Filling the skies of Mars

The Martian VSF has been quiet of late but is still happening.

The next tranche of Aeronef are ready to take to the skies with their cargoes of plucky explorers.

First off is the second of the flyers that will be used for the Empire of the Blazing Sun.

It's a nifty little version of the bigger one with an oversized rocket engine for that additional turn of speed.

Urn has got a force for The Covenant of Antarctica so they need some aeronef as well. I went for a flying wing design as it felt a bit more progressive in keeping with their heavy leaning towards innovation and technology.

And a smaller one to run the troops around.

Just the Prussian ones to go now and they are well under-way. oh...and I really should paint some of the figures!

TTFN

Mustafar progress 1

Now that I'm happy with my colour scheme I've started on the rest of the set. I decided to have a crack at some of the slot in accessories first. All the interface points on the kits are identical so these parts of the kits can be added to wherever there is a lift out rail section.

Ladders and sensor pods

I do like painting screens!

All popped together.

TTFN

Project: Mustafar

I've got my mitts on the kits I need for my Mustafar/Mars scenery set now thanks to the excellent folks at Blotz!

Loads to do but I needed to pin down my colour scheme before getting stuck in. I'd painted the Blotz demo ones white but I wanted to go dark with my set to fit in with dark volcanic look for the table.

So I started with a black under coat. I usually spray them whilst they are still on the flat sprue and then again after construction. This avoids any difficulties getting the spray into nooks and crannies after putting the kits together.

After undercoating I gave the center of the platform a dry brush of medium grey as I wanted to break up the black and give the panels alternative contrasts. The main body was very dark so I picked out the detail on the leg panels and painted the platform edges and rail supports.

After that I tinkered with colours until settling on the ones shown. I want to pick out a couple of details with gold but this is essentially it now.

Right! Just a ton more to paint.

TTFN

Another done!

The loooooonnnngg running VSF is still going.

I've managed to finish off another Aeronef. The Oriental faction have finally got some transport!

I've got three more aeronef waiting for their instructions to be done and sent back to Blotz and then I just need to get on and design the Prussian flyers. Must get on!

TTFN

Trees and Deserts

Lots to do this year but I've found myself stymied by the current contents of the painting shelf.

My Sylvaneth have been half done for a number of months now and I can't bring myself to pack away unfinished figures in the fear that they'll never see the light of day again.

I have therefore resolved to paint them before continuing with anything else or starting any new projects.

They are straight forward in theory as they are predominately being drybrushed however this is taking longer than I expected as some of the extremities are a bit flimsy and I'm having to be fairly cautious.

Blues and white are added after the greens and browns to try and get a magical glow to the sigils.

 Not much more to do and then they can have some varnish and their foliage added.

I've also done a few more colour tests for my Martian gaming mat. I'm leaning towards the scheme on the right but with lighter highlights as found on the other two samples.

I shall muse on that a while longer.

TTFN.

Monday update

I've finally managed to finish a project I started in May last year.

I'm still unsure what inspired me to try and design a submarine out of MDF but given how its turned out I'm pleased I did!

Tally up to 7!

Now I need to crack on and do a dock.

Next up some deck guns for the VSF. Just a lick of varnish and these will be done as well.

TTFN.

As summer comes to a close....

I've been a busy boy lately but I need to be as I've got so many projects on the go at the moment that it is hard to know what to try and finish. Especially difficult as I want to do it all!

I have made some efforts to try and get small jobs done and put away as I have soooo many bits and bobs hanging around in the man cave prepped and undercoated.

The VSF project is still bubbling away quietly. I’m waiting on a few more Aeronefs from Blotz but thought I’d get some crew painted whilst I wait for them. I find little sets of figures like this refreshing to paint as they tend to be pretty different to the massed batch painting that comes with wargaming forces.

Also started some deck guns for the VSF which shouldn’t take long to do.

Also finished were some much needed additions to my Iron Warriors force. Sadly their first outing was less than stellar as they got absolutely smashed by a leviathan with a grav-bombard!

Bit of scenery done as well. Started them ages ago and had stalled on the painting the beige. Got a second coat on finally and then added some weathering. Lovely models!

Been building more stuff despite having lots on the go already. Couldn’t resist putting together the Dunecrawler from a cheap purchase starter box purchase from Ebay. Very cool figure and I’m looking forward to painting a bundle of stuff for the Mechanicum soon.

Priority does seem to have shifted to the Star Wars Legions stuff in the last few days as I picked up all but the last kit for the crashed star ship range that I designed with Blotz earlier in the year. Whilst I’m getting the scenery sorted I’ve started getting my Imperial forces done. They were a cheap double set that Junt spotted for Tea Urn and I. We snapped it up! They were badly put together and poorly undercoated but with a bit of TLC they’ve come out okay. I did a test one to see how much of a pain the black and white scheme was to paint but it wasn’t too much of an issue so I’m looking forward to painting these now!

The dreads and the servo crane set have taken me up to 204 items painted this year which I’m okay with. I’ve lost count of how much I’ve purchase this year which is far from my intention of only buying a minimal amount.

;-)

TTFN

Gathering Mars

The VSF on Mars project is a slow boiler but I am still working towards getting it all together. Not wanting to get to a point where the Aeronef are ready but nothing else is I have devoted a little time to working out what I actually need to do still.

Scenery is the biggest job after the Aeronef and painting the armies so I cast my mind to that. I need to source a bundle of pink foam for Martian rocks and landscape but I also wanted to have foliage. I’ve used the AliExpress website before to buy cheap stuff from China so thought I’d try there first. 

Success! Lots of different Aquarium plants at cheap prices. The drawback of buying from China is obviously that you are taking a bit of a risk on the quality. Money wise you are pretty safe as the funds are held in Escrow until delivery is confirmed. Not knowing what the quality was going to be like made me decide to buy a few different ones from different suppliers so I was likely to get at least some that were okay.

One set still hasn’t turned up, no great surprise as it’s coming from China, but fours lots have and I can say that I’m fairly pleased with them. I really like the left most one but it was the most expensive. Only £2ish but still more than the others. The centre two are pretty good as well and I suspect I will buy more of those first three types. The one on the right is okay. Big but limp and not really what I want for Mars. This said they look pretty good for filling out a jungle board so not a waste at all.

Just one set to go and then I’ll be deciding which ones to order more of. In the mean time I can use them for alien plants in my 30K/40K games. It's a fair amount of scenery for £20ish and there is still five more to come. 

I am also still thinking of making some additional plant pieces and have done a concept sketch for the liftwood groves which will hopefully feature in the narrative campaign I am planning.

They shouldn’t be too hard to make with modelling clay balls and wire for the superstructure. I’ve got some hairy gardening string and I’m thinking about soaking that in watered down PVA before draping it over the globes as vines.

I’ve not got much painting done as I am still enjoying the CAD work and am currently working on some more sci-fi stuff with a Star Wars Legion feel to it.

So….things progressing but nothing getting finished.

Harrumph.

TTFN

Areonef Marking part Deux

Adding the extra little detail markings to the US Nefs has spurred me onto doing the Brit ones as well. I'd always thought they were lacking but had struggled to be inspired with ideas for what I could add. Whilst searching for the US ones I saw World War One aircraft markings and that is where I drew the inspiration for the tail details for theirs.

So I started in the same place for the Brit ones and wasn't disappointed. So using the tracing paper approach I ended up putting roundels and identity letters onto all three British Nefs. The tail colours have ended up being quite 'tricolour' but hey it still looks a load better than the plain colours in my opinion.

I also added the funnel colours which make a big difference.

This is another three finished this year so:

Purchased: +20
Painted: -20

Net: 0

Thankfully I'm not anticipating buying much else other than the next two Nef when they are finished so getting some more done should put me well into a net negative number. It would be nice to get to -365 but this might be a tall order depending on the occasional bouts of weakness that result in naughty internet purchases.

We shall see.

TTFN

Aeronef Markings

I've been a bit stuck on how to approach the marking for the Aeronefs I've finished so far. The Brit ones are still needing something adding but I think I know what however the US ones are done.

I've not done a lot just enough to add to the model but not look to silly.

I'm not going to worry about the basing until they are all done then I can have a big basing session to get them all finished.

TTFN

Termies and Nefs

This week I've managed to make some progress on both sets of terminators.

The Iron Hands have received their coats of red and this leaves them ready for detailing, decals and weathering. Plenty to do still but progressing well.

The Iron Warriors will take a bit more work. I've added both the black and white to their pads in a random fashion as I did with the MKiiis. I don't want the hazard striping to be too uniform. Once the white has two coats I then carefully add the stripes. This took a while but I like the effect once finished. These will need a little tidying up but after that they can have their yellow wash to complete the hazard panels.

Once that is dry the whole figure will have black wash to dull down the metallic grey and to make the yellow a little less glaring. Then they'll be at the same place as the Iron Hands and I can batch paint all twenty eight to finish the details off. It'll be nice to finish off a whole tray that has been sat untouched for over two years.

Also finished are the two US Aeronefs for the Martian VSF. I keep referring to it as Dystopian Legion but it really has evolved past that so VSF it is from now on. I'm thinking of adding decals to both these and the Britiannian ones but I want to have a good snoop around to choose the right sort of decals. I'm thinking of white WWII style stars for the Yankie ones but I'm not sure if that will modernise them to much?

Hopefully Blotz will have the next two ready soon.

Two things finished. Puts me at +3 YTD.

TTFN

Edit for a requested picture.

3 More!

Totals up to 341!

This also means that the VSF project now involves paint as these are the first items for the game to be painted. I need to have a snoop around for some embellishments like decals but they are basically finished now apart from the bases.

Oxford Class Skyship.

Aether launches

Perhaps a little drab but that will change when the Scarlet Jackets of the Queens finest are on board!!

I tried, when designing them, to allow for as much deck space as possible. I've got a romantic notion of boarding actions and such nonsense when we finally get round to playing.

Looking over the figures for this, most are prepped but a handful still need filing and sticking together. I will confess to not being hugely excited about the prospect as going back to metal figures after sooo many plastic and resin ones is somewhat onerous. They're a real pain to prep!

TTFN

338! Not too many to go!

I've hit the 338 mark for my painting challenge this year.

33 Epic Ork speed freaks ready for action. Still loads to paint for this force but I'll keep plugging away.

Only 27 figures to go!

These could have been finished weeks ago if I hadn't let myself get soooo distracted by the VSF Aeronef project. Three of the ten kits are finished and on the Blotz site. Three more have been submitted and I'm just waiting to hear back from Blotz on their progress. I still have the Prussian and Antartican ones to do but I'm pretty much settled on how I want them to look so I just need to get my head down and draft them.

My mind is turning towards getting some rules for this VSF game so I'll have to head off to the forums to do a bit of research. In the mean time I'm squeezing in a little time to progress the MDF aeronefs that I have already.

Last night I started the flyers but they will take a while. However I did get to do the Tesla Guns. Black under coat spray and then dry brushed bronze and brass. Simples.

TTFN

A riveting evening

You guessed it!

An evening spent adding rivets to my new VSF stuff.

Utilising my trusty Rivet Maker (a greetings card makers hole punch)....

...I set about adding rivets to the under hull of my new VSF flyers. The punch makes it a quick job to make them and then it is a fairly quick process to dab a blob of glue and shove a rivet on. I tend to give them a watered down PVA wash afterwards to seal them.

Also did the Tesla Guns so I can get all these sprayed soon.

TTFN

Letting myself get distracted.

With only a few weeks to go for the painting deadline I should have my nose to the grind stone getting the last figures painted for myself impose challenge. 60 still to do so what do I do?

Something else completely different of course!

Being so close to the finish line my mind has wandered off into 2018 with a view to setting some goals for next year. Yes yes I know I haven’t finished this year but it’s just how my mind works!

Sat around my study over the last few years has been the collection of Dystopian Legions (DL) stuff that I purchased ooooh sooo long ago. I’ve always been interested in the Victorian Sci-Fi but never really got to have a crack at it gaming wise. I even had a copy of Space 1889 but never played. That desire is what lead to all the purchases of DL and also the 6mm Dystopian Wars (DW) stuff. It had been niggling at me that nothing had come of these so I became resolved to do something about it. Well that was over a year ago and still nothing happened. Well apart from Junt and I conning Urn to buy loads of stuff for it as well. 

We had come to a consensus that it would be fun to take DL to Mars. I suspect that this may have been driven by me but I will deny it if so accused. However that notion stuck, germinated and started to grow. First it stemmed into the idea of a couple of funky Aeronef flyers to supplement the land forces we already had and then, like so many of the notions in my head, it got out of hand.

Long story short …..Aeronef started getting designed. Then I balked at scratch-building all these ideas. Then it occurred to me that they might be good in MDF. Looking around there are a few people making Aeronef but they weren’t what I was looking for or were too big. So I resolved to contact a manufacturer to see if some could be made. I had to good fortune to choose Blotz as my first port of call and I am very pleased that I did. Since the early contact the idea was well received and handled in a stress-less manner. So in just a short time the first two designs from the project have gone from concept sketches to scale drawings and onto being finished things. I have to say it has been fun! Slightly surreal getting your own design through the post as a kit to put together but fun none the less!

The first two were the Kingdom of Britainnia ones primarily because they were the simplest designs on which I could get some idea of how to proceed with the drawings that Blotz would need. I will admit to being quite pleased with how they have turned out.

A Patrol boat for HM’s forces…..

…..and a light launch to ferry troops around.

As this had come from the DL perspective I’d intended the large ones to be ‘sky tanks’ and the smaller ones to be ‘Sky APCs’. I suspect however that the DL rules will be thrown out of the window, due to them being poorly received, and a new rule set will be found which will give the Aeronef a life of their own.

Given that we have five DL factions between the three of us that have DL, then ten designs are required in total. The first two are finished, the next is now with Blotz and the fourth will be pinged over shortly. I’ve been scribbling away on new design ideas trying to make each new one markedly different from the others which is a fun challenge.

I keep having to rein myself in with the practical limitations of size. I doubt the Long Haired General at home really wants a house full of massive sky ships. Shame. I’d love it. ;-)

If you like them then head over to Blotz where they are available to buy or keep an eye out for the new ones in future.

TTFN