nuln oil

the black is just successive highlights of skavenblight, mechanicus grey, dawnstone and white.

The windows/running lights are done in small dots of wraithbone. never done this before, but it really does add scale...


I had started with these cobras to test the scheme


then moved onto my zeus lunar: "Aggamemnon".

as it was bigger I could play about with the streaky prow/plates more and also add rust to the iron eagle. Which might have looked odd on the cobra sized prows.


and decided to complete the set with my zeus endeavour class: "Invictus"

This one had a refit from the classic bfg batteries to the actual zeus ones.

May or may not add more to this but theres an astartes themed grand cruiser on the way first...

So, no I've not done the astartes grand cruiser yet *slaps wrist.
not even undercoated it yet! LOL.

But I've been busy nonehteless.
I was rearanging my storage box and found myself looking at some of my older ships and thinking. "you know what, these would look nice in the brown/blue scheme too":


"Achillies" Escort carrier.
This one had originally been done in the armageddon scheme but the wash had gone all shiny at the time. (old gw washes did that for seemingly no reason occasionally) A perfect reason to repaint her in the new scheme! Also a nice reference to bfg's Armada rulebook which this ship and its stats were first seen.
Used almost exclusively for convoy scenareos it is literally an excuse to convert the ship from launchbays, plasticar and aerials as, well as a forgeworld heavy transporter.


"Speedo Ghost" Fueller Escort.
So as not to feel left, out the Achillies has this fuel transport to join it in said convoy missions.
This mini was originally in a dirty grey colourscheme. much more resplendant now!
Both of these Logistic-vessels were chosen to see if the blue would work as pleasantly on a prow with banding as one without. I'm happy that it does, meaning that more ships may yet follow!


Next I tacked some system ships. I've always loved the sense of scale these give the other ships in fleet pics.
Most of these were done in the armageddon scheme before, but I felt this exploritary fleet was better suited as the ideal place for such minis.
Out on the frontier, you need to take all you can with you to survive.
Only the baby fueller (made from a meltabomb, tanktrack, sprue and aerials) was in another scheme, again the dirty grey scheme as was on the fueller mentioned above.

So a fleet like this needs a name!

Battlegroup "Artemis" as it currently stands.

more to come? youbetcha.
I need a novacannon in there for some long range scaryness but as I would rather spend the points on a characterful grandcruiser than a Mars, I'm thinking Dominator, it just so happens I have one in my old armageddon fleet (funny that, eh ). Yes, I know this still leaves the fleet without fighter/bomber support.

As for a grand cruiser?
Aside the astartes one I'm working on, I don't own one aside my old repulsiveclass. So thats a repaint out of the question.
So I'm thinking new mini for that!
As I'm going for a voss/armada era fleet, allbeit reinvisioned in Zac's zeus line, I'm thinking I need something similar for the GC; Like the chaos/imperial hybrids that came out around the time of the voss stuff from GW but also reinvisioned.
Anything to improve that slapped together look of the chaos ass-end over the imperial engines and that clown-shoe of a prow! LOL
So, something with obvious chaos visual references but less mc'gyvered together and somehow more integral in its design.
Class-wise, after a chat with Lord Borak, I'm leaning towards an Exorcist.
The fleet is sorely lacking any carriers and the exorcist would fit the bill and kinda makes sense as a lead vessel of an exploratory battlegroup.

watch this space!

Looking really nice mate. The weathering on that Blue/Grey is awesome.

The fleet looks really nice together as well. Next up please

SURPRISE!

on a whim, I got another repaint done:


"sinclair" light cruiser, refitted from endurance to endeavour.



Based on a recast of one of AdmGR's prints of the 'Razor' light cruiser, this mini required a lot of cleanup and a new prow ram (old chaos spikey sprue).
It's also pretty damned huge for light cruiser too but it does bear an absolute striking resemblance to the artwork from the armada rulebook and, as such, the short lived metal voss lightcruisers from the battlefleet armageddon era.


As you can see, I've added a bit of extra life to it by putting one of those diagonal stripes oft seen in the rulebook and on Vaaish's and Horizon's imperial cruisers too!
It is indeed quite different to the zeus cruisers already in battlegroup Artemis, but I have three of these (two in armageddon colours) so had no qualms about adding this peice of bfg history to the fleet...

Also got this "Mc'kay" class lance orbital I made repainted to the artemis scheme too.
Because why not?

Ooooooh, you're back! Loving what you're doing here

But erm, if you are doing the Zeus ships, you've got to get the Grand Cruiser as well...

 Malika2 wrote:
Ooooooh, you're back! Loving what you're doing here

But erm, if you are doing the Zeus ships, you've got to get the Grand Cruiser as well...

Oh I have...
But it's not going in this fleet...

 osjclatchford wrote:

While I was at it, I've also done some basic mock-ups of some plasma-batteries for use on tyrant class vessels to represent the 45cm range batteries as written in the rulebook:

will likely end up on a zeus cruiser...

I know it's a bit after the fact, but those plasma pistol plasma batteries are truly inspired, great thread!

I always love seeing beautiful BFG ships, and these really are something to see.

Looking amazing as usual, fantastic job osjclatchford.

Cheers folks, more for you now!

Today I finally got that aforementioned Dominator repainted.


The "Eternal Vigiliance"
This conversion uses the obvious addition of the zeus novacannon prow, instantly tying it in with the zeus lunar and zeus endeavour, already in the fleet.
To take it further, the wings were swapped out with tiny ones from an ad mech cruiser and a chaos bridge added to both tie into the voss cruiser style but also to account for the bulk of the wings, now lost from the horizontal, and put in onto the vertical axis of the ship.
The midships Aquilla comes from an astartes bannerpole and was an obvious reference to the old artwork of ships from the old codex's



The missing engine decks were restored using plasticard tubing, this being a nice reference to the 'razor' voss light cruiser mini, the simple sleek lines of the tubing mirroring those visuals nicely.
The most overt changes comes in the form of the broadsides themselves.
The domminator has always been a ill-favoured class of cruiser; Its long range novacannon utterly at odds with its incredibly short range battery armaments.
To show this on the model I built a set of batteries from plasicard 'barrels' mounted onto plates from the venerable dreadnought kit, for the extra gothic details the arches bring to the mini.
These were simply spaced in threes with platicard rod columns seperating the bays either side.
A simple, if not fiddly, solution that gave a very slimline look to the the cruiser and, hopefully suggests at a mass of smaller, shorter range weapons...
I feel the smaller weapons are very reminiscent of a dauntless's broadsides in looks, thus looking appropriately BFG in design yet are different enough to make the mini more than "just another cruiser"


Here she is alongside the Aggamemnon and the Sinclair, allowing you to see what I mean about the references to both designs she has...

Well, if nothing else, I'm glad I got at least one plastic cruiser based build in there.
Next up? the GC?
Alas, most likely not as its not arrived from the printers yet.
TBH, I don't feel in the mood to start the astartes one yet either...

I think a revisit to another conversion I did few years back might be in order next...
to tease I'll say its one that was good in premise but the way I did it bugs me to this day...
now, where's that exacto-saw and the Nitromoors gone...

So, here's that revisit to an old mini I teased last post.


The "Spitehawk"

Based off of the talented Malika's Novan Elite's Panthera Heavy Frigate (vanguard), this mini uses a Defence Monitor's prow and imperial lances as well as a section of gsc laser weapon (for the underslung lance) in its conversion...
The way I had originally built this mini had more of the original Panthera prow showing creating a rather gawky looking mini.
It also had additional aerials etc, making it seem rather cluttered too.
With it's cut down sleeker profile I'm much happier with it now.

Although originally intended as a Defence Monitor proxy, the Panthera hull sizes in +/- around the size of a strike cruiser, meaning it could just as easily pass as a strike cruiser or dauntless light cruiser as well as a defence monitor, depending on the mood or scenareo I find myself in.
anyway, classification aside, its a great addition to battlegroup Artemis, nonetheless...

 osjclatchford wrote:
So, here's that revisit to an old mini I teased last post.


The "Spitehawk"

Based off of the talented Malika's Novan Elite's Panthera Heavy Frigate (vanguard), this mini uses a Defence Monitor's prow and imperial lances as well as a section of gsc laser weapon (for the underslung lance) in its conversion...
The way I had originally built this mini had more of the original Panthera prow showing creating a rather gawky looking mini.
It also had additional aerials etc, making it seem rather cluttered too.
With it's cut down sleeker profile I'm much happier with it now.

Although originally intended as a Defence Monitor proxy, the Panthera hull sizes in +/- around the size of a strike cruiser, meaning it could just as easily pass as a strike cruiser or dauntless light cruiser as well as a defence monitor, depending on the mood or scenareo I find myself in.
anyway, classification aside, its a great addition to battlegroup Artemis, nonetheless...

Really love what you did with my ship design there! Are you cool with it if I share it on both my and Vanguard Miniatures' social media channels? I can tag you if you're on Instagram or Twitter

Go for it

SO. here is the astartes themed grand cruiser


Glorious Purpose - Crimson Fists battlebarge
Based on the zeus grand cruiser mini; featuring fist prow from Lord Borak's battleship conversion kit, plasma batteries (from admgr?), the pods, cannons, church-bridge and domes from battlefleet galaxy, a few beads for extra domes and some hand sculpted fist icons.

the torpedo launchers on the prow come from primaris agressors and the prow launch bay is fashioned from a rhino front-light.
I decided on using the prow-rams as decorational towers as they lined up nicely with the dome I added.
The front bombardment canon is from the vanguard panthera kit.

I went for the crimson fists scheme as on my beakies. because, well yeah...

tbh not 100% happy with how this turned out.
one of the droppod units had a rung-bit snap off it half way and I didnt notice till the final highlights, (yes the droppods are absurdly out of scale but I love the look, so sue me, perhaps they are titan pods?)
The torpedo things look more like giant speakers which is fun I suppose, perhaps they are blasting devotional tunes to terrify the enemy!
and worst of all the paintjob is, trutfully, a bit messy.

I had problems with this right from the get go.
this one was sadly a bit badly cast, terrible moldlines (unexpected from vanguard), some bits from battlefleet galaxy I wanted to use I couldn't, because they wouldn't fit (launch bays), and dispite how much I scrubbed it in soapy water beforehand the model was so greasy the paint didn't stick and kept coming off. not at the prime stage but at the basecoat stage... gah all the bottom is in a terible state with bare resin showing in the recesses.
you know what its like, once its like that after priming, its too late...
I haven't had trouble like this with painting since I cant remember.
I stopped and left it a couple of days to harden up a bit and to cool my jets some and came at it again today.
But this gakky experiance has left me somewhat jaded and in the end, I wanted it finished more than I wanted to do it.
I knew I'd feel the same if I came back to it yet later again so I just busted it out and this is the result...
shame but you've all been there I'm sure. once you're done with something, or moved on to better or different things that take your interest, its hard to go back to it...

hopefully I'll get my mojo back to paint the last two ships of Artemis I have planned...
right now I dont want to see another bfg ship for a while... perhaps I'll get those filey droptroopers finished now!

I love this giant space fist. I think the model came out great. No notes.

Yeah, cheers.

You know what, ignore my rambling yesterday. It's not that bad at all really.

Not in the best emotional state of late and I'm sure it's affecting my judgement.

I've since revisited it and added some detail and fixed some "errors" hith and yon. I've also repainted the "rails" on the droppod units in steel finish.
It hasn't helped much and I still feel the pods look a little lacklustre and somehow a bit washed out and bland looking... Ho hum. It's done now. Perhaps I'll try another set of the droppod units on another ship in different colours and see how I go..?

Yes, you were being unnecessarily harsh on yourself there, mate - I think this beast looks really nice!

I can empathise with the criticism when feeling mentally fragile - I often find working on my own models can be somewhat painful with much gnashing of teeth right up until the final coat of varnish!

I actually love those drop pods - scale be damned they look cool. And the fist prow with your CR scheme is just lovely.

I have a swathe of BFG reinforcements incoming - I'm very excited. More than I was ever going to be with that heap of unpainted plastic I just sold off

thanks Ragsta! looking forward to seeing your stuff, too!


For a change I decided to try out a scheme for some ordnance for battlegroup Artemis.

I decided to use the blue on the fins/wings and instead of the brown, I went for white.
the base of which is astronomicon grey (thanks lord borak! ) simply successively highlighted up with white ink.
The rest is black. simple yet effective. as ordnance should be.

The model itself is one of Malika's fightercraft designs, the last of the shortlived metal range from vanguard now in my posession.
However some 3d prints of these may yet be on the cards for artemis' reinforcements in the future...

I just love these models, all the very best of all of sci-fi's fightercraft in one mini!
Detailed enough to look cool but simple enough to paint withut going blind in the proccess!

Wow, that's a stunning paintjob on such a weensy model.

thanks!

today I did a couple of classic mars pattern cobras (recasts) for Battlegroup Artemis.
Gifted by a kind soul, the engines were totalled in the recasting method, nothing some clippers and some styrene rod couldn't fix...


The colourscheme fits just as well on these as it does the zeus cobras!
It also makes me realise just how sleek the original cobras are, well against the apparrent chonk of the zeus ones anyway!