Rock and Roll all (Christmas) Night

Gingerbread KISS Pinball Machine

Every Christmas season, I try and produce a fun and novel gingerbread creation and post it here.  Longtime readers may remember my avant-garde church, windmill, or light-up lighthouse.  This time, I was non-architecturally inspired by the 1978 KISS pinball arcade machine.

Side panel portraits of the band; almost recognizeable as human.

Four player scoreboard with logo.

For reference, the original item.

So, happy holidays everyone!

Corbal Hardpoint... On The Move!

Corbal Mobile Hardpoint
15mm scale

Well, it's done!  This is definitely the biggest project I've done in ages, and although it proceeded painfully slowly at times I have to say I'm really happy with how it turned out.  I went with a white/colour accent scheme because I rather liked the white/red studio paint job on the Ion Age website, and frankly, because it's not too hard to paint a lot of white this way.  Also, I think camouflaging something like a four-storey-tall walking gun tower would be kind of pointless, especially if you want to use it as a "terror weapon".

(Now that I look at it all finished up it does have more than a passing resemblance to a giant walking Dalek... but that's not really a bad thing.)

"Run away!  Run away!"

"Here's the problem, big guy.  You've got some humanoid stuck to your foot."

Hardpoint, in Progress

Honestly, I haven't abandoned this project:

Sprayed white, then washed with grey until it looked totally dirty and horrible... now I'm bringing the features out with white again.  Not the most exciting painting work, but it's coming along okay.

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As a side note, I see the Ion Age are releasing some cool connectors/tunnels to link together all their sci-fi colony hab structures:

Looks pretty amazing, not to mention versatile!  More details in their blog post here.

Don't Get Me Busted

Female Bounty Hunters
15 mm

Donna A, Donna C, Donna F, Donna R, and Donna S are a team of bounty hunters whose outfits are as "skintight" as their game!

As "teenage runaways" desperate to get out of the stagnant agricultural colony of Nova NorCal, they teamed up to buy a ship and some weapons and hung out their shingle as fugitive trackers and private security consultants.  Now they and their pet Speed Demon are "hungry for blood" and headed to wherever they can find some well-paying "party action".  More than one criminal has ended up "all messed up" and flying back to face a "police blitz" after underestimating their tracking and combat abilities...

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Maintenance Droid
15mm

An essential item on any space station or ship, this intelligent droid can fix and maintain most systems.  Its repulsor system allows it to hover and access any part of the ship, as well as maneuver outside the hull using reaction jets.  Although all droids leave the factory with the same pleasantly neutral personality, it's widely believed that those working on older ships in poor shape tend to become "grumpy" over time.

An Ion Age miniature from the "Duxis drone and pilot" set.

Sneak peek

Female Bounty Hunter in Ghost Suit
15 mm
 

One of the Khurasan female bounty hunters I'm working on.  Not much else done on them to be honest, but I liked how the OSL looked on this one so I thought I'd post it...

Khurasan Femmes Fatales

I agreed to paint some more pre-release Khurasan minis, this time a team of female sci-fi bounty hunters:

Some nice variety here: a few fully-armoured hardasses, a couple of helmetless characters, one hoody-wearing rogue-type and a um, "dog thing".  I'll admit to being a biased source, but these are definitely more of the super-fine-featured 15 mm sculpts that Khurasan is becoming known for.  A real challenge for anyone who thinks they have a steady painting hand!  Hopefully I can get them done toute suite so you can get a better look at them.

Shady Characters

Sci-Fi Rogues
15 mm

The female mini was The Ion Age's monthly giveaway for July.  Nice sculpt, it would be pretty static but the sideways look gives it "direction" (yeah, I think about these things).  And I like the tough girl pose and the big gun :)  I picked a 70's-esque brown and orange pallette just to get away from the clean white armour on the catalog paint job.  The male figure is from The Ion Age's "The Betrayers", a nice assortment of scruffy brigands.  His hand was mis-molded and I broke his leg off un-basing him, so some green stuff was badly needed...

"I don't think I've seen one that big before! Just keep shooting!"

It Has Legs?!

Corbal Mobile Hardpoint
15 mm scale

 

While the Corbal Deployable Hardpoint provides ground troops with instant fortification and fire support, its static nature is unsuitable for a constantly-advancing planetary invasion force.  The Corbal Mobile Hardpoint is hardly the fastest-moving vehicle on the battlefield, but it can at least advance into newly captured territory, and its monolithic 11m stature makes even disciplined opponents consider retreat or surrender. Once a permanent position is established, the Corbal tower unit can be mounted as base defense or loaded back on a dropship for further service.

  

I knew I wanted to do this conversion as soon as I saw the Corbal on The Ion Age blog.  But I was stumped as to how to make the legs... my plasticard scratch-building skills are pretty sad and I'm too cheap to buy a whole other model just for its legs.  Fortunately, there's a ready source of interesting plastic shapes... Lego!  

I bought some promising-looking pieces off of eBay and started cutting: 

I'll freely admit these legs don't make a lot of sense mechanically, but I think we're well into "rule of cool" territory here anyway.  I also wanted the conversion to be "reversible" so the legs and belly details are mounted on an inverted 40 mm GW base that attaches to the Corbal's underside with a magnet and pins:

Skin in the game

Flayed Fanatics
15 mm

Ain't logical. Cuttin' on his own face, rapin' and murdering.  Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight...  But these Reavers, last ten years they show up like the bogeyman from stories. Eating people alive? Where's that get fun?
- Jayne Cobb

"Grr Argh!"

Once again, I got a chance to paint some pre-release Khurasan figures.  These are "The Flayed, which are fallen human followers of the false prophet who have their flesh flayed off and fight with berserk frenzy until they die".  Pretty gruesome stuff, but most fitting for what is apparently going to be a "Hollywood-style book of Revelations" type post-apocalyptic range.

 

"Mulder, how is that even possible?  They should be dead or in shock!" "Less questions more bullets, Scully!"

Ion Age gluttony!

TWO boxes arrived from The Ion Age today... one I ordered, the other turned out to be a birthday gift from my brother.  Score!  The haul:

The tower in the back is a "Corbal Deployable Hardpoint".  Let's just say I've got some special conversion plans for that one...  The shelters are cozy polygonal homes for a military expedition, hard-scrabble terraformers, xenoarchaeologists etc.

Havelock Battlesuit.  It's a beast.

A nice bonus: some interesting free sample figures from Alternative Armies.

Anyway, enough pics of unpainted stuff.  Hopefully I'll be able to show you some finished work in the next few months.

Hell Divers Squad

Hell Divers
15 mm

Well my squad is finished, with some lovely floral bases as a bonus.  Time for some action shots...

Troopers emerge from rocky cover into a vicious firefight.

Sgt. Barnes prepares to messily dispatch two unwary Chloros.

Another day, another planet: the squad advances past a mysterious alien facility.

Hell Divers WIP, and a gift

Hell Divers are fantastic.  Really.  I'm working on another six right now and as good as the sculpts are, I think what I like most is no doubles!  I'm pretty sure that in the three packs I bought (Alpha, Bravo and Omega squads) every figure is a different sculpt, so no bending arms and cutting heads to avoid your squad looking like a chorus line.

Obviously I'm painting these to match my previous four, so lots of Ordic Olive/Okavango Swamp.

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Robot Monster (redux)
15 mm

I enjoyed painting this Khurasan figure again, this time as a birthday present for my brother.  Retro-licious!  I have to say I got a lot of use out of these packs...

First painted Hell Divers!

Crome Masters
Steel Warriors
Soul Stealers
Ripping out hearts
They're Devil Dogs
The Hell Patrol

Hell Divers - Sgt. Elias and Sgt. Barnes
15 mm

I was pretty excited to paint these figures and of course I started with a couple of the Omega Squad personalities, named by me after the better and worse angels in "Platoon".  Barnes (creeping) is as is, Elias (standing) is a basic head swap between two Omega figures.  I stuck with a classic military drab scheme, reminiscent of WW2 American uniforms, with red visors (below) giving them a sci-fi touch.

 

Hell Divers sniper team
15 mm

The Hell Divers' precision shooters can effectively eliminate key enemy personnel and even light vehicles from a safe standoff position.

Terrain, and Maligs, and Hell Divers, oh my!

Ruined City Terrain
15 mm scale

Took a while but these turned out pretty much like I imagined them in my head.  I'm glad I broke up the grey monotony with some painted/patterned surfaces, and coloured wreckage and casualties to keep it interesting.  They were probably a lot more work than most gamers would want to put into random ruins though!


Ion Age Maligs
15 mm

The violent, dirty, undisciplined greenskins of the Ion Age universe!  And dumb, so so dumb.  Dirty deeds done dirt cheap, but as usual you get what you pay for.  Want them to blow up a radar station?  Oops, they blew up your favorite radio station.

"Ay mates, three to one!  We can take 'im!"

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One more thing... Though I usually try to avoid posting "Look what I bought!", I feel ClearHorizon Miniatures' strong initial releases deserve as much promotion as possible.

Professional packaging :)

My personal favorites...

What possessed me to buy all these Hell Divers?  Oh right, they're a really nice lineup.  I think I got all the infantry packs that are currently available.  Looking forward to painting some of these!

Scatter brained

So I'm having a go at some basic scatter terrain right now.  Not my usual thing, but I figure I can use it for photo backdrops.  I'm a bit new to this so I stuck with standard foamcore "Stalingrad"-style ruins:

I do like to make things complicated, so I gussied it up with some wreckage and a few ex-combatants, molded from a Khurasan power armored trooper and Mekanoid.  This gives a satisfying half-buried look without having to saw a metal figure in half lengthwise:

Next step is to spray prime everything... I hope I sealed the foam well enough.

Recon Thing

Riflething Scout Buggy
15 mm scale

Designed for rapid reconnaissance of dense urban areas, this lightly-armoured buggy allows Riflethings to get in and out, relying on speed and good steering to avoid small arms fire.  The driver is protected by slug-resistant, laser-ablative canopy; the gunner is exposed, but packs a punch with a plasma projector whose effects on infantry are best described as "horribly demoralizing".

This was a fun stress buster in the week after baby #2 was born, the chassis painting came together surprisingly quickly, though detailing took a bit of time later.  Frankly, I tried not to sweat the clumsy brushwork too much, in the interests of finishing it quickly.  The display base is as basic as it gets... printed paper on craft plywood, just something to place it on really.