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Well in future I will post even if it does repeat someone else's post then, I just thought it could get a bit tiresome for you to read but if your happy with that then that's cool.

1/64 roughly but basically matchbox and hotwheels size cars, I am looking for some decent miniatures to use for gangs and milita to add to vehicles and these fit the bill rather nicely.

I know what you mean about anything out of the ordinary people don't really comment on which is a shame, there was a guy I followed on here converting larger scale vehicles into mad max style but gave up on here as he never got much feedback, real shame as the weathering and painting was great.

I must say I was not really into the smaller scales before but since route 666 it has changed my view and really opened my eyes to other formats and such now, however I have always looked at other concepts for conversions and such so not completely oblivious to other influences.

This was one of the reasons I followed your thread as there is always something different to see and encourages me to seek alternatives for my hobby, plus your painting style is interesting and has a very nice mat finish to it which I admire.

Raicho is a perfect example of this style I like the Asian styling of it very Anime, although could make a great Tau stand in LOL

highlord tamburlaine wrote:Yanking out those teeny tiny arms was the right thing to do. Stupid phone keeps cutting off my message and I keep losing the signal on the Shinkansen right now....

They were just too small. All they did was prove my point about it being underscaled.

lone dirty dog wrote:Well in future I will post even if it does repeat someone else's post then, I just thought it could get a bit tiresome for you to read but if your happy with that then that's cool.

1/64 roughly but basically matchbox and hotwheels size cars, I am looking for some decent miniatures to use for gangs and milita to add to vehicles and these fit the bill rather nicely.

I know what you mean about anything out of the ordinary people don't really comment on which is a shame, there was a guy I followed on here converting larger scale vehicles into mad max style but gave up on here as he never got much feedback, real shame as the weathering and painting was great.

I must say I was not really into the smaller scales before but since route 666 it has changed my view and really opened my eyes to other formats and such now, however I have always looked at other concepts for conversions and such so not completely oblivious to other influences.

This was one of the reasons I followed your thread as there is always something different to see and encourages me to seek alternatives for my hobby, plus your painting style is interesting and has a very nice mat finish to it which I admire.

Raicho is a perfect example of this style I like the Asian styling of it very Anime, although could make a great Tau stand in LOL

I think I saw that guy's stuff. I believe he started posting it in the Lead Adventures forum.

I've got some Spy Changers Transformers from the early 2000s Robots In Disguise line in my office at work. They were designed to be used as slot cars, so they're pretty much the same size as Matchbox cars. I'll grab a couple from my office and take some pics for you.

Much appreciated it is driving me nuts to find something that works for my needs

Woooot Raicho! Good stuff. Nice colors and usual and some spiffy extra detailing too.

Okay, I grabbed a couple of those Transformers from work and snapped some shots with a South African soldier.



The cars are a tad on the large side. I think they could work, but the guys will look oddly small with them. However, I think what you'll want to look at is 1/72 figures, like Caesar Miniatures or Airfix. I've got a couple of Caesar's SAS guys hanging around my desk at work as well and they seem to scale nicely with these.

I also got 3 more South African soldiers done. I've only got one left and he would be finished as well, but I ran out of pennies to base them on.



Behind them is a South African Bulldog. The Bulldog is a variant of the Buffel APC that South African forces used in the Angola conflicts, the Border Wars, and the Rhodesian Bush War. The Bulldog variant was apparently used for airfield defense. I don't know why, but Peter Pig only makes the Bulldog variant. I don't really mind though. The Buffel series were neat looking vehicles. Very sci-fi. They're no longer used in South Africa, but a few other African countries still use them, like Sri Lanka.



Not the most inspired paintwork on the windshield, I'll admit, but I wanted to keep it simple. I'll probably go over with some gloss coating later to help it look a bit better.

Aside from those, I also finished up some Infinity figures. I'll probably photograph them when their bases are finished.

Thanks very much for that shame though as they seem a bit n the small side, looks like 20mm is the way I will have to go then

Yes I tried 1/72 but they don't have the bulk I want, I might have to sculpt some of my own by the looks of things.

Yours look great though and the bulldog pulls it together nicely, although I agree the gloss on the windshield might be a good idea and maybe some simple dust effect on the bottom half.

I'm thinking I won't be meeting my pledge to finish all of the figures I dipped before Thanksgiving. It's been a little slow going on them. But, I did finish most of the Infinity figures I'd dipped. The Reverend Healer got overlooked when I took the figures back to my work table. I suppose I'll work on her tonight after work. So, as proof, I have photos! If anyone wants more detailed shots, I'd be happy to post some. For now though, these pics that don't show any of the extra work I put into the figures aside from their bases will have to suffice!



My Janissary with his repaired rifle barrel and the remaining two Sekbans from the boxed set. I really like these three figures. Someday I'll have to actually use them in a game of... something. It doesn't even need to be Infinity, I'd just like to use them.



My Ragik hacker who will eventually wind up just being used as a plain-Jane rifle Ragik once I get the new hacker. It's because of that I refrained from painting glowy lights on his palm like I did with my Fusilier Hacker.



My Seed Soldiers. Most of the stuff I added, like their eyes and the lights on their gear aren't really visible in these shots. *sigh*

Lastly, you read that title right. I do indeed have an Iraqi Republican Guard officer. I actually have a squad of troops, too that I'll get to someday. The line they're from was called Dogs of War and I believe the company that made them was called Devil Dog Design Studio, or something to that effect. I haven't been able to find much of any info about them and very little comes up with searches. All I know is that the company that made them folded in the early 2000s and that the figures are kind of hard to come by. I got the officer and the troops at Brookhurst Hobbies, who still have a few blisters from the Dogs of War line left floating around. The sculpts are okay, but are very obviously hand done. They're also very much in the heroic scale, so there's melon heads and odd proportions a-plenty. Having actually finished the officer, I may finally have the urge to actually work on the troops.



It's a little hard to tell in the pic, but his webgear is actually a much lighter shade of green compared to the rest of his uniform. In person, it stands out much better against his uniform. The pic got kind of washed out a bit. Aside from that, I actually think I did a really good job on this guy. His paintjob is extremely simple, but for some reason he turned out looking really good.

Great stuff! I especially like the browner take on the seed soldiers, good to have diversity among the alien pod people.

It's weird, those guys are sculpted wearing full armor and clothing, but everyone follows Giraldez's example and paints it all as exposed skin. I'm pretty certain the only exposed bits are their mouths, feet, and hands. I painted their armor mostly tan, actually. The shadows just make it look browner than it actually is.

I painted mine as a mix of armored plates and fleshy bits, basically the only part of them that isn't their own home-grown is the rifle. I like both approaches though, obviously not at the same time, but both work.

I kind of prefer the idea of them being more techy. That's also why I painted my EI constructs as full on machines.


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I intended to finish some more figures tonight and work on a new APC I got, but the cold weather seems to be keeping my paints and glue from drying in anything resembling a timely manner. So, that leaves me further behind on finishing up those 28mm figures. That goal of actually completing them before Thanksgiving is a definite bust, now. But, I should be able to make considerable progress on the new APC tomorrow. With luck, I may even get it nearly finished in one day (keeping fingers crossed).

For now, I went back and retouched the Bulldog APC. Lone Dirty Dog was right, a drybrush of a lighter color was definitely needed. I went over it with Vallejo's Iraqi Sand. I treally makes it pop now, though the picture doesn't show it at all. I also glossed the windshield. I think it looks much better this way.



Yesterday, I also finished painting my Khurasan Miniatures GOTA Clan infantry. I'd posted one a little while back as a test run. I wasn't happy with how the head turned out as I'd wanted to accentuate the gas mask more. So, I did what Dwartist had done with the studio scheme and used the same color as the uniform, white in this case. I like that it accentuates the gas mask, like I wanted, but I'm just not entirely sure about it. I'm actually kind of leaning towards going back to doing the helmets in black. I also changed the rifle color so that it won't blend into the uniform quite so much.



I like these guys a lot and I was planning on getting some more of them, but with the release of their new 22nd Century line, I'm starting to rethink that idea. The Asian forces in that line have a very similar look, but with some extremely nice looking sculpts. Much sharper looking than these, and these are way nicer than the pics make them out to be. Their overall uniform design is very similar to this as well, but with more of a real world look to them and a bit less sci-fi. I'm thinking I may just build an army of those guys instead.

Today was a success! I built and painted my Armadillo APC from Clearhorizon Miniatures. I'd been wanting this thing since Mr. Harold showed it off months ago on Dakka.



I love the idea of a sci-fi halftrack. You pretty much never see that! For a 15mm vehicle, it's quite chunky and even has an opening rear hatch. I also magnetized the turret so it can rotate freely. As you can see, I went with a desert scheme and a very simple camo job on this. I've been wanting to do a tan/green camo job for a while, but none of the greens I had worked right. They were all too dark. This one turned out perfect! If I ever get one of Clearhorizon's dropships, I'll be using this scheme again, though I'm thinking I may do a yellow wash instead of a brown one. My plan for this vehicle is that it's going to be used by my White Dragon Marine Tactical Units whenever I get them.

As you can see here, it's a bit bigger than their Nemesis Scout Vehicle, too.



I picked up a squad of Sons of Rasputin Soldats from Warzone about a month or so ago from the consignment case at the FLGS. From what I was told, they'd belonged to one of the staff members who didn't feel like getting much further than priming them black. They were cheap so I grabbed them on a whim, as I tend to do. One just as much of a whim, today I actually painted one of them up!



I whipped him up in about two hours or so. I decided to continue the Prussian influenced scheme that I used on my SOR Commisar, but the way this guy's sculpted, you can't see too much of his actual uniform. I'm rather surprised by the sculpt. It's ugly as feth and has terrible proportions, yet it's actually really well sculpted. The one downside is that the other figures I'd purchased are all in the same pose. A little bit more variety would've been nice. And, on yet another whim, I'm actually expanding these guys. While ordering a set of Heavy Gear minis from Noble Knight, I also grabbed a Soldat Sergeant and a heavy weapons Soldat, both for about $1 each. Can't argue with prices like that! For some reason though, the Earth Tribes line seem to be the easiest and cheapest figures to find. Is it just because they're so ugly or what?

Those Vehicles look very nice! Nice camo on the APC

I got a few SoR but only painted the sergeant/hero that carries two guns. Plus minecarry some kind of nail gun.

M.

Looks great. The APC looks really tough and durable. I like the camo.

If he makes the Armadillo in 28mm scale it will be chunky and I will have to get some!

Your Soldat is entirely made of a gun, shoulder pads and boots.

The Warzone stuff tends to be 2 sculpts per blister, so there's probably another set in the opposite pose that I'm assuming the original owner still has. You ought to pester him next time you go in.

He'll probably sell them to you directly if you're interested, and he's looking to sell stuff.

Thanks for the kind words, guys. I'm very pleased with how the Armadillo turned out and I'm also very pleased with my Sons of Rasputin. I would be posting a pic of some more stuff I've worked on and purchased (got some AT-43 on Black Friday), but my camera's battery is dead, so I've got to wait for it to recharge. If I can drag myself out of bed early enough, I might be able to get pics up in the morning.

Tamburlaine, you're wrong, they're about 30% knee pads as well.

I did a little bit of research and looked over the figures I'd picked up again. They've been sitting in a box since I got the Soldats, so I hadn't really even looked at them. It seems that there's two sculpts for the basic infantry and Tamburlaine is right, they were sold 4 per blister with two of each sculpt. There's two right handers, and two left handers. I wasn't even paying attention when I bought them because it was a good deal, but it turns out I actually purchased 6 of them. Three of each sculpt! So, I actually got more than what came in the blister and I got them all for $1 apiece! So, when my officer and heavy weapons guy arrive, I should have a nice little set of troops. I also happen to have completed two more of them today, so I'm halfway through them. With luck and some focus, I might actually be able to finish them before I leave for Japan later this week.

Is it the season? You guys coming to Japan one after the other.

M.

Partly. Tickets are a bit better priced and I hate Japanese summers.

Wow, I'm almost up to 1000 pictures in my gallery! Just a few more to go.

Anyway, I promised some pictures. Obviously they didn't come up in the morning. I was just too comfortable. But, I can share them now.

Over the weekend, I built my MW-01 kit from Gundam: The Origin.



It's a pretty good kit, aside from the cabling on it. For some reason, Bandai opted to use rubber hoses instead of hard plastic ones. I don't know why they did that, but they're an absolute pain in the ass. The damn things just don't want to stay plugged in. Being rubber, I'm also afraid they're going to wind up deteriorating fairly quickly. I think it could work very easily as a construction mech in games scaled between 15mm - 10mm without any issues. If one wanted to use it in 28mm games though, you'd have to do some modding. I think it would actually be fairly easy to hollow out the chest and fit in a pilot figure though.

Here's the AT-43 figures I picked up at Brookhurst on Black Friday.



I had no clue that the UNAS soldiers had swappable heads. They don't swap very easily, but it's nice that they gave the option. I love those Shock Tac Arms though. Flamer and pile driver? I'm sure I'll be using those in a game sometime soon.

I've started receiving some of the gifts I'd ordered for other family members as well. One particularly large order had a little item for me tucked away in it. I got a Camel cargo truck 2-pack from Heavy Gear.



So far, I've only got the first truck done and built a little papercraft cargo container for it. I wish it were a bit bigger so I could more easily use it with 15mm stuff. I know, it's meant for 1/144 scale gaming, but still. It's just a bit too small. Won't stop me from using it as terrain though!

For those interested, here's how it scales up with a 15mm figure.



I mentioned I painted up two more Sons of Rasputin. I did these guys last night.



You'll note, that's both of the standard infantry poses.

Speaking of Sons of Rasputin, Look what Noble Knight delivered to me today!



I got my heavy weapons guy and my sergeant. Now, too late do I realize that the sergeant is a Shock Soldat, not a regular one. I guess those guys use grenade launchers or something (it looks like the kind the Brotherhood use, anyway). The funny thing is, the sergeant seems to be almost indistinguishable from the regular guys. The actual differences are extremely minor. The sergeant has a grenade on his belt and his left hand is in a slightly different position. As far as I can tell, that's the only difference. Well, he'll certainly stand out from his regular troops now, because I'm sure as hell planning on using him a regular sergeant. The third blister is from Kryomek. They're something called Cobra Marines. I think they were actually from another line of megacorporation soldiers that went under and was absorbed into the Kryomek line. I'm not sure how I'm going to paint them yet though. These three, along with another Heavy Gear set were my gifts to myself for the holidays.

Now, one other thing. I've seen people do it before and wanted to try it for myself. I went through the Matchbox section at Toys R Us while I was picking up a present for my nephew and grabbed a plane to try converting into something for my 15mm figures.



Matchbox has some very interesting vehicles, if you take the time to look through them. This funky little VTOL reminds me a lot of the Cobra Firebat from GI Joe for some reason. I'm going to try stripping the paint, if I can, mounting it on a flying base, and repainting it into something a bit more military. I'm actually leaning towards a scheme similar to the Armadillo's. I'd like to arm it as well, but I don't have any spare weapons that would be small enough for it.

Take a look at some of the crazy aircraft that they make though.







There's a few that look like they came from SHMUPs, one that looks like one of the gunships from Avatar, and several full on Drones that they put clear cockpits onto for some reason. Some of these things would be seriously badass gaming pieces with a fresh coat of paint.

More good stuff, just keeps on rolling through here doesn't it

I'm finishing up a few projects here before I go to Japan on Thursday. There probably won't be many pics or updates on here while I'm away unless I can get some wifi. Don't expect any decent pics though, since If I can post anything, it'll be from my phone.

For now, I got around to finishing my Soviet Sniper from a while back.



And I finished my Reverend Healer.



And no, I don't intend to paint her eyes. If I try, I'm just going to screw them up.

I also finished my final three basic Sons of Rasputin Soldaten.



Funny thing, while looking at some old Warzone artwork today, I found some of these guys. Those round things on the sides of their masks? I thought they were some kind of funky vents, like the giant vents on the sides of my Pilgrims' helmets, but no. I learned today that those are actually supposed to be tubes attached to their respirator masks. That makes them look a bit less doofy when they're painted a different color than the rest of the mask, but I've grown accustomed to them looking like weird vents, so I'm going to keep them this way. I'll probably work on the Sergeant and the heavy weapons guy when I get back. Here's all of the figures I've finished so far.



Highlord Tamburlaine, you can expect to fight them in the near future.

Greetings from the future! Here in Japan, were 17 hours ahead of California, so I'm writing to you from the future! We had our first full day today. It's nowhere near as cold as I was expecting. I got to do a little bit of shopping today, so I nabbed some nerdy things. Forgive my cell phone pics.

I picked up a couple of Bandai's new Frame Robos, which came out two days ago, a Hyakuren from the current Gundam series, a pair of Japanese exclusive diecast Star Wars figures, and the new First Order Stormtrooper kit.

Come to Kobe and we can play!

M.

Did you build those Frame Arms yet?

They only had the first 3 in stock when we were there, and they didn't really wow me.

Curious to see what the final finished product looks like in the flesh.

Miguelsan wrote:Come to Kobe and we can play!

M.

No Kobe this time around, sorry. Only Nagoya.

highlord tamburlaine wrote:Did you build those Frame Arms yet?

They only had the first 3 in stock when we were there, and they didn't really wow me.

Curious to see what the final finished product looks like in the flesh.

Yeah, the new ones came out the day we left. They're certainly not as cool looking as the box art, but they're pretty neat. I left the decals off of the white on e. I'm thinking I might try painting it.

I'll try to post pics of the Star Wars figures as well. They're nice little display figures. Their legs and torsos are metal while their arms and heads are plastic. Articulation is limited to the neck, waist, and shoulders. Phasma's cape is removable as well.

UNAS Tac Arms pile drivers I would "counts as" powered weapons. Flamers, hmmm, purge the aliens!

That white mech sure has a lot of porcupine dobbers coming off it in all directions. I'm not familiar with the model. What are they for?

They're from a new cheap line of simple robot kits from Bandai called Frame Robo. I've heard there's going to be a tie-in anime, but it wasn't an official announcement, so we'll see about that. The robots are mostly named after planets and even have planets in their torsos for some reason. The two I got are Amaterasu Frame (white) and Saturn Frame (silver). Saturn Frame is obviously based on Saturn. Amaterasu I would think is supposed to represent the sun, but based on the colors of the planet in its chest, I think it might actually be Uranus. The spikes on it are actually part of a large halo-like ring on its back.