Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Orange is a forgiving color, right? Right?

So, took a little while, but I did paint two of the orange WHISPER mechs. Actually, I've got three of my four WHISPER mechs finished. The fourst, a kneeling Sokar will have to wait a bit since I won't be able to work on him for a few days.

So, here's the first, the Bastet, which is a command type, apparently.



Then we have a Sokar, a basic troop type armed with a heavy railgun.



Here's my favorite of the bunch, the Raptor. It's supposed to be an older model mech. Obviously, it's intended to be a high speed aerial type mech. I really hope there's some more poses planned for these. It's hard to tell, but the Raptor uses two shades of blue with a sort of dazzle pattern coloring on it. Unfortunatley, the darker blue does kind of blend into the lighter blue.



And for those interested, I took a few size comparison photos, too.

Here's the Bastet vs a Reiver/Primaris.



Compared to some of my other 15mm mechs.



And lastly, compared to some 15mm figures.



Last, something less interesting than small scale giant robots, here's a zombie apocalypse survivor decked out in kendo gear!

Those Whisper mechs came out nice. Very 80s real robot type paint jobs.

That kendo guy is totally random. Where in the world did he come from?

Kendo guy comes from Phalanx Consortium's Skirmish: Ragers Kickstarter. Same place as my cop w/ shotgun, flanel guy with compound bow, Rabbi, and Priest. I still have a few more survivors left from that Kickstarter that I haven't gotten to yet, along with a squad of 90's style Delta Force operators.

Those mechs are very cool. Thanks for the scale pics.

Scale pics are always useful, so I don't mind taking them.

Today I finished a trio of Reaper bones fantasy figures. As with the others, these three will be going to Ebay to hopefully get me some money to fuel my desire for more third party Transformers and other Japanese robots.

Orc Warrior.



Orc Slicer



Crusader Cleric



The orcs look good enough, I'm confident they'll sell. Hopefully there's someone out there who's too lazy to paint and wants to play a heavily armored cleric.

I still argue that the cleric would make a great Inquisitor if you clipped off the hammer and slapped a few skulls and Aquilla on him.

Was the orc's armor painted in gold or were you trying some NMM painting? I can't tell!

Neither. The orcs' armor is just yellow with a brown wash over it.

I finally got around to painting a Maelstrom's Edge figure! One out of over 40. I think what's kept me from even touching these figures so far has been that I couldn't decide on a color scheme. I'd been mulling a black, white, and a yellow scheme for a long time, but I finally decided it'd be too much of a pain in the butt to paint. So, I settled on another favorite of mine, industrial yellow!



It's hard to see since his gun is in the way, but he's got a black vest with bluish-grey straps. The coveralls are obviously yellow, his fatigues underneath are light grey, and I decided to go with orange for the rigid armor bits. You can't see them very well, but there's hazard chevrons on the orange bits. I'm not sure what that bit on his back is supposed to be, so I thought It'd be a little creative with it. I decided to make it look like one of those vital readout things people in Dead Space wear on their backs. As you can see, he's at full health.

Naturally, immediately after I finished him, I had a thought for a different scheme. Keep the light grey undersuit, orange coveralls, bone white armor and straps, black vest, black hat. It's a scheme I was thinking about using whenever I wind up with a Genestealer cult. If I painted my Epirians to match, I could intermix them. I suppose I could just paint some of these guys in that scheme. Would it be weird to have an army of conscripted industrial workers in two differently colored uniforms?

Someday, if I ever get around to it, I'd also like to try customizing these guys with Anvil Industry bits. I find the arms on the kit to be the weakest point. Too short and oddly posed. Plus, they're all short sleeved. I bet they'd look good with some of Anvil's long sleeved fatigue arms and their boxier looking shoulder pads.

So how lucrative is the ebay selling? How fast can you crank those minis out? They look great.

Well, the Beholders were sold for around $30 - $35 apiece. I paid $6. The human sized figures I've sold so far have gone for around $15 or so. My dwarf and Purple Worm so far haven't garnered much interest though, sadly. I can churn a figure out in a night if it's the only thing I work on. It took me two nights to get all three of this latest bunch done.

I got my final WHISPER mech finished last night, too. Glad he's done. He was the toughest to do because of his pose. This one is a Sokar armed with a Noob Tube.



And here's the orange trio.

That's not too bad as as long as you enjoy the painting time.

That's right folks, we're going to start this update off with a bang. I present to you, Reaper's "Dwarf Slaver."



What about this guy is a "slaver?" What even is this figure? Why is he wearing a thong? Why does he have thigh high boots on, with a thing? Why is he wearing an executioner's hood? Why does he have one piece of armor on his toe? This dude's nipples are also super pointy. I'm sure you wanted to know that. And yes, I painted his thong red specifically to draw your attention there. I plan on using him at every opportunity just because he's so out there.

I also completed a couple of Icarus Miniatures' Nexus aliens. I like these guys, but they always feel really fragile in my hands.



This one is armed with an LMG while the other is one of their feral cousins. Apparently, the Nexus military must capture a bunch of their tribal society members and force them into military servitude as cannon fodder. They just run up at their enemies with a pistol and some knives.

That dwarf belongs in a dungeon alright, just one a bit different from the usual RPG dungeon. Is there a dwarfess dominatrix mini forthcoming?

Those 4-armed aliens give a nice Barsoomian sort of vibe...

I agree. That more primitive alien is a pair of tusks away from being a perfect Thark.

Dude, that Dwarf is a female (ALL Dwarves are bearded; females beards are finer and softer)

The crotch bulge, ass sculpted to appear hairy, twirly mustache, and a beard as pointy as his man-boobs tell me this dwarf is all man.

This update will be a little different since this isn't exactly a miniature or a model. I recently came across what seems to be a relatively unknown line of toy mecha and soldiers out of China that is more than a little influenced by the Titanfall games. There's probably a bit of Halo, Gears of War, and Lost Planet in that inspiration, too. There's not much info about the series in English, but, as far as I can tell, the line is called Dark Source (I think) and it is made by a company called Joy Toy. The line is scaled at 1/27, but they actually seem to be perfectly in scale with Kotobukiya's Hexa Gear model line. So, maybe if you're interested in some cross compatibility, it's definitely there.

So, looking to test the waters with this line as well as Aliexpress, I decided to take the plunge and order one of the robots. The one I ordered was called "Iron Skeleton." Here's his promo photo.



So, I just got him today after about 23 days of waiting. The box was a little dinged up, but no problem since the toy was fine and I wasn't going to keep the box anyway. First thing I noticed about him, he's not that bright yellow that the picture shows, he's actually more of a desert yellow color. The kind of color you'd see on a US tank in Iraq or Afghanistan. This is actually one of the smaller mechs in the line. Most of the piloted ones clock in at around 10 inches or so. Oh, and I'll apologize in advance for the poor lighting. I don't have good lighting at my house and I'm only really ever able to take pics at night, so they're kind of dark and have shadows over them.



Ruler provided for scaling. As you can see, he's about 6 inches to the top of his backpack. And for additional scaling reference...



Here's I've got him standing alongside several different scales. To the left, a 1/12 scale Stormtrooper. He's around 6 inches, so about on par with the top of the mech's backpack. Under his feet, we have a 1/56 scale Space Marine Scout. This thing will make a nice mech for 40k. Easily converted, too, which I'll get on in a moment. To the right, a 1/24 Hexa Gear figure. From everything I've seen, he's damn near perfectly scaled to this robot. After that, we have a 1/18 scale Storm Trooper, just for additional sizing and if you should have interests in using this with say, Gi Joe.

The Iron Skeleton comes with two accessories.

A large axe.



And a big cannon with a chainsaw bayonet (mysteriously missing from the promo images)



Now, as for features, this thing is poseable. Every joint is articulated. That includes the smaller sub-arms and the fingers and thumbs on all four hands. The heels even have a hinge, for some reason. His arms' mobility is a little bit hampered by the presence of the sub-arms though. The legs, I should note, are digitigrade, but they are still fully articulated and functional. Even the little sensor eye is movable. The Iron Skeleton is apparently not a manned unit though. There's some humanoid robots in the line called Grasshoppers. From what I gather (I've only seen one picture showing it) you can partially disassemble a Grasshopper and install it into the cockpit block. Yeah, the torso opens to reveal a cockpit. The cockpit itself is actually removable. So, if you wanted to convert this thing to a 40k Knight, you could easily just take out the cockpit block and scratch build a new cockpit. Unfortunately, the Grosshoppers don't come with this robot and they're a bit on the costly side to purchase. However, guess what does fit in the included cockpit block? Yeah, Hexa Gear. If you remove a Hexa Gear figure's arms and legs, they can pretty easily fit right into the cockpit. They won't even fall out.

Now, of course, this isn't without its flaws. As I mentioned,, the sub-arms do get in the way of the upper arms' mobility. That can make holding the cannon a little difficult. Most of the joints use soft ratcheting ball joints. They'll hold the poses, but I can see them getting loose over time. The hands are definitely an area to look out for in terms of looseness. The upper right arm's hand is a little loose on mine. Also, the lower left arm likes to pop out at the bicep joint. I've heard that on some others, the waist joints can be a bit loose. On mine, the joint likes to pop loose. The issues mine has are all minor though. Absolutely nothing deal breaking.

I'm very happy with this purchase, so I'm looking into getting some more of the robots, especially the larger ones.

So, to whet the appetite of those of you who are actually interested, and to entice others to track some of these toys down, here's some of the other mechs, spoiler'd due to the image sizes.



Also, kind of funny. The designers of this line just couldn't resist "borrowing" elements from other lines. Those Grasshoppers I mentioned, their weapons are recast Tau Battlesuit weapons and one of them has part of a Space Marine backpack included as a Titanfall style jump pack. There's also some cyborg soldiers that use Tau Battlesuit torso bits as body armor.

Thanks for the review! Had no idea these existed, but happy I do now Iron Skeleton might still be the coolest to me, though I can dig Steel Knights and Zeus Mecha (assuming either of those are mech names) has a proto-BT thing going on with the shoulder PPC/whatever.

How much did your four-armed boy set you back?

- Salvage

I got him during a sale, so I got it a bit cheaper. I paid around $42 all together. Right now you can get it on Aliexpress for about $46 or so, free shipping. You're looking at $100+ on Ebay though.

I have to say, I really like Iron Skeleton's design a lot, too. I actually wound up ordering the black version of the Zeus mecha last night (currently on sale from the same seller for $62) and it's already shipped. With luck, I should have it by the 27th.

Awesome stuff Barzam your going to make me impulse buy some of those nexus aliens one day

Thanks for the heads up on the dark source line s9me cool looking vehicles there for conversation as well as the mechs. You should put these up on the toys for wargaming thread in discussions.

That's really cool!

Surprised you didn't X-share it to the misc SF for 40k thread.

It was late when I posted and I hate trying to link images on my phone. I'll share them later.

Oh, no worries - it' a cool toy, and a nice review

That looks amazing.

Joy Toy is the name of the line? Do you have a link?

I'm afraid to google joy toy on a work computer. Or a family computer. Or in general.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Joy Toy is the name of the line? Do you have a link?

I'm afraid to google joy toy on a work computer. Or a family computer. Or in general.

Yeaaaaa same. But searching Aliexpress for '"joy toy" robot' was (perhaps disappointingly) pretty SFW. Can't guarantee the google will be as safe

- Salvage

Surprisingly, I actually haven't had any issues Googling it, and I've done it from my work computer. Just search "Joy Toy 1/27" or "Joy Toy Source" and you should be fine. If you do an image search, most of the images that come up will actually be to those Aliexpress listings.

Funny enough, when I've searched Joy Toy, the thing that's popped up the most, aside from these, has been toys of Joy from Inside Out. Nothing explicit.

taking a shift away from cool sci-fi stuff, how about some boring fantasy things?

I painted up a Bones Bear. I'm not happy with the photo.



Yep, that's a bear.

I also painted an Orc Grunt.



Oooh. Look how exciting this figure is.

Lastly, we have a new favorite of mine, the Dwarf Butcher.



The moment I saw him on the pegs at the flgs, I had to have him. Is he going to kill the pig? Is he protecting the pig? What the hell am I even going to do with him? Don't know! But I know I love this mini. Him, the slaver, and eventually the brewer are all going to hang out. For some bizarre reason, I've been buying dwarves lately. I don't know why. They've never appealed to me. But, Reaper does have some weird ones with a lot of personality. I think I need to get the dwarf mage riding a donkey at some point and the puppeteer.

Why he only butchers dwarves I'll never know.

Nice job on them, and yeah the dwarf butcher is a real keeper.

I imagine he butchers dwarves because they're always after his bacon.

I actually painted a Necromunda figure last night! I'm just going to be building them following the instructions, so nothing fancy. This guy is labeled as Bonesnapper, I believe. Looks like he has a shotty and some 'nades.



And that now gives me two more finished Necromunda figures than Highlord Tamburlaine.