Saturday, August 17, 2013

A Bird Theme: Raptors And A Falcon

Well, I was going to take these to Gen Con with me and enter them in the Miniature painting contest in the Vehicle/War Machine category, but my hotel had over-booked and I lost the room I thought I had. My loss is your gain, so to speak, because I wasn't going to post the Falcon until after I came home with a first place ribbon! A big thank you to Jon Paulson of Paulson Games for creating such a fantastic miniature...the Raptor mech, that is! By the way, if you want one of your own and want to see the other cool stuff that is to come, go here:
http://www.mechafront.com/page/page/8798042.htm

On with the show....


Here is the first of four Raptor mechs I have. This comes from the Mecha Front game by Paulson Games. It is a stock Raptor with no modifications other than a comm antenna. The size of this beauty makes it perfect for 10mm or 15mm gaming. The half track is a heavily modified MW:DA JES missile carrier...minus the missiles now!

Also of interest are the military buildings. They are plaster castings of empty Oreo cookie trays with Lego bits and other do-dads to help with the details.

Rear view.


Now we have the heavily modified version. The first thing I wanted to do was modify the static pose into an action pose. I also wanted a slightly different load-out. A big flame thrower and a mech-sized minigun!

The napalm fuel tank is a Lego bit. The flamer thrower had one hose attached to it already, but there are two tanks....

I added the hose that snakes up over the shoulder by clipping a length of cheap necklace. The right foot is glued up in a half step. Since the bottom of the foot was exposed, I had to engrave a tread pattern to the bottom with my Dremel. I wanted to extend the left leg into a striding pose so I cut the knee, sculpted a new knee joint and an ankle joint, and them fixed them into a new pose.

The dripping napalm is a glue-soaked wad of cotton swab, as is the burning puddle on the ground. The flame nozzle is another Lego piece that I drilled some holes into. The other gun is a simple barrel swap. The searchlight is another Lego piece with a jewel fixed into the lens.

The other droplets of napalm are just globs of glue. Here she is with the basic Raptor and A MW:DA Madcat so you can get an idea of how good she looks with my 10mm forces.

I almost forgot! I carved out some side ports for the cockpit and added a hatch and an exhaust vent on top of the mech. I wanted the flamer barrel to look like it was red hot from recent usage...not that the dripping napalm was also a dead give-away.
Oh, one more thing. My friend Owen wanted a close up of the nose art.





Now I present the ship that made the Kessel run in 12 parsecs...the Millennium Falcon! This is the 1/144 scale model from Fine Molds, and I must say it really is fine!

You can see Han Solo discussing his cargo manifest with the port authorities. The landing pad is a Perkins pie pan. The caramel apple pie was delicious, by the way!

You might notice something funny about the landing gear....

....It is a temporary cradle! Since I wanted this to be either in flight or landed, I designed a landing gear cradle using the gear that came with the model and a rig made out of illustration board. They are all aligned so they match up to the underbelly perfectly.

Here she is in flight.

No, it is not lit up. Thanks to the miracle of florescent paint, it only looks like she's in after-burn.

I wanted to add a few extra details to make her a bit more than just out-of-the-box. I added some little detailing decals and a bit of battle damage with my trusty Dremel.

The underside with the landing gear bays sealed permanently.




We're not out of this yet, kid!


The flight base is a bit of custom work using a wooden base, a brass rod, and a chunk of blue styrofoam. I wanted an asteroid look out of the styrofoam so I gouged some holes into it and carefully applied paint stripper to melt the foam into a rugged look.


In case you were wondering just how big she is, here is my thumb.

If the cockpit came with a crew, I would've left it clear. Sadly, there were no crew members included.

The navigation lights and the torpedo bay. I painted the torpedo bay before I assembled her, otherwise there would be no way to paint it, and I didn't want to overlook a thing on this baby.

The amount of detail on this model is simply stunning. Every part fit precisely with no filling and very little sanding required. They aren't know as Fine Molds for nothing!







Well, another successful blog post. I hope you enjoyed it. I guess Gen Con will have to wait until next year.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Making up for lost time, so this is going to be a loooong one.....

Alright, I am back with a vengeance! Been slowly chipping away at the projects lined up on my desk while I try to cope with real life. I finally have a few that are worthy of revealing to you, my faithful fans. As you are about to see, i have been all over the spectrum with my projects- a little bit of movie magic, some video game love, battle mechs, air power, and vehicles, oh my! Let's get started, cuz this is going to be a loooong post. I owe you guys ( and gals ) some eye candy.


Here are a couple of F-Toys 1/144 scale AT-ATs. You've seen the standard one before....
...Now behold the new Imperial upgrade! The heavy assault AT-AT!

Pesky rebel speeders bothering you? Swat them down with a pair of radar-guided quad blasters mounted on top of the hull for maximum effect. The anti-air turret is made with a combination of MW:DA parts.

A little bit of side art.


The troop carrying capacity has been replaced with  massive power cores to supply the dual turbo lasers mounted on either side. Mounted on turret assemblies, the turbo lasers are capable of firing in a 270deg. arc with a 90deg no-fire zone around the feet. The reasons should be obvious. The turbo laser turrets are the booster engines from a Macross VF-11c Valkyrie. The turret rings are tires from a 1/72 scale German half track. I wanted the upgrades to look like they belong there and not just glued on.

Yet another F-toys 1/144 scale AT-ST walking along with a MW Uller. Both have been "upgraded".

The Empire decided to add some heavier firepower in case they encountered anything repulsive and furry. I'm not sure where the 50cal came from, but I realized it had no ammo box. I wanted an ammo belt to feed directly into the hull, so I used a small piece of a zip tie. At this scale I figure this to be more like a 20mm or 37mm autocannon.

This upgrade is a modern grenade launcher turned side-ways.


I was trying to show off the snowy base with footprints and snow stuck to the bottom of the lifted foot. I should've added a dead rebel.

Here is a MW:DA Uller with a few upgrades.

I altered the stance to put her in more into motion. Then I severely altered the left arm to turn it into a PPC.

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The altered left arm. I just cut some stock plastic tube to make a new gun barrel and drilled holes in the original forearm to make it look like a cooling jacket.

I also modified the right arm cannon by just making a new barrel.


This is a modified MW:DA Hatchetman....Really modified. The things I hated the most about the original mini were the static pose, no resemblance to the TRO stats, and the wimpy hatchet. I removed the arms and legs and sculpted some new shoulder and hip joints. Then I cut the legs apart at the knees and sculpted some new knee joints. I also twisted the ankles around to fit the new pose properly. I then put them all back together in a more aggressive pose.

The new hatchet has a beefier handle that looks more suited for mech chopping. I kept the original axe head.
You can see the new autocannon I sculpted tucked under the right armpit. I also realized that I hated the look of the left arm cannons, so I hacked off the crappy gun barrels and made new ones out of brass tubing. I also went with a city-themed base, which is where I would primarily deploy this mech.

There are so many Madcats....and I love them all! I believe this one is the Madcat III. As a lighter mech, I didn't think the original missile launchers looked right- too many missiles for such a little girl! I sculpted a pair of SRM6 launch tubes and just glued them over the old missile ports.


Again, I wanted to create a more dynamic pose with a little something extra on the base. I left the left leg intact while I hacked the right leg at the hip, knee, and ankle and reset them to fit on the cool base I made for her.

The battle damaged tank was created by Dremeling the shit out of an old MW:DA tank. Red tanks always die, just like red shirts.

Another MW:DA Madcat slightly modified.

The dragon teeth are made out of rubber feet that you would put on the bottom of stereo equipment or table lamps.

You can see the heat vents I added to the back of the arm pods and the missile launchers.

I put beefier gun barrels on the arm pods and added an armored collar to the arm where it connects to the gun pods. The base was just a strange idea I had.

This is a Heavy Gear hover tank that I recently re-painted because I was unhappy with the old job.

Once again, I could not leave this tank in stock condition. I added the commander and his MG as well as the stowage on the turret. I also decided that a tank this large should have more weapons. I sculpted the four rocket pods on the hull and the ball turrets on either side of the hull.


The missile launcher is a spare part from an Armored Core mini. I had to sculpt an attachment to the tank turret so it would fit better. I HATE the "glued-on" look.

A collection of Heavy Gear tanks. Of course I modified them! I think I should also mention the big generators in the background are made from an emptied Girl Scout cookie tray. i poured hydrocal plaster into the cookie tray, and with a few cosmetic enhancements- Viola!!!!

These are called Aller MBTs. I completely redid the cannons by sculpting muzzle brakes and making new barrels from brass tubing and parts. I sculpted the coaxial searchlights.

Then I thought the tanks need a little something in the front so I created some front armor using plastic card and spare tank treads. Then I added the missile pods and the access hatch right below the launcher. I also added the hatches on the sides of the turret.

This is a Visigoth MBT. Again, I removed the old barrel and replaced it with something bigger- just a simple piece of plastic tube. For this tank, I was thinking PPC for the main cannon.

I added the small anti-personnel turret to the front of the hull and the commander's MG to the top of the turret. I also added some armor plating to the top of the hull using plastic card stock. The plate behind the anti-personnel turret and the plates directly behind the hull missile pods are my additions. Finally, I also added the vent on the top of the forward hull.


A modified MW:DA Locust. Not much done here except for a slight re-pose and some cosmetic alterations.

I hated the look of the original cockpit, so I altered it with my Dremel and some plastic bits. The base is tree bark painted to look like stone.

I cut off the left leg and bent the toes to re-pose her in a walking stance.

I drilled holes in the "arm" guns to look more like cooling jackets and replaced the chin cannon with something a bit more durable, namely a brass tube. the ammo belts are bits of zip ties- an idea that I am quite proud of, by the way!

And now for some air power. Here is a 1/144 scale VF-11c Valkyrie by Bandai. Nope, It isn't stock. I also got a bunch of 1/144 scale ground crew.

I added small gun pods by the cockpit and some formidable under-belly weaponry.

This is just to show off a brilliant idea I had for showing off aircraft. I built a temporary cradle using the landing gear. This way I can display it on the ground or in flight!

The gattling cannons are spare MW:DA parts and the missiles are spare parts from my 1/144 "Aliens" dropship. I had to make the missile hard points using plastic card.

The afterburners are painted with florescent paints, not photoshop.

I had to fill in the landing gear bays using wood putty and I added the intake fans.

A little bit of pilot art behind the cockpit!

This is a 1/144 scale Fire Valkyrie by Bandai.

Again, I had to add some weaponry and pilot art. I thought some tribal art would look cool on her body. I added some protruding gun barrels to the sides in front of the wings.

Turn and burn!

I added some air-to-air missiles, intake fans, and filled in the landing gear bays.


A pair of 1/144 scale TIE fighters from F-Toys.

I wanted to do something REALLY different here. How about a pair of Armorcast cinematic effects? Again, that glow is NOT Photoshop. That is florescent paint.


Here is a jet from a an anime show (?) Superslyph Yukikaze?? I am not familiar with it at all, but when I saw these 1/144 scale kits on Hobby Link Japan, I figured what the hell?

This will come as a shock, but I did NOT modify this at all!





This jet turned out waaaay cooler than i had expected! I will have to buy some more in this series.

Here is a little gem I found on Shapeways.com. A Halo Hornet!

The mini was not scale-specific, but the dimensions seemed correct for my purpose. Shapeways is a company that will print and sell your 3-D designs for you. Since this was created on a 3-D printer, the details were just a little rough, but not un-workable.


Here she is with my home-made Pelican.


This mini was also one piece! No assembly required. The panel lines are all painted in by me


Well, folks, that concludes this enormous post. I hope you haven't missed me too much. If you have missed me, then this post is my way of saying "I'm sorry for being gone so long". Hopefully my summer will be less hectic because there is still a shit-load of minis to be done in my staging area. Just to give you a few hints at what's to come...

Some new territory- Fleet scale Star Wars! (1/10,000)
Another  Anigrand 1/144 Firespray. (Boba Fett's ship)
Three- yes, three Anigrand 1/144 Imperial Sentinel class assault shuttles- one inspired by the AC-130!!!!
Anigrand 1/144 Imperial Lambda shuttle.
A handful of TIE Predators.
1/144 Fine Molds Millenium Falcon.
Another 1/144 Fantastic Plastic Gunstar.
Another 1/200 Destroid Monster- heavy on the mods.
A caseful of more 1/144 F-toy Star Wars models.
Quite possibly a painting tutorial vid!!!!


And much, much more. So stay tuned and be patient. I certainly appreciate all of you who follow me and hope you are still enjoying the show!!!!