Goblin Sky-Ship 3

 Just a quick update on the goblin flying machine. The more I do on this, the more there seems to be more to do. Oh well - at least I'm enjoying it!

I added a railing to the upper deck on the bows, by cutting two ladders from Mantic terraincrate sets and rearranging the pieces around the front of the ship. I also made a pair of runners to go on the bottom of the ship. These were made from some thin pieces of wood that I had lying around, with metal parts from blister pack plastic.

(I also moved one of the crew from a rather precarious perch on the stern to sitting on the stairs in the middle, which made more sense.)

At the weekend, I visited Warfare, a miniatures fair held at Ascot racecourse. I stopped by the Black Scorpion stall and got myself a model goblin captain for their pirate game, Cutlass. The only conversion I made to him was to trim down his bare feet and give him some hefty shoes. I always think that you can tell the seniority of a pirate by the largeness of his footwear: the most senior ones have the biggest boots. Anyhow, this chap got Georgian-type shoes and I painted his legs as if he was wearing big socks.

 Yo ho ho!

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.

Missile Launcher Marines

 This week, I've made a few more marines. The guy on the left below is a marine who I'd use as a squad leader. He's entirely plastic: his legs are from the sternguard set, with a head from a Bretonnian knight. Painting the little squares on his kneecap was difficult.

The guy on the right is the first of five resin missile launcher troopers I found on Ebay. I don't normally mess with Forge World stuff, as I'm not into most of the things they make and I'm not keen on working with resin, but the price was good and the Mark III marine armour has a nice medieval feel. His very retro missile launcher got a red barrel shielding.

The next two missile launcher troopers were also resin. I gave them different decorations on their weapons: I figure that they're allowed to add personal heraldry (after you've got a missile launcher, I doubt anyone's going to argue). 

I like the red stripes. They remind me of 70s science fiction art.

I've also been doing some work on the goblin flying ship, but I'll deal with that in a separate post.

More Knightly Marines

 Here are a few more space marines. These two are standard plastics, using legs from the sternguard set. I did a bit of cutting on the hands of the chap on the left, to get the right angle on his gun and grenade. His head came from a Blood Angel.

These two were slightly converted. The guy on the left has a biker's upper body. I cut off a skull on his breastplate and replaced it with a shield sculpted from Green Stuff. The guy on the right is holding a weapon that I found in the bottom of a cardboard box. I think it might be a flamer from a dreadnought. I added a chaos barrel decoration at the end for extra heraldic "charm". 

I'm wondering about making these guys a dreadnought, or perhaps a librarian. Both would probably look very silly...

A Break From The Goblins

 Being a bit sick of coffee stirrers and painting things brown, I thought I'd paint something else for a break. First, I painted a conversion, which uses the body of the old metal Mouth of Sauron model from the Lord of the Rings. It came without a head and a sword, which were provided by a dark eldar and an Empire bit respectively. I chose a smaller base to emphasise the model's height - which saved time, as I sculpted a base of cobblestones out of green stuff.

I decided on a red and gold colour scheme, partly because I wanted it to look different to the base model and partly because I thought it would look strange and cool. I used purple and green as shading colours on the red robes, and both green and chestnut inks on the armour, which was a new technique for me. Here he (or she, or it) is:

Some time ago, I got in touch with the nice people at Warlord Games, and asked if it was possible to buy some of the gun crew from the Gates of Antares Freeborn range without the expensive guns. It generally isn't, but very kindly they fished some out and I was able to pay for them separately. I got those models because they looked a lot like the Fremen from Dune. I thought I'd paint a couple.

Goblin Sky-Ship 2

 I've been chipping away at the big goblin flying machine. I wanted to build up the front of the skaven screaming bell frame, to look like the forecastle of a pirate ship. I made a box from coffee stirrers, and added a little staircase made from plasticard. It was fiddly, but I think it looks right.

Here's the raised deck when assembled.

I also painted the engine block that will be at the rear of the machine.

It's a bit rough and ready, but it'll do.

Then it was a matter of adding some crew. The gnoblars on the scraplauncher kit look quite piratical as it is, and one of them happened to be winding a wheel. He'd look perfect for the guy steering the ship. Another was pointing and holding a telescope. He could be providing "helpful" advice.

The third gnoblar came from the ogre Blood Bowl team. These guys are quite a bit smaller than the regular Warhammer gnoblars, but they're much crisper sculpts. This little chap looks as if he's been surprised by a change of direction and is about to fall out.

It's getting there - slowly. Oh, and here's a mast. It's just a bit of dowel at the moment, but hopefully you can see how this is going to develop.

Goblin Sky-Ship 1

I took a break from the marines (I've got at least 10 more to do), and took out a project that I've had lying about for ages but never really started.

A long time ago I got a broken Skaven Screaming Bell off ebay. I cut the actual bell and its arch off the model, leaving me with the wooden framework that the bell sits on. It looks very primitive and slightly like the shape of an old sailing ship:

I thought it could be the basis for a flying-machine, crewed by goblins. I had an image of this thing being rickety and jury-rigged, with goblins swarming over the exterior, constantly making alterations and repairs, shouting orders, falling overboard and generally creating chaos. That sort of model would require at least half a dozen crewmen, probably plastic gnoblars.

I had a resin steam engine that I bought several years ago at a show. It was the right size and would make a good power source for the machine. I then built up a rear deck where the ship's wheel would be. It was almost entirely made from coffee stirrers, with a ladder turned on its side for a rear railing and a barrel from the excellent Ogre Kingdoms scraplauncher to give the various spindly bits something to stick to. It looked like this:

The next bit I made was a cannon to go at the front. This was made from a metal Mantic model that I got in a sale. It's called a "Goblin war trombone", and is an oversized blunderbuss. I chopped off the wheel and monopod on which the gun rested, and made it a very small gun carriage instead, out of a little block of wood. That was given four tiny wheels, which were cut from plastic rod.

I then made a little section of decking for it to sit on, along with two plasticard runners to soak up the recoil. This will be going at the front of the ship, under the big flat deck.

The metal wheel/monopod from the war trombone will be some kind of gear underneath the engine deck, which will be powering the rotors (somehow):

Not a bad start, but there's a lot of work to go. Here's a very rough idea of the general shape:

This might take a while...