The Quar have arrived

Well sort of. They have arrived on my paint desk. I have quite a few to work through. I have finished 10 of them so far and am looking forward to working through the rest over the holiday season. I got one of the Royalist faction army deals earlier this summer and am just getting around to painting them as I settle in to my new apartment. The other faction is the Crusaders who look more modern with their uniforms. I am basing mine off of Napoleon's Bavarian allies Osprey book. The unit name is the 890th Fusiliers. It is hard to make out but at the bottom of their jackets is green pipping.

Avatar Aang

I finally got my Hasslefree fig which came in on back order and I painted him up as Avatar Aang. I don't know how clearly you can see the psuedo-kanji on the base but he has all the nations on his. I am putting together models that look similar to the characters on the show and have a decent amount I will be ordering from Reaper miniatures.

I plan on writing up some simple rules to go with the miniatures but don't know how long that will take me. The flash washed out the details a bit but he has the Air Nomad tattoos and is wearing a yellow sash and orange pants, with brown boots. This was an easy paint job and hope the rest will be the same. Without further a do here is everyone's favorite Avatar.

Cantina built for Cerro Grande

Just finished my third adobe structure, and this time it is Rosa's Cantina y Mercado (Bar & Store). I'm happy how it turned out as I tried something new. For the roof I took one part of a cardboard box and soaked it till the backing was saturated. Once it was like this I pealed on of the layers off and revealed the corrugated side. I was going to do this to both sides but found it would not work as it simply deformed the remaining corrugation so it lost it's form. I wanted to cut it into strips and layer it but I think it looks ok as is.

I also tried a slightly different technique with the wooden doors and brick work by adding a layer of brown ink on top to try and bring out the grain/bricks.

I will be making a smaller Casita to go into the Texican side of town.

More Capitol Troops

Just finished a few more Capitol Troops for my growing army. These are the Martian Banshees. I did them in the same scheme as they are in the Warzone Book. They were fairl easy to paint up and I needed a brake from all the Chronopia figures I had been painting.

Iglesia de Cerro Grande

Just made some modifications to my Church. I removed the deformed top and replaced it with a better dome. I was lucky enough to find a discarded plastic Easter egg. What I did was drill a hole in the top where the cross would be fitted eventually. I then covered the egg half with masking tape and three coats of spackle. Once the spackle was dry enough I sanded down the high spots and found I need to drill the hole larger. The cross is made from 1/4" balsa and notched on either side. I also used a pencil sharpener to round out the bottom so it would fit snugly into the egg. Once everything was glued in place I primed black and repainted this piece. I decided to change the color of the cross so it would stand out. As you can see in the second picture the top is removed and reveals a dice tower. I just need to buy a bell to go into the tower and this will be all set.

More Chronopia Figures

I just finished up a few more Chronopia figures. Another 8 are qued up on my paint table. There are a few slingers, warriors and 2 groups of Blade maidens left. Once I work through these I will switch gears for the Modern jets I have. They should prove easy to paint. For those who did not spot the previous conversion I removed the Wyrd's antlers and placed them on the Spearman. The Wyrd is the kneeling guy with the stag antler standard.

I have not painted or flocked their bases as I will be rebasing them with 30mm round lipped bases so these ones are only for painting. I want to order some Black Scorpion and Reaper Western figures to get that realm back on track but right now I have plenty of stuff to paint and convert.

The guy with the double bladed axe is also a conversion.

Chronopia: War in the Eternal Realm

Hey y'all. I know what you are thinking, "Why would you bother with an Out of Production (OOP) game system?" The system may be OOP but the support is still around via a PHP forum for Excelsior Entertainment. There is also an annual wargame convention for both Chronopia & Warzone. I put together a Sons of Kronos Chariot for a contest at said website. I was originally looking just for some blade maidens to spice up my Hordes army as blood trackers but found a good deal on ebay. This is the first of the bunch that I won. I will be painting up the rest in anticipation of next years gaming convention.



Chariot with different rider with an adjusted pose. The chariot is missing the scythes, I'll probably correct that later. I also want to replace the horses with a Hordes Argus (read big dog) so it will be more like Cuculhain's chariot.



First of three foot troops painted.



Just finished Aonbarr Horse Warrior

Prince Zuko

For those fans of the Nickelodeon series, like me, I present my version of Prince Zuko in 28mm. This is a Hasslefree miniature "Tanshiro". Note the Fire Nation symbol on the front. I even painted his face scar. It is kind of hard to see at this resolution but my photobucket site has a bigger version. I am waiting on an order to I can paint up an Air bender. I have already finished an Earth Bender "Isawa Tadaka" from the Clan War line. There are several reaper miniatures I am interested in ordering as well. Another line has some sweet miniatures is Anima Tactics by Fantasy Flight games. I will most likely pick some of these up later in the year. I also have some ideas for a quick skirmish game for these benders.

Another Cabin

I had this idea of using rawhide dog chews for making a cabin. What do you think? This is sposed to be a crude and hasty built shelter. I found out that the chews are weaker than I expected and that many broke during construction.

If I did this again I would just use them as is and stack them alternately. That would have lave large gaps but that would be fine. I would just need to find things to stuff in them. I'm thinking putty and some pine branches (to scale of course) would be a good idea.

I also found out that I should have built this one level at a time instead of one wall at a time which made it a bear to try and fit together. Thank heaven for pva glue and putty.

Frontier Cabin Tutorial

Well, I just ordered me some Conquest Miniatures 19 woodland indian troops. While I wait for their arrival, I decided to put together this frontier cabin. The great thing about it is it will be used as a miners cabin for the wild west as well.

The first step I always take for creating a terrain piece is research. I like to use the interweb, books, or movies for inspiration. Once I find a building type that I like, I will sketch out the idea. Once the sketch is done I like to do a mock up for a new piece in cereal box card board. This way I can adjust my scale so it looks like I want it to.



Cardboard scale model.

For this project I found the long walls at 4 inches and short walls at 3 inches makes for a good one room frontier cabin. I also wanted to add an exterior chimney since the photo I found also had one.

My first obstacle was to figure out the lightest and easiest way to make stone for the chimney. I asked for advice on TMP but settled on using balsa wood scraps. What I did was to cut scraps in various lengths and widths. Then I would round off the two exterior facing sides and then carve in some variations to each. No pics of this boring and time consuming part. This took two days of on and off work.

I also wanted to do planed wood with chinking instead of round timber. Since I have flat balsa this is the way for me to go. I used my templates as a guide and cut out all of the walls. I then scribed the walls with a dull pencil and tried to make the scribes wide and uneven. This would leave space for the chinking. I then assembled the pieces for the walls and the roof. I made the chimney form from balsa as well and glued all the balsa stone to the structure.



For the roof I decided on using the tried and true method of strip shingles. This is where you cut a strip of cardboard the length of your roof with a slight over hang and then cut shingles half way through all the way down the strip.



You always start at the bottom of the roof and work your way up. Once I got to the last run of shingles I cut each one out individually and glued them in place one by one. This should give the illusion that the whole roof is made this way.



Once the roof was complete it was time to get the model ready for paint by using primer. I always use black on all my models, it is a personal preference. I just find it easier to paint this way. Sometimes one coat is not enough and two coats are required. I believe the wood sometimes absorbs the paint and expands as some of my scribes seemed to have narrowed.



The model is now more unified with the one color primer

The last and easiest part is to paint the model. I wanted a simple paint job for a simple model and just used two coats of brown for the wood and two of grey for the stone work. There you have it simple but a little labor intensive frontier Cabin.



Cabin ready to repel indians!

Capitol Infantry Squad

I was feeling nostalgic and painted them over the past 3 days. I saw some Bauhaus over at the Excelsior Entertainment forum in chocolate chip and urban chip so I decided to try a Jungle chip pattern. You'll have to look at the photobucket page to see them more clearly. They need a few tweeks but I call em done.

Warcaster

I put together this warcaster as a kitbash of the Privateer Press Epic Warcaster Pirate Queen Skarre figure as well as one from Reaper miniatures. My biggest hurdle was trying to get the miniature onto the bow sprite thingy (yes it is a technical term just ask Richard Dean Anderson). I wanted to give the ship an old and mold covered appearance which is why I chose those colors. I still want to add some water effects and will trying out some clear silicone for that.

You should got to the photobucket account and look at the larger pic as the detail is lost on this one. I just found her horns so I have to paint them and add them too her.

She is the leader of my Cryx army that I am building. I will be doing a pirate theme arrrgh. I will be branching out soon as I found some interesting aliens that I wanna build called the Quar.

I am also interested in trading away some Cryx figs that I have and have posted them over at bartertown. If anyone is interested you can contact me there or look for Soldat on the miniatures page.

The Sheriff's new friend

Weeel looky here we gots us a hangin contraption. Be on the look out all ye ne'er do wells and other lowly criminal types. The town gallows has been built and is ready for use noose and all.

This actaully ended up being slightly more complicated than I had expected. I kept changing the heights for the legs as well as the gallows supports so it would look right. I might fashion a handle for the trap door. I was going to etch both sides of the structure but have found that doing so really weakens the balsa. I will need to make a stairs for it. I was trying to cut some stringers but the way the grain was they kept breaking.

I made the noose out of cooking string and painted it the same color as my WWII russians. I was surprised that I was actually able to tie a noose with this string and I think it looks right. I will use this string as a bell pull for my church as well. I used a clove hitch knot to secure it place on the cross member and support beam as well.

Terrain Tips

I posted this over at TMP and thought it good enough for my blog as well.

Laying out the buildings, I can't recommend enough of using a thick cardstock for your basic shapes like the walls, roof ends, roof, windows, and doors. I also tend to make a rough sketch of what I want to make so I don't stray too far off. I ended up resizing my Livery Stable after I wasn't happy on how it was turning out.

For all my roofing needs I use left over cereal boxes and open them up carefully to get max use out of them. I cut them in strips and start off with the lower run first. I cut the strips half way and bend each tile the opposite way then smooth it out before glueing.

Once the first strip is glued I use a pen to mark the follow on cuts on the next strip. I always stagger these, like a normally shingled roof. The next run is then placed halfway down the previous run up until you reach the apex. Once both sides are complete, I take a final piece of card stock twice as wide as the shingle strips and bend it in half and glue it down.

If I want to do a simple flat tin roof I just cut out on big
piece of card stock and add some thin strips spanning the whole roof.

I also put the shiny side out for paintable cardstock and use the dull brown side when I want to mount a sign.

For scribing the ends of boards I selected a straight edge and just marked every other board then did the same on the opposite side of the building.

You can also recycle barbeque skewers for round stock or adobe poles or make a whole fort out of them.

I used 1/8 inch thick balsa for all my buildings including the roofs in order to make a more solid piece.

Originally I was going to drybrush the buildings but immediately found out that was a waste of time and simply sloshed on as much paint as could done.

Hope this helps have fun building.

Li Shan's is open for business

Finished painting the Chinese Restaurant/Laundry. I added a few doo dads for the rear of the facility. A meat cutting table, wash bucket and scruber, I also did some laundry poles and some drying cloths. As you can see there are already customers waiting to get in :)

Old Church added to Cerro Grande

Just finished (95%) a spanish style adobe church for Cerro Grande. It still needs a bell for the tower. I borrowed the idea to make it a dice tower from fellow TMPer Gungnir. I found some pics off the net and drew a sketch of what I wanted and it came out pretty ok. I re-did the missing adobe and brick technique on the sides of the Church and bell tower.



I covered the balsa wood structure with spackle and then primed it black as usual. I also used my typical cereal box roofing strips. The dome didn't come out as well as I would have liked but it will suffice.

The Chinese restaurant is primed and will be painted shortly. I will be adding an adobe house or two once I see a design I like.

Cossaks done!

I have finished my Cossacks. Well mostly, I am missing like one but maybe I will find one on ebay some day but they are pretty much finished and based. I have also finished a couple of Strelkovy platoons only Seven more to go to have a full strength Strelkovy Horde. Try and pin my Russians lol. I must also remember to have sufficient amount of Commisars.

These figs are FOW as are the rest of my Soviets. I will retake the pics of the platoon and dead markers as well as my scratch built Objective marker/HQ.

I have several stands of mgs and mortars on the paint table but am going on vacation this week so probably wont get to them till May. Enjoy

Hordes are a comin'

I painted these figs a while ago but wanted to share them anyways. They are the Hordes figures from the main box set. I want to get some more of these puppies lol. I don't paint eyes as they all turn out cock eyed and it doesn't really add that much for me. I did add a few things like the fallen stone on one doggie base and I added the dragon's head to the giant wolf's hand.



My Warcaster



Doggie 1



Doggie 2



Big Doggie

Flames of War Stuff

I have been working on FOW Germans and Russians last year and need to continue to work on them. My cossaks are like halfway done. These are some tanks I will post more in the coming week. They are a mix of Old Glory and Battlefront Miniatures.

My germans are modeled after the 2nd SS Panzer Division.

Two Kompanies of PZIVs and a couple of stugs in the back



Several Kompanies of PZIIIs



Here we have a Ferdinand a couple of Tigers and Two Panthers as well as some support vehicles.

Wip Laundry/Restaurant

I have been working on this and am waiting for the RC store to restock it's balsa wood. I tried to give the building a Chinese look without going to far. I think it will fit in well with the rest of the town. You don't really see all of the detail but I put lots of cuts on it to make it more interesting.

What do y'all think so far? It will look much nicer once I paint it up. I even found a sight for chinese caligraphy but I'm not sure how much will fit.

New commers to Cerro Grande

Some foreign folk have arrived at Cerro Grande and are amidst construction of their new business. Here tell it's gonna be a laundry and restaurant. You kin keep lookin here fer some fotographs when they finish.

Unfortunately the RC store that carries the balsa would was out when I went so the building has three walls and no roof. I'm going to see if I can cobble together a fourth wall with the off cuts that I have. Gotta love Elmers PVA glue.

Cerro Grande gets a Livery Stable

Howdy y'all. I just got finished with the Stable last night after adding signage and trim paint. I want to add a cross arm, pulley, and rope for the hay loft. I may also put together some hay bails, loose wheels and other bits for stuff just laying around. Good hiding places for gunmen.



This build used a ton of balsa as it was like building conjoined houses. At first I was a bit dismayed. I had initially just eyeballed a cut using visual estimating. As I sat and stared at the cut I wasn't all too happy with the estimation. I went back to the drawing board, literally.

I used the template from the old Foundry file which I believe is available in their RWNN. I find that their buildings are too small for me and my 28-30mm figures so I end up upscaling everything. Once I measured their drawing I made my own just bigger and once I was happy with that I went to town on the balsa. I also made the mistake of gluing the walls together before finishing all the doors.

This mistake affected the build since the wood broke in once place, easy repair, and in another when I did finally mount the door it was off kilter. I also tried something new by using more cereal card I made cross members for all the doors. I glued them on with the printed side out.

The longest part to the build was cutting the strip shingles but I was watching a movie, well more like listening to it.

What's next for the town? I need to order some minis. I plan on adding a gun shop, a chinese restaurant or laundry, an adobe house, out house and some other bits.

New Building for Cerro Grande

It's been a while since I posted, I was on Christmas holiday, however I am still working on things. I have my Livery Stable well underway. I just need to paint it and add a few knick nacks. I will update this post when I get it finished and take some fotos.