CAV: Battle Damage

During a recent New England Miniature Painters Association (NEMPA) paint day, I took a short break to play around with one of the Bones CAV models that I received from Reaper Miniatures back in the Fall. The mini was part of the early-bird Kickstarter package from their CAV campaign. If everything goes to plan, the second installment of little plastic robots should appear in a few more months.

When I started this, I wasn't thinking too hard about paint. Instead, I pulled out the CAV and attacked it with my hobby knife, slicing pieces off and then playing around with a variety of materials to add on battle damage that might look cool in the finished product. One thing I'll say for Bones is that it makes this sort of experimentation easy and affordable!

Elemental Forces III

In the past week, I finally completed my Bones Earth Elemental project. The way was not without obstacles, but I am pretty happy with the results, and I would dearly love to get this beastie onto the table in an RPG scenario of some kind.

I set up the design and color scheme in my previous posts. To finish the project, I focused on details. Along the way, I also continued to shade and highlight the model with increasingly pale and yellowish colors to build on the sandstone theme.

Elemental Forces

Another WIP, another large Bones model. This time, I am working on Reaper's large earth elemental, also from their Bones Kickstarter. In this case, I have been making extensive modifications to the miniature as I progress.

Photo Copyright Reaper Miniatures, Inc. www.reapermini.com

The original model stands on two stubby, little legs, and is pretty humanoid in shape. I like the over-all concept of the miniature, but I really dislike that kind of massively top-heavy humanoid look. If a model is going to have legs, they should look like they might work. (Although, the market very clearly shows that not everybody shares my opinion.) My idea was to replace the legs with a different foundation. My elemental will be rising up from the ground, like a tidal wave of earth and stone. With any luck, the end look will be a good one.

The Best Laid Plans

Last time, I talked about the materials I used to base the fantasy character model I've been working on. This post covers the rest of the construction and preparation for the model.

I think I put in much more work than I had to to get his left hand to look the way I wanted it to. I should have kept looking through miniature's lines until I found a better suited source for a wizard's gauntleted hand. Still, I got there eventually.

Cork Board Basing

In my last installment, I described the parts selection, fabrication and early assembly on my brand new sword-mage build. The next step I tackled was basing.

 
Like a lot of character figures, this one features a built-in "Broccoli" base, stuck to the bottom of the figure. While I understand that this feature is handy for people who like to buy a figure and quickly get it onto the table with out needing a base to hold it up, it makes more creative basing significantly more work.

Fits and Starts

I've been remiss in my posting duties this month. I have actually been working on a new fantasy character project; I just haven't been diligent in posting my work. I will try to rectify that over the next few days.

This month, I decided to build myself a fantasy sword-mage character model. I still wanted to do something a bit different, so, I decided to make him a half-orc model, in the style of many modern (and not so modern) fantasy RPGs.

In this post, I will discuss the part selection, and fabrication for this model. I will discuss construction, (re)design and painting in later entries. I went through quite a few trials and false starts along the way.

Battletech Conversions: AWS-8T

I'm not quite sure why, but I have a distinct fondness for odd-ball Battlemech configurations. My last installment in this series detailed, probably, the single least popular Atlas variant in the game. This one deals with a 'mech no less unusual, although it is probably a bit more useful in game terms.

Shown above is the AWS-8T Awesome. The 8T swaps out the traditional particle cannons of the classic 8Q for a set of missile racks and large lasers. Wacky to be sure, but really not a bad assault 'mech for the Succession Wars era.

Read on to find out how I built it.

Battletech Conversions - Second in a Series

Today, I thought I'd post another Battletech model build. This time, it's based of the newest Atlas sculpt from Iron Wind Metals. This is the first time I've built this particular sculpt, and I have to say that I like it - a lot. It's proportions are not quite as nice as the original '80's sculpt, but is much more substantial, and its many parts make conversions and re-posing much easier to achieve. (I'm leaving out the middle "stretch" Atlas from the '90's. I am not a fan.)

In this case, I decided to build the 'mech as an Atlas AS7-S, which is not one of the best versions of the Atlas in terms of game play, but it is unusual, and it fits nicely with one of the units I am building.