Urban War Viridian Strike Team

With the more recent additions to my Urban War strike team I thought it would be worth showing a photo of the whole lot together. Now unfortunately I don't have a nice table top to photograph them on, nor do I have any terrain to at least use as a backdrop so it's just a crappy display cabinet pic.

This seems like a good point to leave the project at for now. I really want to get some fantasy stuff painted up for a change so I'm quite happy with how the strike team looks and if I were to ever get a game in I'd have plenty of troops here to choose from. It's not done though and I do plan at some point to add some additional bits and pieces. I've got a bazooka team that would be nice to add as a different support weapon, a few more snipers, a 3 man squad of urban interdict drop troops, 2 more named characters and of course that saurian rider at the back could do with a couple of chums. And beyond that I could still add more troops to give even more options or bulk the force out into a full army for Metropolis.

Urban War Colonial Marine conversion

Another quick post to show my Urban War colonial marine conversion all painted up. A couple of months ago I posted pics of this guy:

Long story short for those not following my little project, I wanted to have a marine armed with a heavy gauss rifle but didn't care for the sculpt currently available as it doesn't fit well with my older sculpts so I converted one. Been really keen to get him painted up and finally with my special forces guys done I had the time to fit him in.

Really pleased with the end result and here he is with the rest of the squad. I think I need to take a pic of the whole strike team now.

Urban War colonial marine commander & conversion work

I've been busy painting all sorts of stuff on the commission side of things but I'm still slowly expanding my Urban War strike team as well. I think this project interests me more than anyone else really but I'm sticking with it.

Recently I finished painting up my first named character and commander for the team, Lieutenant Johnny G. This model was originally released under the Void line but was one of a few that were transferred directly over into Urban War. Really nice sculpt and it's great to finally have a proper command model in the mix.

I also started work on a special forces trooper. I've got two of these guys and a sergeant I want to add but they sat for ages gathering dust because I wanted to paint them in camo but wasn't sure how to tackle it. I must have made four attempts on one model and just wasn't happy with either the colour or my execution of the design. I had a few drinks, picked up one of the other models and the camo came together instantly! Here's a WIP courtesy of Vallejo paints and Smirnoff vodka.

I have since done a bit more work on him and may actually get him finished later tonight. Hopefully the second trooper will come together quickly now I know what I'm doing with the colour scheme. I think I might put the sergeant off until a little later though as I've got another model I'm really keen to get painted.

One support trooper I was short of is a colonial marine heavy gauss rifle gunner. I think these weapons fall somewhere between a standard gauss rifle and a heavy machine gun. There are two models available with HGRs but they're later sculpts and as such they don't quite match up with my preferred earlier models. Of course the only option was to convert a model.

Obviously the original sculpt is on the left and in the third pic you can see the HGR from a saurian mounted marine that I modelled my conversion on. Easy enough job to cut the end of the rifle off. The gun barrel is a piece of brass tubing, the bit above it is piece of a Bripping Beast wire spear (bought a pack years ago and have been mostly using them as pins) with a Green Stuff iron sight. The hand grip below is a pin with three strips of pewter sheet wrapped around it. I also used pewter sheet for part of the housing and to cover the ammo feed.

The ammo belt is a flexible resin one from Zinge Industries. It's kind of a rubber material with a piece of wire in the middle to help pose it. I stuck it in place with super glue which really sticks the material well but I did have to make a few attempts at it as I've got quite a tight coil there and being rubbery it needed a bit of careful securing so as to not twist and warp too much. To attach it to the gun I cut away the top face of the metal magazine which was a real ball ache. I then cut half of the rear of the end ammo belt block away and then that married up nicely with the gun. The pewter sheet cover tidied it up nicely.

The ammo box on the back required one of the packs to be cutaway from the model. Easy job. The box itself was made from two bits of thick metal sprue from a set of Junkers back packs (an opposing faction in Urban War for those not familiar with the game). I had to rip it off after fixing it in place though as the ammo belt didn't fix securely initially. I ended up cutting a chunk out and gluing the belt into it. For the sake of neatness I put a piece of pewter sheet over the front of the box and it covered the belt join. I also added a bit of lid detail with more sheet material. A bent pin made a good handle too.

I'm not much of a converter but I'm really pleased with how this has come out and I think once painted it'll look the part. So there we go, that's my strike team update. Still more models I really want to add, not that many to be fair but I am a bit slow to get these done so I'm sure it'll take a while to get the team 'finished'.

Urban War Shock Marine

Last year I was on a bit of an Urban War kick and managed to paint up a few extra models to add to my Colonial Marine force. As ever though I started another model and shit got in the way and it ended up half painted and gathering dust. The other weekend though I finally got my arse into gear and got some more work done on it. So here it is all done.

And here are the two Shock Marines together.

Just one more to do for now, a sergeant for squad leader and then I can perhaps think about adding another small unit of something different.

Pulp characters

In my last post I showed a couple of pulp models I'd been working on so here they are along with a few others. No prattling on, straight into the pics.

Three from Crooked Dice. Flamboyant Agent, Pandora King and the Despotic Dictator.

Next there's Golgo Satana and Dr Fang from Pulp Alley/Statuesque Miniatures.

Sticking with Statuesque there's Professor Felicity Poppington.

And finally a pair of cops from North Star from the Fistful of Kung Fu range.

I also managed to finish my Urban War shock marine! That bugger has been dragging on for quite some time largely because I just wasn't sure what I was doing with the paint scheme. Sometimes I look at a model and know exactly how I'd like to paint it, and other times I just draw a blank. I didn't help matters by adding three lots of freehand insignia. The shield wasn't actually that hard to paint in the end. I did pretty much copy the studio paint job though as I plumped for a unit number and then realised it needed something else so I added the band across the centre. It works though so I'm happy with it (I did partially repaint the number '1' the following day as it was 1mm off from the side and just seemed wrong). With this taking so long, starting another was quite daunting but I did do a bit of base work on one the other week. Might be done by Christmas... we'll see.

Got another job under way as well, this time some Foundry pirates. The first three are done bar basing and another seven are due to be done this week. Going for dark and drab colours here as that's what was requested so no stripey trousers or colourful head scarves.

I've also painted up a couple of armoured warriors from Otherworld Miniatures but the varnish is still wet on them so pics will have to wait until next time. That's me done for this post. :)

RBG & Hasslefree Norse

A mere fortnight since my last post?! Looks like I'm on top of things for a change! Another batch of Norse here and a familiar colour scheme (well, shield design/colour scheme) to anyone who has been following along and can remember back to... a while ago. Red Box Games Norse and a pair of Hasslefree Norse types that fit in pretty well.

Originally I painted the shield of the male Hasslefree character entirely with metals and I planned to do the same with the female one too (I did the same on a previous paint job of that model). However, it just didn't look right. Looked a bit phoned in and didn't tie the model in with the RBG models. I went onto do a colour shield on the female fighter and that worked for me so I went back and repainted the male fighter's shield to match. Looks much better now. Sometimes you have to accept that something needs changing, take that 'D' in the 'A' and put the extra time in to produce something you're happy with.

Next up will be more random fantasy characters and I'm still trying to do more work on my Urban War colonial marines. Got a shock marine under way. Made several attempts at freehanding an insignia and failed every time last night so hopefully another day will prove successful. Once that's done I can do some wash work and weathering.

Guild Ball team and Urban War strike team

I meant to put out a blog post last week but general busyness resulted in that not happening, so this time there's quite a bit to show. No point faffing around so straight onto business.

Had a Guild Ball Fishermen team to paint up, a first for me as I've not done anything from that game before. To be honest I don't really know what it's all about beyond assuming it to be a fantasy football game. Being more familiar with Bloodbowl and it's copycats I was a little surprised at how small the team was. Kind of glad of the small figure count though as there was quite a bit of work to do. Resin models here although I've been told that metal versions are also available. Nice sculpts and pretty clean casting all round. These are digital sculpts but they still have a nice bit of chunk to them so they were good to paint up. Sometimes digital stuff can be a bit small and fiddly but not here. Only downside was the harpoons were all rather bent and no matter how many times I straightened them (in hot water) they always warped back a little. Still, they painted up nice enough.

I've also been squeezing in a little work here and there when the fancy takes me on my Urban War Viridian Colonial Marines. I can't remember whether I showed the mortar team I'd started but today I finished off the spotter so got some pics done.

Really chuffed to be able to get these bits and pieces done as I rarely manage to finish anything. These are just easy to do I find. Along with my other models it gives me a usable strike team I reckon. Had to take a group shot of everything so far.

I've got plenty of additional troops that I plan to add for a bit of variety. If I wanted to go nuts I could expand this beyond a mere strike team and into a full army but one step at a time.

This past week I've also been painting up some fairly random fantasy characters. These need basing and 'proper' pics doing but I may as well show them, they're already out there on the internet anyway.

An old 80's era Citadel dwarf.

An odd little character called Lini for Pathfinder.

A GW Empire warrior priest. Love the face on this model.

And finally another Otherworld Miniatures fighter. I've painted quite a few variants of this model and have lost track of how many I've done.

And that's the lot! A few more fantasy types to do next week and then probably onto some more Red Box Games stuff. Of course I'll try and do a little something on additions for my colonial marines too. Busy, busy, busy.

Warband Miniatures Sisters of Serens

Just a quick post today. I've finally finished painting up the Warband Miniatures Sisters of Serens models so it's time for a few pics.

Thankfully after the problems with the first few models I didn't suffer any further breakages whilst working through the rest. It seems Warband had some issues with the resin so I'm wondering whether there was a bit of inconsistency in the quality of the material that may have led to those initial breakages. Just need to get them packed up and across the pond safely now.

Also after whining about lacking the time or inclination to paint anything for myself I did manage to put paint to another Urban War colonial marine. This time part of a mortar team that has been patiently waiting for paint since 2006 when I first prepped the models. He's almost finished in this pic but now I just need to add a shoulder number. Easier said than done though as I might get it bang on first time or it could take half a dozen attempts. The mortar itself shouldn't take too long to paint up. It's a significantly simpler piece of kit than the machine gun was from the last weapons team. If I'm not too busy at the weekend I'll see if I can get it done.

And that's it for this post!