The Weaponized Cars of the Post Apocalypse

I put together a backdrop for photographing minis. I played around a bit and put my cars on it. Looks great don't you think?

Salt Chipping some Wasteland Cars...

The horde goes...

This week I was supposed to get in some wasteland weapons shipped to me. Instead the package got shipped to my neighbor. My neighbor accepted the package, put it on his counter, then went on a week long vacation. Because of this, I was not able to do more assembly of my Half-life Warboys. 

I could have started work on more cars. I have about 5-6 more cars to do, before I start on my Gigahorse and War Rig. But then my real car's AC konked out and I had to get it fixed. While I was at my local boot-leg auto-body shop. I saw these cars...

After seeing these wrecks, I really wanted to try out my painting again. I looked online for how to do rust effects. I found a great youtube video on salt chipping and I decided to give it a try. I went to the store and bought some coarse salt. I mixed it with some regular tablesalt and went to work. 

But I am getting ahead of myself. First you have to paint the under body of the car. I used a bunch of different oranges and browns to get a real rusty car body. I used some foam dabbing techniques, Ryza Rust from GW and even some airbrushing at this stage. 

Once that is done, you wet your miniature and sprinkle salt on it. 

Then you start airbrushing your main colors. 

For these cars, I am going with a white, black and orange-rust color scheme. This will all be contrasted by pale-blue skinned Warboyz. Once all that had dried, I washed off the salt to reveal a beautifully chipped paint job. 

I went back with some highlight colors to outline the chips, just to add some depth. 

They aren't done by any means and I have a lot more cars to do, but here you can see where this army is headed. With any luck, you can come by and see me at the NOVA Open. My warparty will be on display somewhere at the event. Not sure where yet. 

Every Armada Needs a Freaky Dancing Shaman

I really wanted to use the Skaven herding prod from the Warhammer Fantasy starter box. I felt it was appropriately post-apoc and seemed to be a useful weapon for striking enemies from the back of a speeding vehicle. 

I decided to cut the skaven feet and tail off, and I dug through my bits box for human legs. I found some bare foot Victoria Miniature penal legion legs. They were difficult to place right and when I was done. I looked at them and realized the guy looks like he is dancing. 

To reinforce this theme, I gave him a creepy head, a headdress and tilted it to the side. Now when I look at him, I can only see him dancing. 

Fukashima Kamakrazy WARBOYS!

If you're going to do a 40k army right, you simply cannot ONLY have vehicles. But if you're doing a custom army, you can't convert every single one. Thats where resin casting and duplicating comes in handy. Below you can see the warboys that will join the ranks of my Citadel Armada...a tribute to George Miller's masterpiece, Mad Max Fury Road. 

I can't wait to get my hands on these casts so that I can build my horde of crazy-ass warboys.

Victory or Valhalla!

I wanted to show off my current Mad Max car build. This is my version of "Bigfoot", Rictus Erectus' chariot on the Wasteland. I can't wait to get paint on these models but I want to get more of the army assembled before I start painting. I want all the paint to occur at once from August 1st to the NOVA Open.

Fury Road Army Sneak Peak...the Post Apocalypse Monster Truck

Here is a little shot of my current car. I decided it was time to make something big to center my collection in the table top. This model started life as two toy car kits - one monster truck and one 55 chevy wrecker. I took them apart, stripped any paint off of metal parts and started getting them together.

The figures are AoS Bloodreaver conversions and will represent some kind of elite unit in the army. If I am using the Dark Eldar Codex I think they might end up as Hekatrix bloodbrides, not sure. The truck itself will likely end up as a Raider stand-in.

But ultimately I would like to create my own stats for these models.

I've registered for the NOVA OPEN!

I am thinking of joining the Narrative track, probably as a night fighter, but I could go through the warlord track. Its a matter of time commitments though, as I have two kids and I'm local. I will be expected to be a parent for much of the weekend.

Those going to NOVA, what do you guys think? Narrative?

Also, anyone local up for some GorkaMorka?

Studio - Mad Max Fury Road Cars and Mecha

Baltimore Brawl Corregidor Sectorial Army Build

 In this post we look at my Corregidor Sectorial Army collection that I brought to the Baltimore Brawl. This army was intended to represent some sort of corporate security force. I wanted something along the lines of Neill Blomkamp's great films and I think I came close. The whole army was assembled and painted within a month's timespan, so the paint jobs and conversions are more for tabletop effect than up-close inspection. I definitely rushed it toward the end, but was overall very proud to display my forces on the tables at Games N Stuff.

Tau drones were repurposed to represent the Zonds in the rules. With climbing plus I thought it fitting to have levitating drones about. 

Group shot on my painting desk. I made the army list based on getting a symmetrical display of figures. The two geckos and two drones really frame the infantry quite well. 

I'm a proud papa when I look at how my boys have come into their own. Geckos are THE SHIT. The models are bas-ass, the rules aren't bad either, and they just stomp around the board. Love them!

Total Reaktion Zon on the right there. Also with Climbing plus. Very nice for a reaction bot. 

The Wildcats formed as a linked team. I made the heads by making molds with insta-mold of the Mobile Brigada head from Icestorm. Then I pushed green stuff into the molds to make replicates. It sort of worked well, but I have to add a lot of detail with painting. 

I really liked tossing an army together from box to board in just a few weeks. I really enjoyed it on the table top. I think the meta is way ahead of a list like this. Many people just knew exactly where my LT was within a few minutes of game play. Still, moving two TAGs around is a lot of fun, so I didn't mind watching my army getting blown up, shot, sliced in half, hacked, and immobilized in various ways.

Things to do next:
1) Clean up the Geckos some, esp add more color and contrast, do some more points of light.
2) Finish the doctor lady, and the sniffer model.
3) Kitbash two helperbots (g:servant bots) from necron and tau bits. Paint.
4) Kitbash link-team leader counter (tau bits, flag).
5) Add a dog-soldier and jaguars...

Broadside Conversion V2

Thought this was nearly a ruined model until I found some old Dreadnought parts...

Heads or Tails

Ok no tails, but here I am...It's time to choose a head. 

We have the classic, off-the-sprue head here.

It's nothing special but it makes the model looks a lot more like the original models. Might kind of fool the viewer into thinking its not actually a conversion. 

Next we have a Tael pattern head. This is even more classic than the sprue version. It works a lot better in some ways...mainly because the hand and "face" are in proportion. 

Another possibility is a Paulson Games Crisis suit head. 

It's original and looks really nice. This is where I am leaning now...but it is a little, just slightly large looking. 

Which head would you use? 

Crisis Suit Blanchitsu

A little commission work, a little Tau work.

I've been working on this unit on and off for a few years now. Main conversion work was done on the legs and arms. Just making them more dynamic and bulky. The arms are made from a combination of forge world battlesuits, grey knight terminator arms, and standard XV8 suit arms.

The backpack jets have been raised slightly, as have the shoulders. This adjusts the proportions slightly to make them more realistic.

The weapon arms are from Paulson games and represent plasma rifles. I'm trying to figure out how to get fusion blasters on these guys. The left arms are out of the question, as I want them to stay as they are. That leaves jetpack mounted fusion blasters...or adding them to the plasma rifles in some way.

The team lead has missiles on his jetpack mount, but that's just temporary. He/she also has forgeworld legs instead of custom-built ones.

Mecha Front NorAm Force and Paulson Games reopens

Here is just a WIP shot of my assembled NorAm Force for Mecha Front. I am going to be adding another two lights mecha--NorAm Raptors--with different weapons. I wanted at least two of the Alpha versions as this was the configuration that initially really liked.

My goal with these to paint them up this weekend, primarily with an airbrush and very little brushwork, so that I can get another force painted for games with my friends. Of course I have plans for a terrain too, and 15 mm infantry to use in games as cannon fodder and mission objectives.

For the bases and the terrain, we're going with a ruined urban setting.

Yes, I see those mold lines too and I will handle them before painting. ;)

The makers of Mecha Front have also re-opened Paulson Games at www.paulson-games.com.
This is where you can get a lot of really great mecha and battlesuit parts that make great Tau conversions and crisis suit conversions. Here are some of the crisis suit converting that I did in the past. There's also some that my buddy did, like that Riptide.