I saw "Iron Sky"

It's been reviewed properly elsewhere, but MY capsule review:

1. Not great
2. LOVED it!  So much fun!

For those of you who haven't heard about this B-grade, crowd-funded indie-blockbuster film, it's very briefly about Moon Nazis invading the Earth.  It's 2018, and US President cough totallySarahPalin has sent a mission to the moon to boost her popularity.  The astronauts quickly encounter a secret Nazi moon base, and the survivor is captured, precipitating some wildly improbable adventures and eventually a full-on Moon Nazi attack.

Yeah, it can't quite decide if it's slapstick, goofy political humour, dark political satire, an action film, or what.  Surprisingly good at times (especially for a $6 million budget), painfully clunky at others, if you like Weird War 2/dieselpunk/wacky Nazis and don't take it too seriously it's definitely worth a watch.  Also, the heroine Renate is just about the cutest little National Socialist since Helga from "Allo Allo".

Its ok, she doesn't KNOW she's a baddie, or that she looks eerily like Claire Danes c. 1996

Dead Snow

Nazi Zombies
15 mm

After finishing the Untoten Soldaten for my brother, I liked them so much I decided I wanted some too!  I gave these ones snow bases, obviously inspired by the Norwegian zombie film Død Snø (Dead Snow).

Grr Argh!

(Hey, apparently the whole film is on YouTube... for now.  It's probably the second bloodiest zombie film I've ever seen, I think Peter Jackson's Dead Alive wins first prize.)

Untoten Soldaten - finished

Nazi Zombies
15 mm
 

Corporal Bauer huddled inside the ruined bakery, listening for any hint the hideous creatures outside might have detected his presence.  The scratching and moaning continued to come from the street outside however, interspersed with wet sounds he was sure were his dead squadmates being dismembered and consumed.  After a day of heavy fighting, they had been caught by surprise, by what seemed to be a group of their own Waffen-SS... but empty-eyed men soaked with blood and stinking of death, attacking with bare hands and teeth.

A tiny scuffing noise made him look frantically around the debris-strewn room.  In one dark corner, a British soldier crouched, a heavy coating of grime and mud making him almost invisible.  Bauer spasmodically clutched his Mauser, but the Englishman only brought a finger to his lips, and with his other hand, held up a cloth bag bulging with heavy, egg-shaped objects.  Bauer stared for a moment, then glanced down at his own belt, where a single grenade remained...

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It took me way too long to do these, but some days I feel like a zombie myself. I think I'll keep them to admire for a while before the go in the mail to my brother...  Anyway, you can check out a much, much more impressive 28mm WW2 zombie project, entitled "Don't Fraternize with Germans" at Anatoli's Game Room.  Amazing!

Nazi Z's in progress

The Obersturmführer:

The mooks:

So I guess they're Waffen-SS, for that extra dose of evil :O Finishing the leader (do zombies have leaders?) has definitely helped motivate me to work on the rank and file (all 5 of them, ooh!). So far so good, though I was hoping the uniforms would look "field grey" which is actually more green. Maybe I can fix that with the highlighting.

Untoten Soldaten

Zombie Nazis
15 mm

These guys will be a birthday gift for my brother, so if you are reading this M___, I guess you spoiled the surprise! Anyway, $11 got me a good handful of these from Rebel Minis, and they're going to be fun to paint. They're pretty cute little sculpts, I like the guy dragging his rifle and the missing-arm/carrying-an-arm pair (I based those two together).

The gift minis will have dirt-n-bushes bases to match M___'s Flames of War Panzergrenadier army... but if I ever get to paint some for myself, they'll have winter bases... Død Snø style :D

For my own future reference, FoW base sizes are:
Small: 1 1/4" x 1"
Medium: 2" x 1 1/4"
Large: 2 1/2" x 2"

For the Motherland (finished!)

"железа ребенка" (Iron Baby)
15mm scale






Well this was a lot of fun to make. And I'm quite happy with the results: not goofy looking per se, but definitely a different visual style than my other Weird War 2 walkers. I think thinking up the back story beforehand helped visualize the final product, since of course every miniature should have a story, even a brief one.

So little

... both the figures, and the amount of painting I've been getting accomplished lately :P

Soviet flag bearer
15 mm



The first time I've done proper eyes with whites and pupils on a 15 mm figure :)

Soviet Assault Walker
15 mm scale



As you can see, I think I accomplished the "look" I was going for, a much brighter green (Ordic Olive mixed with Space Wolf Grey) than standard WW2 Allied olive drab. There apparently was no standard Soviet armour colour, since all factories used whatever was available.

Next I just have to base these guys and paint some markings on the mech. It's been a while since did any freehand...

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In other news, I just discovered Blogger has a static page function, so I can put up an About Me page and stuff like that. I'm always reluctant to put too much personal info on the web, but I'm not an "in the closet" mini painter, or anything :)

For the Motherland!

Soviet assault walker
15mm scale



The war walkers produced by Allies and Axis alike captured the interest of Comrade Stalin, and he ordered production of a "robot" to support mass infantry charges. The Christie walking suspension was overly costly for Soviet production, so a simpler non-transforming leg mechanism was devised, and the walkers transported over distance by trucks. Armament varied; this one carries a 20 mm ShVAK autocannon and a rocket launcher adapted from a captured German Nebelwerfer.

Due to the walkers' awkward toddling gait they gained the nickname "железа ребенка" (Iron Baby) among Soviet soldiers. Operation required considerable skill, and drivers enjoyed being considerably less expendable than their comrades on foot.

This was a fun conversion from a Khurasan Miniatures sci-fi walker. I just generally down-tech'ed it, giving it a more gas-powered look and fixing some bad design (pointless asymmetry - why?) and building the Nebelwerfer out of sprue.

Für das Vaterland!

Gepanzerte Truppen
15 mm







Some Eureka sci-fi WW2 Germans, first posted here back in 2009, sans bases. I figured that since I just ordered a set of Khurasan's "Control Battalion Infantry Riflethings", I should finish these guys up and get them off my work table. Great little sculpts; they really have the feeling of being the menacing elite soldiers of an evil war machine, even at this tiny scale.

The Riflethings will probably end up as some kind of WW2-era strangeness as well. I'm just not sure what. I ordered a sci-fi walker as well, so maybe I'll do the lot as Allied gear, since the Germans usually seem to have the Weird War advantage.

Works in progress - barbarian and tank

HeroQuest Barbarian
28 mm




Of course, I'm painting him up to go with "Skeletor", but I don't think he'll be as engaging. The villain is so often cooler than the hero... (also this figure is not nearly as interesting a sculpt, nor does his pose work as well with the plastic casting). But that's no reason not to paint him!

Possessed Panzer
15 mm scale



A bit of work on my "possessed" Panzer III. Cutting the tracks up (with the world's #$^@ing dullest razor saw) to make room for the emerging tentacles was a pretty ghastly chore, especially since I wanted to save some of the road wheels and leave some track remaining to dangle convincingly at the ends. But I think once it's done it'll look okay, and I can just plaster some demonic goo over any rough spots ;)

I'm very strange, I know it.

I'm working on a new 15 mm project... and it's a weird one. Here's some rough concept art:


What the? OK, some explanation: As we all know from watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark", the Third Reich were interested in some pretty fringe stuff - occultism and black magic and so on. This is the product of some kind of Nazi occult ritual gone horribly awry on the battlefield, resulting in the tank being "possessed" by some kind of demon or entity :O Kind of like the Chaos vehicles in Warhammer 40,000.

I'm basing this on a 15 mm Flames of War tank, and probably some GW Chaos or Genestealer bitz for the legs, since I'm not such a hot sculptor... I might have some mixed troops (Allied AND German) trying to destroy the thing, to emphasize what a universal menace it is. Should be fun :)

Uber Villain

The Red Skull
15 mm



This is a quick conversion and paint job I did for my brother over the Thanksgiving weekend... a new commander for his Flames of War German army.

Red Skull was Captain America's wartime nemesis: a ruthlessly evil supervillain allied with the Nazis (but always pursuing his own agenda).



The original Red Skull as he appeared in comic books:

Long departure

Months and months of no posts... the death of a blog. But I have an excuse, I got married and honeymooned and all that.

But hopefully, back to painting now!

German Valkyrie walker
15 mm scale





So this didn't turn out looking quite as good as I'd hoped, but it's good enough. I think it's a very wintery, chilly model, which at least is what I was aiming for.

Winterkrieg

I decided on a winter camo paint job on this model. Soldiers in WW2 tended to use whitewash (lime) often applied hastily over the factory paint with mops, brooms and rags. So I tried for a "messy" look, without making it just look like I was being messy... I'm not sure it's convincing.

Another Weird War Project

Valkyrie Walker
15 mm scale



More German WW2 stuff that never happened. I really enjoy these little models, I don't feel nearly as much self-pressure to strive for technical perfection in my paint job, and I can have fun meddling with them without risking mangling a large and costly kit. In this case, I built a turret, added a tank commander from the bits box, and sculpted a rolled camo net to hide the ugly casting flaws on the rear end (that's what $16 gets you, apparently).

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Star Wars Cake Toppers
Approx 50 mm

Speaking of alternate reality, since when was Princess Leia Bengali? Since my charming friends Siham and Sean decided to get married, that's when!



This was pretty easy, since I didn't have to repaint the whole figure, and Han was perfect the way he was. But they turned out looking so cute, and it's always nice to make myself useful...

"Let's go steal wine from that farmhouse... uh, I mean... attack! For the Fatherland!"

Loki Scout Walker
15 mm scale



Another Weird War 2 model from Gear Krieg. There are a bunch of conversions on this one. The awning-looking thing is a hi-freq radio antenna, WW2-style. Also, a spare tire, some stowed gear, better gripper claws, and a half-track commander from Flames of War.

Weird Reich

These just arrived in the mail from Dream Pod 9:

Loki and Valkyrie German Walkers
15 mm scale





DP9 minis seem overpriced to me, but since I can't sculpt/scratchbuild my way out of a paper bag, what choice do I really have to satisfy those World War 2 stompy robot cravings?

Weird War 2, again...

Gepanzerte Truppen
15 mm





Another World War 2 that (thankfully) never was... Wehrmacht space marines :P These finely-sculpted little 15 mm figures are from Eureka in Australia.

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...

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.