Space cannon WIP

Ion defense cannon
15 mm scale (?)

Someone on the 15mm sci-fi gaming Facebook group posted a link to this set recently, and I cavalierly commented that it'd be cheaper, and easy to just build one.  Normally when I say things like this I'm full of crap wishful thinking, but this time I thought "Don't be that guy", and decided to put my hobby tools where my mouth is.

The inspiration: $40 USD

I wanted this to be a cheap project; partly to prove a point and partly because I don't really have any use for it.  So it's made out of bitz, card stock, and repurposed items:

One Canadian craft beer, one papier mâché Xmas craft ball.

Can end cut down and tabs folded over for stiffness.

 

Decorated with bitz and card.  I went for a longer cannon; size matters.

The result, even when just spray-primed, is surprisingly decent-looking:

At 15 mm scale this is much smaller than the famous "Hoth cannon" from The Empire Strikes Back, but I was careful to avoid any obvious scale-betraying details, so it could be used as a turret for 28 mm, or a planetary defender for 6 mm.  I anticipate the rough papier mâché texture being a bit of a problem when I go to paint it, but my plan is to obscure it with painted-on details if needed.

Boarding party backup

Chuhuac "Vasseth" Strike Tank - Shipboard Configuration
15 mm scale

Sometimes even a routine policing mission just needs "more dakka", so Chuhuac marines have a special ace up their tail-sheath for boarding actions encountering heavy resistance.  The compact Vasseth tank has been modified for off-planet use; its grav units supplemented with a deployable air-cushion and reaction jet systems for use in centripetal pseudogravity and even limited zero-g maneuvering.  Twin beamer turrets are highly lethal while avoiding explosion damage to friendlies in close quarters.

 I also finished up my remaining few Chuhuac special forces figures to go with this:

The pirates guarding the airlock are about to have a bad day.

Square dealer

Valter the Vendabot
15 mm

A retail droid who surpassed his programming, Valter can be found wheeling and dealing on the streets of Dropfall City.  His sales pitches for everything from children's travel holos to illegal stim packs can be quite persuasive.  In return for the occasional tip, law enforcement fail to inform his former owners of his whereabouts.

One of The Ion Age's monthly freebies from last year.  Paintjob inspired by the 2000 AD/Judge Dredd character "Walter the Wobot" as painted by sho3box.  Paper terrain from World Works Games (and Google image search).

Embattled Aboriginals

Ikwen guerrillas
15 mm

The pseudo-amphibioid natives of the jungle world Kwiell were progressing well through their version of the Bronze Age when the first sky visitors arrived.  Unfortunately for the Ikwen ("the Forest's Children" in their own language of hypersonic clicks and squeals) the visitors were not a curious scientific team, but a fleet of freebooters hired by the Human Empire to scout out sources of the fusion-modulating superheavy element unbihexium.

Upon learning of the Ikwen, the Empire ordered its contractors to not only extract the planet's unbihexium, but capture thousands of the Forest's Children as slave labourers.  Their resistance with primitive weapons would have been doomed if not for the hasty arrival of military advisors and equipment from both the Cultural Collective and the Garafraxian "Chloros", hoping to starve the Empire of a strategic resource.  Now the Ikwen find themselves in the middle of a three-way proxy war, with their own home hanging in the balance...

Figures are from Loud Ninja Games via 15mm.co.uk, with thanks to Eli Arndt, Todd Ulrich and Roderick Campbell for creating such a cool species! :)

The Floating World of Lady Urokubi

The Lady Urokubi
15 mm

An influential socialite and traveler in human space, Urokubi has used the most advanced cybernetics, repulsorlift and micro-teleportation technology to give herself a truly extreme body modification.  Nutrients, blood supply and neural impulses are transmitted freely between transmat gates in her body's neck and her head, while brain implants allow her to effortlessly control her body while her head hovers independently of it.

The figure is a slightly modified "SGF23 Rokurokubi" (Japanese headless vampire) from 15mm.co.uk.

"You are as lovely as ever, Lady.""And you, as obsequious as ever, Ambassador."

Edit: here's a scan of the rug pattern for those who liked it:

The Ghost of Tom Joad

Men walkin' 'long the railroad track
Goin' someplace there's no goin' back
Highway patrol choppers comin' up over the ridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge

Shelter line stretchin' 'round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleepin' in their cars in the Southwest
No home no job no peace no rest

The highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
Searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad

This figure is actually a scientist casualty marker from the Khurasan "fleeing scientists" set.  It has a certain pathos which lent itself really well to this subject, once I added some street scenery and personal effects.

Remember, in the end, nobody wins unless everybody wins. - Bruce Springsteen

Veloci-Raptors

Chuhuac gravbike racers
15 mm

Three racers are snout-to-tail as they round the final pylon
in the annual Hatchlings' Day Classic.

While sports like tailball and hoopstick remain vibrant centuries after their invention, motor-sports competitors are some of the biggest media heroes of Chuhuac popular culture.  Gravbike racers are often former military scouts or pilots with lightning reflexes and seemingly no fear.

"Highway to the danger zone..."

Models are Loud Ninja Games "Chuhuac Grav Bikes".  Paper models from Dave Graffam Models.

The Thing That Should Not Be

Tentacled Vivisectionist
15 mm

Straight out of hell
One of a kind
Stalking his victim
Don't look behind you
Nightcrawler

The chaotic, murky underlevels of Dropfall city are home to secretive criminal gangs, the diseased or mutated, and the merely poor and desperate.  Rumours of far more sinister denizens abound; in a lawless world where inhabitants can simply disappear for any one of a thousand reasons, a predator can select victims with total freedom.  The Vivisectionist intends to learn the biomechanical secrets of all sentient species, one flayed and twitching body at a time.

Amarjit battles through gibbering revenants, intent on taking the fight to their
hideous master.  Will her blades end its terrible reign, or will she end up as its
latest experimental subject?

Figure is a Reaper "Darkspawn Familiar", intended for 28mm scale.

Diminutive Extra-Terrestrial

Friendly Asogian
15 mm scale

The small-statured natives of the planet Brodo Asogi ("The Green Planet") are intelligent and good-natured.  Their society values science and exploration and they send research expeditions to the farthest reaches of space in the hopes of discovering new natural wonders.  Though physically weak, they have potent psi powers which give them telekinetic and healing abilities.

A Khurasan figure from the pack "friendly demons".

Daring Deep Space Dinos

Chuhuac Space Marines
15 mm

Like most spacefaring species, the Chuhuac have a strong interest in exercising sovereignty over their home space; this includes aggressively suppressing elements such as pirates and smugglers.  Crew and troops on the corvettes Wingfinger, Talon, and Far-Seer are experienced in intercepting and boarding criminal vessels.

Another trio of Loud Ninja Games' fun space dinos here.  I used the "Chuhuac Troopers" pack from 15mm.co.uk for my ground forces in the previous post, these are "Chuhuac Special Forces".  Giving them a higher-tech space-suited look completely changes the feel; I definitely like how these turned out.

Raptors in Spaaaace!

The Chuhuac
15 mm

A boisterous race of social carnivores who appreciate a good hunt or aggressive play more than anything, the Chuhuac had long been troubled by the suspicion that something was amiss with their origins.  Only once they developed the paleontological sciences were they able to confirm what several major religions had long argued - that while their species had inhabited their lushly biological world for eons, they did not originate there.  Their fossil record began abruptly about 65 million years ago, preceded by faint traces of a previous, unrelated early ecosystem.

Though first contact between humans and the Chuhuac was initially distrustful, it was still existentially stunning for both species to discover blood relatives across the vastness of space.  As relations improved, both species' scientists eagerly began to work together to learn how an entire ecosystem descended from Cretaceous fauna and flora came to exist on a world dozens of light-years away from Earth.

Although individually aggressive by nature, historical interludes of catastrophic internecine conflict have left the Chuhuac with a distaste for actual warfare.  Their military forces, like this pack leader and his troopers, exist largely for self-defense and to assist allies in ventures deemed ethically justifiable.

Light and Dark

Keisho the Monk
15 mm

As we see farther into the universe and meet innumerable beings, some might ask "how can I have compassion for these beings who I do not even understand?".  An answer could be "one does not need to understand the language or metabolic requirements of another being to accept their suffering".  Such universal understanding may not be possible, but universal compassion is a stone on the path of enlightenment.

Some faiths adapted to humankind's spread through the galaxy better than others.  Keisho, a monk of the NeoBuddhist Temple of the Four Noble Truths, lives among the poor and exploited in the filthy spaceport of Dropfall.  There he seeks to relieve worldly affliction and teach the dharma to any sentients, human or otherwise, who seek it.

I first mentioned this guy in passing in a previous post, and when I saw 15mm.co.uk now has a monk figure available, I thought it was almost perfect, though I did add a sort of breather pack to make him more sci-fi.

"So... you're saying letting go of attachments can become an attachment?"

---

Gunslinger Assassin
15 mm

What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? 
Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.

A slightly converted 15mm.co.uk figure.  I think Spacejacker did a much better job on these guys, no surprise there.

Picking up cargo on Ord Mantell, Han and Chewie run into another of Jabba's hired guns.

A Dark Lord Unmasked

So I don't often do blog posts about other people's blog posts, but I recently came across something too cool to pass up.  Matt S. at Oldenhammer in Toronto recently posted this conversion of a Star Wars Imperial Assault Darth Vader figure which blew me away:

He has a bit to say about it too:
If there's anything scarier than Darth Vader in his mask, it's Darth Vader with the top down: the bruised eyes, the long unhealed wounds, and the skin pale as a moonscape. There is no better subject if you want a miniature as a portrait of a person in pain.

It's a powerful portrait of one of our favourite sci-fi villains in all his hideous glory...  If you like it, don't just tell me.  Tell him!  (He's also posted some other really nice Star Wars stuff more recently, so check that out too.  I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this blog from now on.)

Dino Discovery

So I found these plastic Schleich mini dinosaurs at the local toy store the other day.  I think they have interesting 15 mm possibilities.  The raptor and the pterosaur are a tad off-scale but the others seem pretty bang-on.  And, at only $4 each, you could put a herd on the gaming table for the cost of a few pints...

"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

They do have a bit of molded text on their bellies that someone like me would feel compelled to remove and putty over, but otherwise they're pretty awesome as-is.  And scale is at least credible; here they are posing with a (largish) 15 mm humanoid:

"Come at me, bro!"

Khurasan "Huntarr" figure for scale.

Winged Old One

Elder Thing (sculpt)
28 mm scale; 40 mm tall

They were not evil things of their kind. They were the men of another age and another order of being. ... Scientists to the last - what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn - whatever they had been, they were men!

Unlike many of H. P. Lovecraft's horrors, the Elder Things were not supernatural or truly malicious in any way.  They were aliens who traveled to earth in the Cambrian era, founding a strange civilization and bio-engineering the dreaded Shoggoths as their servants.  Though hinted at in various eldritch volumes of the past, their existence was only truly discovered by Antarctic explorers from Miskatonic University in the 1930s, precipitating the loss of most of the expedition.

This strange creature from "At the Mountains of Madness" started out as an oval bead from my daughter's necklace kit.  I'd painted Lovecraft mythos figures before, but the Elder Things never caught my interest simply because ATMOM is, frankly, not a very accessible novel.  My sculpt isn't overly original, largely based on various Deviantart pieces as well as Lovecraft's oblique text description.  Most people's interpretations look something like these:

Stay away from the brown acid.

I imagined the tentacles, legs and wings to be boneless fluid-filled structures and sculpted them accordingly.  I don't think the "hands" and wings turned out particularly well, but overall I'm happy with it.  I gave it a tool or weapon (Laser gun?  Musical instrument?  Elder drain unblocker?) because they were supposed to be a highly advanced civilization, not just tentacle-waving animals.

Monkey Business

Like most of us, I like to keep up with what other painters are up to on their blogs.  And while I can appreciate the technical accomplishments of a well-painted army... well, usually it's the little things that make me say "Yes!  This hobby is awesome!"

This, at Menace Miniatures, is one of those things:

I'll admit I suggested the idea to redmenace, but wow.  What a great job.  This is a scene I've wanted to put together myself for ages, but I never got around to it.  Looking at it here, I can just imagine that scene from 2001...

So if you like it too, drop by Menace Miniatures and say something about it!  And check out his other work, because it's all very nice.

Prang Posse

I finally completed my last few Prang models, here's the squad all together.

I had fun painting these froggy guys, each one is unique in many ways (weapons and armour are all a little different) but with a coherent painting style they tie together well as a group.  Their slightly different body types and facial structures give them a lot of character too; they remind me of the ensemble casts of many war films.

"Come and get some!"

Incidentally, this is the first full squad I've done with the attached bases removed and scratchbuilt "indoor" bases added.  A fair bit of work even for these simple designs, but I like the results!

Prang Problem Solver

Prang Combat Technologist 
15 mm

Not all problems can or should be solved by superior firepower, so in addition to the basic mechanical training all Prang troopers receive, mission teams usually include an experienced technologist.  Skilled in manipulating materials as common as steel or as exotic as scrith, as well as infiltrating automated systems, they protect their squad from threats ranging from a locked hatch to killer nanoswarms.

Prang figure from 15mm.co.uk.