Nothing gets me more psyched up to paint miniatures than a fantastic miniature to start with. When a great sculptor comes up with a brilliant mini, I feel it is my duty and honor to give that mini some life. Lately I've been working on a pretty big force of 15mm vehicles for a good friend of mine. Normally I'm a 10mm scale person, but these minis are awesome! It is fun to step out of my comfort zone for a little while, too. While I've been busy on my friend's forces, I also work in time for a few of my own, just so I don't get too burnt out on one thing. My work desk becomes a staging area for minis in various stages of completion. Now I have managed to complete several of these recent projects of which I will now share with all of you.
First up is a whopper of a battlemech in 15mm scale! This girl is HUGE and made entirely of awesome! I ended up buying two of these big girls because I knew one just wouldn't hold all the plans I made up once I saw her. Here is a link to show you what she looks like when you assemble it right out of the package and give you a bit more info on it:
http://gruntz15.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=trade&thread=892&page=1
If you want one, you can get a hold of the artist here:
mechorder@gmail.com
Now here is what I have done....
 |
| Standing 5.5"/13cm tall, I told you she was a big girl! If you followed my link, you will notice right away that I have made some alterations. |
 |
| The most noticeable change would probably be the shoulder-mounted rail cannon. The gun came from a set of Armored Core extra weapons. I did a bit of cutting and hacking to integrate the cannon with one of the standard shoulder missile pods it came with so it would fit perfectly to the shoulder. |
 |
| I added the sensor dome to the missile launcher and added a targeting sensor to the rail cannon pod. A few minor details include adding armor panels to the chest and the upper legs as well as knee joints to the inner and outer leg. |
 |
| I sculpted the additional engine/power generator on the lower back and added some haevy duty power cables to the rail cannon. The lower set of cables are shoe strings! |
 |
| Nothing says badass like kill markings and a pin-up girl! |
 |
| Here is a close up of the details I added to the back. I did a little bit of sculpting for the back of the rail gun and I added the heat vent to her butt. |
 |
| Purple jewels for the medium lasers and orange jewels for the large lasers. |
 |
| I added some more cables to the armpits and a pair of search lights by the minigun arrays. I also added the small circular panel to the side just above the miniguns and exhaust vents on the sides of the minigun arrays. I added the rocket covers because I wanted her to have more than the standard 6 missiles that were originally on it. I also drilled some exhaust holes on the arm cannons and added heat vents near the elbows. There is also an armored panel strip on top of the arm cannons. |
 |
| Close up of the base detail. The rubble was made with pieces of chip board, tree bark, and other random rubble bits. |
 |
| You can see the upper leg panels I added as well as the knee joints. The base and the feet are covered in dust that I swept out of an industrial laser filter box where I work. |
 |
| I added some of my 10mm mechs to give you an idea of how big this girl really is. She is going to be a super-heavy for my 10mm forces. |
Now get ready for the vehicles. Aaron, hope these better pics blow your mind!
The vehicles are made by Antenocitis Workshop:
http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/governance-of-technology/g-o-t-vehicles-15mm.html
The battle armor is made by ....well, crap. I don't remember. I think they might be Khurasan Miniatures? If anybody would like to help me with this one, you'll get a gold star!
 |
| Three AFV's. I just couldn't resist adding some modifications.... |
 |
| This one came with an anti-tank turret, but it just didn't look right on the AFV. I was thinking of something more like the WWII German armored cars, so I dug through my parts box and found a suitable turret. The turret came off of some MW:DA tank, but the main gun is off a German Tiger and the coax gun is a bit of aluminum tubing. I also had to add some crew stowage. |
 |
| This one is completely un-modified except for the stowage and radio antenna. |
 |
| Here I was inspired by our current Striker AFVs. I built the stand off screen armor from scratch using brass tubing, plastic card, and window screen. |
 |
| Did I mention how damn cool these armored cars are! |
 |
| A group of hover tanks very reminiscent of the old FASA Centurion tanks. Very cool! |
 |
| All I did to these guys was add some crew stowage. |
 |
| Engineering the turrets to be movable was a huge pain! Notice the little nub in the center of the turret? That is a paneling nail that I drilled through the turret and into to the hull. I glued the nail in place on the turret. The turret rings were otherwise incapable of supporting the lop-sided weight of the turret unless they were glued into place. I couldn't stand to glue turrets into a fixed position. |
 |
| Here is the unidentified battle armor. Once again, I could not leave them completely un-modified... |
 |
| This one has a support cannon added to the top. |
 |
| This one got some special effects added. |
Hope you all liked the show. Coming soon....more StarWars...in a fleet scale!!
