Frother's Zombies and SciFi Centaur Ants (Scants)

I picked up the FU-UK/Frothers miniatures competition zombies and survivors and am really impressed with them. Some really cool zombies and the survivors will work for almost any modern genre (ex: survivors, near/post-apoc, city dwellers, etc). Above are the only two I've finished, I tried to make them look like they were recently departed so they have more life-like skin tones and their wounds are fresher...

Scants


One of my other projects is to try and create an ant-centaur 15mm sci-fi race (Scants == Scifi Centaur ANTS). The idea is a larger bulbous back-end with two segments making up the humanoid body part. I wanted them to have a daddy long legs look to them, but with the legs being closer to their body and not as long. I am by no means a sculptor though, so after looking for suitable plastic ants or spiders and finding none (this may have been an easier task during Halloween...) I decided to try and use small beads and went to a craft store and found a few possible candidates.

What I Learned...

• Static electricity with small plastic beads == aggravation!
• Super glue sticks to my fingers rather than plastic or metal beads
• Using small metal wire through the beads is promising (pinch one end off and feed the beads on top) and it helps the super glue set between the beads better.

I need to find the best reproducible method to create these and then settle on some body styles and weapons.

Static electricity

Note: I live in Houston, TX and we rarely get weather dry enough or cold enough for static electricity to build up, this weekend the conditions must have been just right. I was going bonkers until I realized what was happening (seriously, small plastic beads were flying 6"-10" away when I was dropping them into the container shown above.

First Mini Painted of 2010

2010

My first miniature painted was a GW Epic Eldar walker that I managed to pick up pretty cheaply on EBay. This will make a pretty nice Grey robot IMO.

2009


I finished the year at a -30 minis painted vs minis bought, still not too bad as I painted 95 minis total (I count a pack of 15mm minis as 1). I did not meet my goal of painting more than I bought, 2010 should go better right?

Pictures of the minis I painted (Khurasan Vampire and Peter Pig US Marines):

Another goal was to wargame with my minis which I did not do, but I did download Stargrunt II last weekend and have started to read it.

2010 Goals

- Play a wargame or two with my minis

- < -20 minis bought - minis painted (should be workable)

- Post at least 2x/month on the blog

- Obtain and paint some 15mm armor (maybe Peter Pig or QRF)

What I Am Working On...
- Khurasan Karks (0 of 8 CMP)

- Heresy Blight Zombie

- Heresy Zombie Halfling

- Rebelminis Zombie Dogs (0 of 6 CMP)

- GZG various from previous sale

Cold Wars Zombie Swat Troopers

Below are some pictures of the Cold Wars Zombie SWAT Team (http://cold-war.co.uk/) DWW 12 Cop This pack. Nice miniatures, I've painted/purchased 11 of their zombies and have been pleased with them all.

Zoom ins on the guy that's hunched over on the left-side of the photo. The metal has a lot of good facial detail that is missed in the top photo. Other SWAT guy zoomed in below. Cloth was painted using Americana Deep Midnight Blue (from Michael's or Hobby Lobby for $0.99 a container) and armor was painted with a GW Citadel Foundation grey color (can't seem to find the paint pot atm).

I also managed to pick up 2 GW Tyranids that are coming up from the floor from the Space Hulk set on EBAY for < $5.00 including shipping. Very nice plastic minis. I hope GW releases these and others from the set seperately.

I purchased/watched "Distict 9" today, really a pretty cool movie. Some really good potential wargaming/painting ideas there.

What I Am Working On...

- Rebelminis Civilians (16/21 CMP)

- GZG 15mm Various (from sale purchase earlier this month)

- Khurasan Miniatures Kark Unit (0/8 complete)

Looking forward to finishing up some miniatures while I am off for a few days and catching up on some movies that I would like to rent/see.

Cold Wars Zombies

I finished some Cold Wars Zombies (http://cold-war.co.uk/) DWW 12 Cop This pack and Z8 from the DWW 8 Run For It pack, I need to take a picture of the SWAT members when it is sunnier out so they won't look all black. I tried to mimic the uniforms of the Texas State Patrol (so they'd fit in with the other TX zombies/civilians I have, no disrespect intended) and am pretty happy with how they turned out. I used a different skin technique on them, going for a more oxygen starved look:

- GW Adeptus Battlegrey for the base

- GW BAAL Red wash/ink

- Highlights using the GW Adeptus Battlegrey and Ral Partha Dragon Tongue Purple

It was pretty fun painting some zombies again, I need to work on the Star Gate that I also purchased.

I painted one of Khurasan Miniatures Pelagic Scout ships (http://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/t1208.jpg <== not my work) that I entered in their painting competition; this is the first miniatures painting contest that I have ever entered, curious to see how many others entered and hopefully pick up some tips on how to improve my work. I went for a completely different color scheme than the one on their site.

What I am Working On...

- Rebelmini's Civilians (12/21 complete)

- GZG Kra'Vak (I bought a few things during their sale)

- GZG Complex (the 15mm buildings)

- Khurasan Miniatures Kark Unit (0/8 complete)

- Khurasan Miniatures Pulp Pack (o/3 complete)

- Khurasan Miniatures Felids (0/10 complete)

Peter Pig US Forces+

I purchased a few packs (a couple of US and French forces) of Peter Pig (http://www.peterpig.co.uk/) 15mm modern minis from their AK47 Republic line (http://www.peterpig.co.uk/range17.htm) from a US distributor (http://brookhursthobbies.com/). Reasonable shipping rates and arrived in TX from CA in a couple of days .

One of the packs I bought was called "Dictator" (http://www.peterpig.co.uk/AK%20character%20dictator.jpg) which had a large general in 3 poses (sitting, standing and dead/prone along with a guard). He is a bit portly and wears a general's uniform; I will let the pictures show how much character this mini has rather than try to inadequately describe it further.

As I started painting him, I realized he really needed some type of vehicle to ride in for the seated mini. While shopping at Target I happened on a $0.97 matchbox vehicle called the "Sahara Survivor" that looked the part (see picture to the upper-left). I removed some of the the roll bars in the back with an exacto knife and then gave it a new paint job, results with the Dictator in the picture to the upper-right above. More shots below:

Other vehicles in my collection (L to R)

GZG, 1:72 prepainted LAV (also a Target purchase, has more head room for the 15mm troops), and the matchbox.

I also finished my second pack of GZG Spacefarers which are some pretty cool minis too.

What I Am Working On...

• Rebelminis Civilians (11/21 complete)
• Rebelminis Contractors (0/21 complete)
• Coldwars Zombie Swat (0/5 complete)

Wish List (Cliff Notes version)...

• 15mm seated soldiers to go with the dictator (I call him "The General")
• 2-3 15mm armored humvees with a 50 cal machine mounted in a cupola
• 2-3 French vehicles and a tank to go with the PeterPig French troops
• 28mm modern squad, maybe the Eureka French Foreign Legion that I saw the greens for

I've also done some more 28mm lately and hope to post pictures later in the week.

Painted Storage Container and Aliens

I finished painting the storage container, was going for an old rusted look (still need to find stencils to put shipping markings on, no luck looking at Hobby Lobby yesterday as all were bigger than I was looking for).

I also completed my Khursan Garn Command Pack, really nice figures shown below.

Also finished the pack of Hammerhead Space Demons (also from Khurasan). colors look much better in person. I painted them by:

1. Base coat of Krylon XMetals red Chrome

2. GW Badab Black wash

3. Very light dry brush of GW Red Gore

The Krylon XMetals really has a nice non-metalic wet look to it which I think works well for these guys.

Below is my first 15mm conversion. I took the lady (from the GZG civilians set) with the short coat and hat and filed her chest and hair down. I then lengthend the coat and added a scarf with GW green stuff. Next to him is another GZG figure that I tried to paint up to look like Jayne of the Firefly series.

What I am Working On...

- Rebelminis Civilians (8 of 21 CMP)

- Newbold Space Trolls (sculpted by Bob Olley, 4 of 6 CMP)

- GZG Spacefarers II ( 1 of 6 CMP)

It looks like Bob Olley is opening his own site up again (http://www.olleysarmies.co.uk/home.html),

right now it has a bunch of pictures of some really cool terrain and miniatures, he is a pretty good painter too. I still need to finish a couple of his western looking space scrunts and a guard with guard dog.

Storage Container

Being a lurker at TMP (theminiaturespage.com), I saw a link to an Spanish site for a guy that makes his own scenery:

http://www.toposolitario.es/workshop/container.html

He made a really cool shipping container that I decided to try and copy for 15mm. I try to save "bits-n-pieces" of things that might be viable for terrain and it looks like I had everything I needed to make a working prototype/proof of concept.

Contents Above:

• thick baseball/football card pack cardboard
• small nail/braid
• metal paper clip
• Starbucks cup insulation (also have the Seattle's Best ones)
• small piece of left-over plastic card from the DPM building kit

I guesstimated the dimensions and starting gluing things together with supper glue which took pretty well. Below is the assembled container, hope to post some picture this weekend of how it looks painted.

This took about 30-45 minutes to complete. I will take care to keep track of measurements better next time so the containers will be the same size. I also need to find some stencils to put information on the sides.

What I am Working On...
- Rebelminis Civilians (8 of 21 CMP)
- Newbold Olley Space Trolls (2 of 6 CMP)
- Khurasan Hammerhead Space Demons