WW2 Big & Stompy

Normandy 1944
15 mm scale




All done! I like how this turned out, the street is a little "clean" but I didn't want it overwhelmed with rubble etc. The ruined walls are made of a kind of fiberboard, with tiny gravel as the brick rubble.

I've been meaning to get back to my more "traditional" miniatures, but my brother went and got me some more WW2 stuff for Christmas! So I suppose I'll have to paint those at some point too...

Something not painted

My Christmas creation this year:



A Dutch-style post windmill. It's not easy convincing cookie to be a structural material :P

Useful find

WW2-era European streets were usually paved with cobblestones. While picturesque, these are a bit of a pain in the butt to model, since you pretty much have to sculpt an entire #%@# bunch of them yourself, or find a textured plastic product (usually not cheap or available locally) to get the effect.

I found this stuff at the local art store for $2. God help me, I think it's scrapbooking paper.



But painted, it makes pretty decent 1:100 scale cobblestones. Go figure.

WW2 Update

I need to post more in-progress shots so there are more updates here. I've been pretty lax.

Anyway here are my latest 15 mm scale WW2 minis, they're done but obviously the base isn't started yet. Alas, American vehicles in WW2 weren't that interesting to look at, the regulation markings were very plain. The vehicle names would probably have to have been painted on by the crew once there weren't any authority figures around.

Lettering "Betty Boop" was surprisingly difficult, the letters are less than 2 mm tall :P "Yellow Fever" was, thankfully, a decal.



The walker commander (presumably holding binoculars) was originally the .50 gunner on the car, but I sawed him off at the waist and gave his legs to the waving man so he could stand up in the car turret. All the extra bags etc. were sculpted from putty.

More WW2

US "General Early" walker and M-20 Scout Car
~35 mm



Some real and fictional WW2 American gear.

What could have been...

... if World War 2 was fought with big stompy robots!

"Gear Krieg" British Walker
~50 mm



Definitely a different take on WW2 war games! "Weird War 2" is a popular miniature genre right now so maybe this line will become more available. This is a Christmas gift for someone who hopefully doesn't read my blog...

A gift

In return for submitting a Chick Challenge entry this year, the CC crew sent me a goat-monkey thing, all the way from Italy. Very kind! (I'll have to send them a Christmas card...)

Research is Hell

Graduate Student
28 mm



This guy really has seen it all: unexplainable results, all-night experimental marathons ruined by a dropped test tube rack, instruments going off-calibration as soon as a precious sample is loaded, and his supervisor skipping his committee meeting to play squash. His body runs on caffeine and anxiety and his bank account is laughable. He hasn't had time to read a novel for years, but he took a pile of journal articles into the toilet this morning. All that keeps him going is the faint glimmer of graduation, at the end of a very long tunnel.

This miniature is dedicated to all the graduate students I know, and to Jorge Cham.

Twinkle twinkle...

Jolie the Astronomer
28 mm



Another non-violent mini... I always liked this one. Suffice to say, the telescope and candle holder were awful to make, too many tiny parts glued together. I wanted the two vertical elements to share a helical design but not "match", I think the compact wire helix ended up looking much better than the greenstuff one, but we shall see once they're painted. The "hatstand" base of the telescope used to be the fin end of a model airplane missile, it would probably have been easier to make it from scratch.

Misty Mountain Sam

Nobody knew where Sam was really from, or why he had left there to hire out his pistols in the scrubby towns between Gondor and Harad. But one thing was for certain, no-one ever dared call him "short" to his face.

Chick Challenge 2008

Rebel Alliance Pilot and droid
25mm


"They're moving our base to Dantooine, R5. It looks pretty safe and out of the way to me."

This is my Chick Challenge 2008 entry, in the Sci-Fi category. No chance of winning anything, of course, since the quality of the other entries is pretty high. The miniatures are 80's-era Grenadier figures, the holo generator is made from Zoid toy parts.

Slither

Nurgle Warrior
28mm



A family photo:

The Short, the Bad and the Ugly

Dwarf Gunslinger
16mm



A minor conversion of a plastic dwarf given to me by MPJ in the Coolminiornot.com Miniature Exchange #16. Frankly, these aren't very good figures, the plastic casting method ruins too many details at the sides of the miniature. But I liked the subject matter, at least as a starting point.

(Re: comment below, he's 16mm tall, but in 28mm scale)

There's never an octopus wrangler when you need one.

The very deep did rot : O Christ !
That ever this should be !
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

Some sculpted tentacles seemed right for this guy's base. He's not quite done; I still have to do some highlighting, detailing etc.

Works in Progress

Nurgle Warrior
28mm

Iron Man
25mm



Old and new stuff here: a Games Workshop chaos warrior from the 80's, and a Heroclix mini given away at Free Comic Book Day 2008.

Little Rotter

Nurgling
12mm



Just a small piece to get me back in the swing of things after a four month painting hiatus! More to come soon, hopefully.

It's been a while...

Besides moving house, what little painting time I have has been spent on a Chick Challenge entry, which I'm not supposed to post pics of... But it's be in the "Science Fiction And Steampunk" category.

Hero of the Shire

Bandobras Took
20 mm



Bandobras... gained fame for leading the Hobbits at the Battle of Greenfields in 2747 when Orcs from Mount Gram in the Misty Mountains invaded the Northfarthing. At this battle, Bandobras charged at the Orc leader Golfimbul and knocked off his head with a club. The Orc's head flew through the air for 100 yards and went down a rabbit hole; it is said that this is how the game of golf was invented.