Saturday, January 5, 2013

The Show Isn't Over Yet....

Alright, here we go with a whole lot of new air power. Let's start with a light aerospace fighter that I sculpted. Sometimes I look through all my old lead and pewter minis for some inspiration. I found that inspiration in an old fighter from the classic Interceptor game by FASA. Of course, the original mini is too small for my preferred scale, so I dug into the Super Sculpey and began to make one in the proper size....



Isn't she cute?

The entire body is sculpted from Super Sculpey with the exception of some small details like the gun barrels and afterburner nozzles.


I put her next to an F-Toys 1:144 Harrier to show just how small she is. I do not recall what the fighter's name was in the Interceptor game, but I do know it was a light fighter.



In keeping with the spirit of air superiority, here's a whole squadron of some familiar flyers. These are Hot Wheels toys that I determined were as pretty damn close to 10mm as I thought possible. I was turned on to these when a friend of mine posted a pic of a Batman flyer ornament he had in his Christmas tree. I mentioned that I might need one or two, but he kindly informed me the ornament was quite large and I should look to the Matchbox or Hot Wheels toys for something a bit more my size. Here's a helpful bit of info for all you 15mm gamers- the Matchbox bat flyer is right up your alley! I saw them at my local Target store. I had to get the Hot Wheels off of E-Bay where I found a guy selling SIX of them! CHA-CHING!!




New paint jobs and A few upgrades! I decided to paint 3 in a standard military green, 2 in an urban grey, and one with desert wasteland camo.
The one on the left is stock. The one on the right has a pair of larger caliber cannons.
Say cheesecake!

Why not rocket pods? I sculpted a pair for this one.



Here is the belly. I had to grind off the manufacturer's raised letters and added some ammo drums for the larger cannons.

Wasteland camo with the standard load-out.


Are we having fun yet? Show's still not quite over, folks. Hope none of you are on dial-up....
Here is an old project that sat in the "to do" box for a loooong time before I remembered it was in there. When my TIE fighter forces began to grow, I knew this was destined to be a part of it. I'm not sure what it is, but it is from the Star Wars Titanium series of collectables.




Here she is with a squad of TIE-Ds. I'm going to call it the TIE Broadsword- A very heavy assault version for the TIE family.

I sculpted a little launcher pod for the hull surface and the ventral cannon is a spare part from a Wizkids Mechwarrior mini.
I added the engine panel on the top of the hull and the three engine nozzles.
Ventral view showing where I also added some VTOL nozzles.


Still not done.....
Next up are a pair of super-rare Anigrand Chiss Clawcraft. These were included in the 1:144 Anigrand Lambda Imperial shuttle, of which I have one. My friend ( who traded me some wonderful and rare Anigrand models in exchange for my painting services ) gave me the clawcraft out of his kit because he didn't want it. Who was I to say no?


While they have the familiar TIE body, the wings are quite alien and elegant. I wanted to give them a more artistic flare to better represent their alien origin. I put some alien markings on them  and even added a bit of alien nose art to the one on the left. Don't ask me why I have GW necron decals...I haven't the slightest idea how they ended up in my decal box.


Some small patches of color to set them apart.

Those barrels on the arch of the wings are not guns, but maneuvering thrusters!



 Finally we draw to the conclusion of the air power post.....
When I went to Target to find the Bat Flyer, I did not succeed. However, I did discover a few other excellent things to make my trip worthwhile. These are from the Matchbox line of Sky Buster aircraft. Excellent finds for my scale requirements!


A heavy lift Helicopter!
I added a few extra details like the hydraulic hoses.


I added the cargo clamps, too. I sculpted the clamps and the clamp housing.

I also added the hazard lights to the belly and the hatches on the nose.

A pair of super-cool fighter jets!

I decided to go with a dark paint scheme for a night fighter.



Since there were no guns or missiles on her to begin with, I had to sculpt my own. I figured a pair of massive gatling cannons in a pod on the belly would do the trick. I also added a pair of VTOL nozzles and an ECM dome under the nose.

The second bird I just went with a wild sky theme.

Hello Nurse...

This one has the same modular pod on the belly, but it is sporting a pair of heavy particle cannons instead.



That finally concludes the Spaceman Spiff air show. I do hope you enjoyed it! Stay turned for the ground forces....





10 comments:

  1. Wow. Just wonderful. Can I have the last one?

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  2. Fair play, you've been a busy boy. What terrific work!

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  3. Those are really good looking so they are. Really liking the repaints on all the models, and the sculpting is really nice too.

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    1. Thanks! My sculpting skills are still a bit rough. I just can't seem to achieve machine-like precision with my bare hands.

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  4. These are just amazing... I'm going to steal your idea for the background, I often have issues trying to figure out what kind of background to put behind my terrain for pictures, I like the clouds idea, I might do a darker version.

    Also, your cockpits are the best i've seen. I have just started to do the "jewel" effect, but I want to try and copy yours instead. Any tips?

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    1. Thanks for the praise, Mr Harold! I used to have a bunch of landscape photographs that made excellent backdrops, but I lost them when I moved a couple years ago. I will probably at some point try to make a few new ones just so I don't have to use clouds all the time.

      It is funny, but just a few years ago, I HATED jeweling- you may see evidence of this turn up from time to time in some of my pictures that have some of my older works lurking in the background! I thought jeweling looked too comic-bookish. Also, the examples that I was regularly exposed to seemed to detract from the rest of the mini. Like the painter put all their skill into the jeweling work while the rest of the mini was mediocre at best. One day I decided I would try it for myself just to prove that I could (and maybe show the "pros" how it should be done). What do you know? I was successful. Not only that, but I realized that it could actually accent the mini and it was FUN! I have found three ways to jewel: the brush fade (hard) , the ink wash (fairly easy), and a combination of the first two. The ink wash is a good way to begin. Let's say you wanted a blue cockpit. Lay down a medium or light blue as your base color, then apply a dark blue ink wash over it. Let the first wash dry then apply a second wash to just the top or bottom half of the windshield area to get a darker, gradual effect. You may have to dry out your brush and push the ink around some so it doesn't blob up in one area. Once that dries, add some plain, white highlights and you are done. I am going to try to make a video of my more advanced technique at some point in time. It is not easy to describe in words alone.

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  5. Spiff,

    After looking at both Matchbox and Hot Wheels Bat's cockpits (I took one of each apart)...they are BOTH 10mm. I'm using the Matchbox one as a dual-cockpit "Command Bat"/"Gunship", and the Hot Wheels ones as various utility/ecm VTOLs.

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    1. Interesting....Absolutely no reason you can't use them both. I just felt that the Hot Wheels one looked the closest to the movie size, as far as scale goes. They are both certainly fantastic additions to any sci fi 10mm or 15mm miniature army.

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  6. Very awesome. The Large TIE looking ship is the Rogue Shadow from The Force Unleashed games. It was designed as what the Millennium Falcon would look like if it was designed by the Empire.

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    1. Rouge Shadow....Excellent! Thanks for filling in my memory lapse. I would guess this one is not in scale with the rest of my 10mm then. It still fills the roll of heavy assault TIE quite well.

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