Kroot Lone-Spear Bird Rider

 A couple of posts back, I mentioned projects that I'd acquired ages ago and not got around to finishing. This week, I turned to a model that I bought at a show in the golden age of 2015 or so. It's some kind of large bird, from (I think) Reaper. It's certainly made of some sort of rubbery white plastic, like their earlier (not very good) Bones miniatures. I think it might be something to do with the RPG Numenera.

Anyhow, I've been looking for a rider for this creature for ages. I thought it might work well as a Kroot riding beast. The original model had odd little wings and a very strange lower jaw, so I removed them.

 

I had a pair of Kroot legs - well, a pair missing one leg below the knee, so I'd have to make a bionic one. That was fine, but I had no body. So, I made a T-shape out of sprue as a basis for the upper body, and sculpted around it.

I recently saw some superb sculpting by a guy called "pax acrylica" on Instagram. It seemed that he was using a mix of green stuff and milliput, and I thought I'd give that a try. I found that this worked really well: the resulting mixture was softer than green stuff but lacked the slightly grainy, clay-like quality of milliput, and dried hard with a smooth texture like dry soap. I'd strongly recommend trying this.

This made a decent body, and I sculpted a cloak to cover the back of it, so I wouldn't have to do the shoulder musculature. I sculpted a saddle, some straps, and a weird beaky lower jaw for the bird creature. I added some reins, made out of string, which I slightly regret. String seems to always be a bit frayed when I use it on miniatures, as if it's coming to bits. Maybe if I soaked it in PVA first, it might work better. Anyhow, that was pretty much it. I trimmed his gun down a bit, and added a couple of pieces to the base to strengthen the bird's wobbly legs. 

And now for paint!

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To be honest, I nearly didn't post this at all. I simply couldn't take a half-decent picture of this model. Everything was either too dark or washed out - and trust me, whatever you might be thinking that I'm doing wrong, I have tried to rectify. Nothing works. There are quite a few models that I've painted now - the random space people seem to be particularly prone to this - which I just can't photograph. I have wondered whether to continue with this blog, as it's hard to be enthusiastic when I can't display my models - which is, after all, the point. I probably will continue, but I expect the updates will be less frequent.

Krootox Repair Shop

 

After last week's great big Tau robot, I thought that I'd have another look at their friends, the Kroot. The Kroot are ferocious scaly monsters who fight as allies/mercenaries for the Tau, and fill a close-combat role that the Tau can't. 

The Kroot seem to have evolved from birds, and have a slightly parrot-like look (they also come from a planet called Pech, which I'm sure is pronounced "peck"). Actually, given that birds evolved from dinosaurs, it seems safe to say that the Kroot are dinosaur-people, but this probably isn't the place to go down the genuinely fascinating rabbit holes of avian intelligence and what might have happened if the asteroid had missed. 

Anyhow, there are now loads of different Kroot units, and very nice they are too. Back in the old days, though, there were three: Kroot carnivores (ie warriors), Kroot hounds (attack dogs) and Krootox (a bloke on a gorilla-bird thing with a heavy weapon). They also had leaders, one of which is one of my favourite models ever, but more of that some other time.

This is the metal Krootox and rider. At least, it's most of the metal Krootox: it was missing the rider's upper body and gun. We may carp about the over-designing of modern models, but this thing was a complete pig to assemble, and a lot of milliput was required to fill the many gaps. I used plastic Kroot warrior parts for the upper body, although I had to improvise the left arm out of Green Stuff and paperclips. The gun barrel comes from an Empire outrider, and seems to be a primitive rocket launcher. I've always had a liking for people riding weird alien beasts, although I suspect that as soon as this guy fires his gun, the recoil will knock him over, and the Krootox (whose head is directly under the barrel) will run off towards the horizon, possibly returning to gore its former rider.

I also took the chance to tidy up my old Kroot carnivores, and to add a few details. They're not perfect, but they look a lot better than they did. They're slightly converted for some more dynamic poses.

So that's the Kroot for now. See you next time!

Big Tau Ghostkeel Robot Thing!

 Perhaps predictably, here's something completely different to the last post. I get a lot of ideas for conversions and small projects, and often this involves buying parts gradually and stashing them away until I get around to making them. I do usually get around to finishing these projects, eventually, but the projects build up quicker than I can get them done. It's almost as if I'm doing something wrong.

Anyhow, a while ago I found the legs and body of a big Tau robot called a Ghostkeel on ebay. The arms and weapons were missing. I bought the bits for quite a low price, and decided to make a big clunky space robot to fit my 1950s style Tau army.

I also found a wrecked WW2 jeep on ebay, which would make a good basing element for the battlesuit. It was resin, made by some random chap in his garden shed, from the sounds of it, and it looks just right to be squashed by the ghostkeel's foot.

All was going well, but then I sat on the model and broke it at its spindly ankles. This was not good. I ended up using an old terrain piece to strengthen the thing. As well as having weird feet, Tau have ankles that break if you stare at them.

The arms came from a cheap gundam kit. The pincers are actually the legs of two Gates of Antares Ghar models, which I brought in a sprue sale. The gun mounted on the robot's shoulder is a piece from a long-gone steampunk game called Wolsung, which I've been hoading for about a decade.

I added a little chap from a Bolt Action US airborne sprue. His head looks as if he's shouting, usually, but if lifted up gives him a gormless, astonished look. I doubt his unform is entirely accurate, but he looks right. In the fluff, the ghostkeel can somehow turn undetectable - which, given its size and jet rocket, is pretty absurd - and I like the idea of it materialising as it squashes this squaddie's jeep. "How will I explain this to the Sarge?"

There's not to say about the painting, except that I enhoyed it, and it fits in with the rest of the army. It's probably the biggest thing that I'll build for this army (the bigger battlesuits don't appeal all that much), and it makes a cool centrepiece. 

Join us or die, puny humans!

Devilfish

This time, I've tackled a Tau Devilfish. The Devilfish is the inevitable troop transport model, the equivalent of a Wave Serpent or a Rhino. It is a really sleek, mean-looking vehicle and has a good profile.

I didn't think it fitted particularly well with the theme of my Tau force (surely they'd fly around in a saucer), but it does fit the mythology of little green men, shady government operatives and unmarked helicopters. So I painted it black, largely.

Painting things black, especially large things, is hard, especially if you haven't got an airbrush. Most of the upper hull is actually a very dark grey, a 50-50 mix of black and Vallejo Dark Grey (this is one of the most useful colours that I've ever had, along with Vallejo English Uniform). I added some purple and red elements for variety, and to draw the eye to the cockpit. The main army colour, a bluish-white, was added to the doors and hatches. It's hard to see, but they're shaded into darker blue.

Weathering was kept to a minimum: it doesn't really fit the theme, and as I get older, I find that I don't like excessive weathering. It often doesn't make a lot of visual sense. So, here it is.

And here are some entirely legit operatives disembarking. Nothing to see here, citizen. 

C'au Empire Battlesuit

 I've spent much of the last week tidying up some of my old Tau models. In some cases, they're looking pretty good and, in others, the concept was better than the execution. Anyhow, it's funny how, since about 1950, an entire mythology has evolved for flying saucers. I mean, think of all the secret warehouses, little green/grey aliens, men in black, theramin noises and bizarre fascination with large probes. It's a sort of weird mythos of its own.

(Just as an aside, I used to know a guy who did pretty serious research into UFOs. He didn't believe a word of it, basically. For one thing, the technology and look of the aliens described was often suspiciously similar to humans and would be considered dull by science fiction standards. However, he also pointed out that stories of alien contact look like a high-tech retelling of medieval stories about fairies and changelings. Which makes me suspect that either aliens have been abducting farmers for a long time or, much more likely, there are just some stories that humans are fundamentally wired to tell.)

I've tried to give each of my Tau battlesuits a stereotypical "space invader" theme. This particular guy is stealing a cow - for some reason, little green men seem to like raiding farms. Perhaps the Tau feel some sort of kinship with other hooved animals and are trying to rescue them. Anyway, this model was an old plastic/metal Broadside kit (hence the missile pods for arms). His back-mounted death rays and his head came from an old Imperial mounted gun, and his cow is from a Warlord Games set of farm animals.

Prepare to be assimilated, puny humans!

Tau In Black

 This week, I've gone back to some old miniatures and given then another look. A while ago, I made some Tau with a 1950s space invader look. I returned to these guys, repainted some of them and made them some new friends.

Here is the infiltration unit, headed by their leader, the Smoking Tau. They're all conversions, using bits of human kits. Their guns and arms come from the Pathfinder kit, which is far better than the rather ropey old fire warriors. They are perfectly disguised to fit in with puny humans.

And here are some human helpers. These guys are based on the Wargames Atlantic Agents kit. The two agents with their hands clasped in front of them were made straight off the sprue. The other three use Pathfinder arms and guns. I sculpted them new little fingers where it was visible, to counter the weird three-fingered hands of the Tau. I expect these guys show up to have words with the enemies of the Tau, before the green chaps arrive.

The agent miniatures are really nice sculpts, and are very slightly cartoony - but not too much. I think they could be used for loads of purposes. I'd forgotten how difficult it is to highlight black.

And here are some fire warriors. They were made with the really old models, which are basically awful. Their helmets were scraped ans sanded smooth, and then large "eyes" were added for an old-fashioned little green man look. The shoulder pads were left off, to make them sleeker. I think they work pretty well now, despite the ropey sculpts.

More next time - of what, I'm not sure. Keep watching the skies.

Tau In Black

"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Tau Empire?"

Inquisitor Yosef M'Karthus.

A while ago, I made a government operative for my force of 1950s-style Tau. I decided to make him a couple of friends. One was based on a plastic Russian Bolt Action soldier in a greatcoat, with Tau arms and head, and a hat sculpted from Green Stuff. I also did a bit of cutting of his foot, to make it more hoof-like.

The other was more fiddly, and involved the lower body of a Tau vehicle pilot, the upper half of a random plastic zombie (I've no idea who makes these) and Tau arms. The body was quite spindly, so a bit of Green Stuff was required to bulk it out. I used a head with a particularly tired, miserable expression, as suits his rather battered appearance. 

Here they are with their boss, doing something entirely legal and above-board. As ever, my camera is refusing to take a decent photo, so you'll just have to imagine that they look much better than they do.

I could see a little squad of these guys infiltrating human society in order to promote the Greater Good. Nobody would ever notice.

Kroot Battlesuit

 The plan to spend less on miniatures continues. About ten years ago, I made a little walker for the Tau - or, rather, the Kroot. I thought it would be cool to have a mech suit that would be used by a particularly trusted Kroot warrior: perhaps with stealth capabilities, but definitely taking its look from the shape of Kroot soldiers.

Anyway, it was a bit basic, and had rubbish arms which then fell off and were lost. I gathered the rather knackered bits together, along with some other parts that I'd acquired along the way, and had a think about what to do with it next.

The main parts were there, but they needed to be put together into the right shape ("I'm playing the right notes, just not in the right order"). With a bit of trial and error, I came up with this:

And eventually this:

It uses:

- legs and lower body from a Space Crusade dreadnought (which was already trashed)

- body from a Gates of Antares Ghar warsuit

- shoulder armour from a Gates of Antares cannon

- Dark Eldar Talos armguards for the rear motors or whatever they are

- a space marine Rhino headlamp

- some random Zoid bits for the upper arms

- plasticard

- many Tau parts

- and a shoe from an ogre (for the lower jaw).

Things like this always look like a right mess until you spray the undercoat on. Painted entirely black, it looked surprisingly un-crap. I decided to go for a dark colour scheme, in imitation of the excellent mech suit from the film District 9. Here we go:

It also has an engine, or something like that:

Painting this thing was reasonably simple: dark grey for the whole model, with dirty metal (dark brown washed black and chipped with sponged-on Boltgun). I tried to copy the colours I'd used on the Tau battlesuits, and to use spot colors to draw the eye towards its head (otherwise it would be hard to tell which end is which). Some weathering powder was used on the lower legs, and a bit of crumpled carboard was painted to resemble corrugated metal.

Here then is the finished mech from Pech with his little friends. Fokkin' prawns!

Reaching Krootical Mass

 Funny how things creep up on you sometimes. Like twenty Kroot. I tidied up a few more of these guys, and painted five that I've had knocking around undercoated for years, and suddenly I had a massive horde of them. It's hard to get a decent picture of them all at once, but here is the whole squad/unit/flock, migrating across the desk.

Kroot are quite easy to paint, since they're almost naked and largely green, so you can just use a basecoat, a wash, and a few highlights. I remember Duncan Two-Coats on the Warhammer site saying that you were best off doing the large messy parts of a model first, and then tidying up, and that certainly worked on the Kroot. 

Unfortunately, because they all look rather similar, I'm not sure which ones painted when! So, here are some of the most converted ones. The first three had their legs cut to be crouching down. This was rather fiddly, and ran the risk of losing all the little bits of leg. I particularly like the chap looking at the ground, who is probably examining the tracks of an enemy that he's pursuing.

These ones are all being dynamic. The one on the far-right isn't actually converted, but the arrangement of arm and legs makes him look like a very angry space parrot indeed. The guy in the middle just had his leg cut at the knee and pulled back a little, for a running effect. The chap on the left is protecting himself with a big metal shield. I've no idea where the shield came from, but it's a small nod to the spindly aliens in the film District Nine, one of whom uses a shield towards the end. 

I'm not sure where these guys fit in the with 1950s theme, except that they're generic space monsters, but they're quite cool miniatures for their age. They'd work well as the natives of some steampunk Venus, unreasonably taking exception to be invaded by random humans. 

Rekrootment Drive

 The current Tau project was always meant to be about the repainting of older miniatures instead of me buying a load of new ones. Generally speaking, I've stuck to that, and so far the biggest expenditure has been a pair of knackered battlesuits from ebay.

The second of those two battlesuits was converted to be a Broadside support suit: I used the same method that I used a few posts back, by adding a big gun I picked up in a Mantic sale. Because the gun was a mirror-image of the earlier one, I did the conversion in reverse, cutting and repinning the left arm instead of the right one. I also added a head made from some kind of Space Marine tank sensor, for that all-important "upgraded Wall-E" look. 

I wasn't sure what to put on his base, so I sculpted a little rattlesnake to sit on one of the rocks and hint that the battlesuit was lumbering around the Nevada desert (assuming they have rattlesnakes there). It does look rather like a poo, though.

I also dug out some old Kroot models that I painted a long time ago, tidied them up a bit and gave them new bases. I like the Kroot, mainly because they're bird-people and their homeworld, Pech, is presumably pronounced "Peck". I can respect that.

Anyhow, they're not the best-painted models I've done, but they look alright and, frankly, they won't be on the battlefield for very long. As they don't wear much except trophies and weird leather bras, it was hard to fit them into the retro theme. They were painted a bright green in order to look dramatic and like something from 50s sci-fi. A few were slightly converted to be crouching down or running to make them look a bit more dynamic.

In the 40k background, the Kroot are led by tribal elders, who direct them in battle and tell them who to eat. I made one a while ago, with a combination of leftover Kroot bits and the body of a Mantic Dreadball robot, who was roughly the right shape. I think he works nicely. 

I also painted a random metal object that came with a Gates of Antares field gun. I've no idea what it's for: it might be some kind of ammunition container, or perhaps where the Tau keep their eggs (are they reptiles? It's hard to tell) or maybe just the equivalent of a burning oil drum to stand around. If these guys ever see combat, I'd use it as a missile turret for the Fire Warriors.

Back to the Tau

 Back to normal (pretty much) for this post, as I've decided to give the turnip project a rest for now and return to my sci-fi Tau. I bought a couple of battlesuits from Ebay: they were in a pretty gunked-up state, and needed quite a lot of work. The first of them has just taken off, and is flying over the desert landscape. Below him is the skeleton of some type of cattle, which he may or may not have zapped.

Apart from some repositioning of the legs, he's basically unconverted. I quite like the old battlesuits: they're old and low on details, and they don't make much physical sense, but they've got a certain robotty charm.

Next up, I finished off some Pathfinders that I've had lying around half-painted for ages. I really liked the big rail rifles that they can carry and, although it's not codex-legal as far as I know, I thought a squad of five would look cool. 

There's not much to say about these except that two of them are older metal models, and that the newer plastic Pathfinders are about ten times better than the old Fire Warriors I was making earlier this year. The detailing is so much better. You can even figure out what's going on at the end of their legs!

I love the posing on these guys, especially the bloke reloading his weapon. As I was making them, it occurred to me that the green Tau heads look a lot like the Treens from the old 1950s comic strip Dan Dare. Which, given the space-invader theme of the army, feels very appropriate:

Area 51 Battlesuit

 Here's another battlesuit from the flying saucer style army. This guy will be either the army commander or the leader of the battlesuit unit. He's quite heavily converted, which probably isn't obvious.

It seems that the higher-up you are in the battlesuit food chain, the sleeker and more rounded your armour tends to be. I replaced the chest plate on this guy with a piece taken from some Necron bits I was given a while ago, and added bits of sprue to fill in the gaps that it left. The arms came from a Mantic games Ghar model (I particularly like the weird sci-fi claw he's got) and the head was made out of a headlamp on a 40k Rhino - not out of any particular choice, but because I was running low on battlesuit heads at the time.

I thought it would be characterful to depict the suit blasting its way out of a wire fence, to represent it raiding a military installation. The base was made out of two pieces of plastic rod with the mesh from a bag of tangerines cut and stuck between them. This plastic mesh makes great wire fencing, I think, and is easy to cut and manipulate. I cut a hole in it and painted the edges to look (hopefully) as if they were glowing where the battlesuit has shot its way out.

The sign was just a small square of plasticard, cut and painted to reference Area 51, where the US government is said to keep its stash of dead aliens and flying saucers. Because my freehand lettering isn't perfect, I weathered the sign to look chipped and faded, mainly to hide my own ineptitude.

Here are the three "normal" battlesuits together. I quite like making models of this size or scale or whatever. I think the space-invader theme carries quite well across the unit.