Zoidberg meets the Mekon

After the big project of the space marine multi-tank, I made a few more space weirdos. I'd bought a frame of Perry Miniatures Afghan tribesmen, from 1880 or so, and I thought it would be interesting to turn them into futuristic types.

The tribesmen are all wearing long robes, and either have boots or sandals. These would work for civilians and mystic monk-types, who probably wander about in flip flops, but less well for hardened soldiers. I then realised that by combining some of the alien heads, I could make some familiar characters. 

So, here are Dr Zoidberg from Futurama and the Mekon from Dan Dare. 

Both models have a head and arms from Stargrave miniatures, and an Afghan body. Zoidberg's claws were sculpted around some cut-off tyranid spikes, and the Mekon's saucer was a hubcap left from a toy car.

Then we have two ladies. The woman on the right has arms from the Frostgrave female barbarians sprue. I imagined that the two blades are something like light sabers, and painted them as such. She was given a white and orange paint scheme vaguely remeniscent of a Buddhist monk, to suggest mystic powers. The other woman has arms from a Frostgrave female wizard. She might be a psychic casting a spell, or maybe just someone normal running away.

Then I just made a couple of randoms. This man has an old Frostgrave soldier body (they do look quite basic compared to later North Star plastics) with a Ghost Archipelago head (I think) and a bionic arm made out of leftover Necron parts. His robot friend is just a Mantic robot that I've had lying about for ages. It's made from that nasty resin-plastic stuff that Mantic used to use (and might still do), which isn't very nice to work with.

These were fun to do, but as usual the pictures don't do them any sort of justice. Oh well. I'm used to that by now. More big things next time (maybe)!

EDIT: I've noticed that the pictures look better if you click on them to make them bigger.

Space Marine Whirlwind Conversion (and bonus rhino)

 Last time, I made a whopping great cannon to go on the roof of a space marine Rhino. I also promised further silliness. And I've been hard at work to do just that.

Back in the days, I purchased a plastic Empire hellsturm rocket launcher, a sort of multiple firework array on a cannon chassis. I put this onto a Rhino to make a very medieval Whirlwind tank.

The basis of the conversion is one of the plates that goes on the back of the Rhino. The Vindicator cannon lifts off, and I used the plate with a hole for a hatch in it. I put a Lego cog into the hole and stuck it in place with plasticard, to be the part that the launcher sits on. Here's a picture of a normal plate and my version.

The rocket launcher went on top. I added a piece that holds some extra rockets, in case the marines get excited and fire all their fireworks at once. 

It was painted in suitably jolly and heraldic colours, to match the overall scheme.

Whoosh!

Now, I thought it would be good to finish this project off by making a flat panel to go on the top, for when the marines just need nothing fancier than a Rhino. I found some doors and glued them together.

I wanted to decorate the doors, but I know my limits. There's no way that I could do the sort of freehand that wins modern competition. But I could draw as well as a medieval monk who's never left his cloiser, and so that's what I did. Hence this:

That looks suitably antiquated. Here it is on the tank.

That was fun!

Space Marine Vindicator Conversion

 It's a little tank with a great big gun!

Inspired by last week's comments, I decided to have another go at a conversion I did many years ago. It was gathering dust and slowly falling apart at the back of a cupboard, and I fished it out to see what I could do.

Before all that Primaris nonsense, space marine tanks were largely based on the Rhino APC chassis. The two main variants, the Vindicator and the Whirlwind, had a big cannon and a missile launcher, respectively. I must have realised that, if you could make the bits interchangeable, you could, er, interchange them.

So, I had bought a Rhino and got to work building a massive cannon to go on the roof. The "real" Vindicator has its cannon at the front, but this would be easier to swap out and would look more cool/ridiculous. I built the cannon out of a pipe from an old scenery kit, along with parts from various Empire buildings. When I fished it out last week, the tank looked like this:

Very dusty. I didn't really like the ram on the front, so I removed it. I also felt that the cannon looked a bit basic and front-heavy, so I made some hydraulics out of bits left over from a knight titan. Plasticard was used to attach them and space things out.

A bit better. Once painted it looked like this. I used a basic grey shaded up slightly and washed with thinned-down brown to represent dirt. It's nothing very fancy but it helps to bring out the details.

I also added some details from Empire kits and the spare parts from the original Rhino. Then it was time for paint!

Considering how a lot of my marines look, this is pretty low-key. Of course, it's very silly and I don't know how you'd load the gun, but it is sort-of-modular (ie the top falls off) and it fits the look I was going for (a bit like a castle). 

Incidentally, I discovered today that an official chapter called the Brazen Claws uses the same red-and-blue quartered design as my chaps, except all over their body armour. However, they don't sound as fun as my chapter. So there. And on the subject of fun, I think I'll repair the rocket launcher part of this tank, so it can also be a whirlwind - and that looks really silly...

More Medieval Marines

 Here are some marines. I had so much trouble getting a half-decent photograph of any of these.

This is a "masters of the chapter" model which was missing a head and an arm.

This guy is an unconverted veteran marine.

The two below are lower-ranking marines with basic bolters, based on some pretty battered plastic marines that I got from ebay. This bloke has a Bretonnian man-at-arms head and helmet. 

And the final marine has an Empire shield on his left pauldron. I used chequered patterns for variety and to suggest additional heraldry.

They'll be joining the rest of my knightly marines (named the Shining Knights until I think of something better). I don't know why, but the pictures look as if there's almost no shading on these models. I should get back to painting something more photogenic.

Female Fighters for Mordheim

 I thought it would be nice to include a couple of female adventurers in the Mordheim warband. For one thing, it provides a bit of visual variety and for another you get some more opportunities for modelling random people.

The first one I made used a lower body from a very mangled Eldar warlock that I got a long time ago. The upper body was a Tempestus Scion breastplate, with some old Mordheim mercenary arms, and a head from Stargrave. She looks like a tough customer!

I kept with the usual colour scheme, but tried a more complex pattern on her skirts. This involved a "weaving" pattern, which I copied from a Bretonnian knight. I found this really difficult, and frankly it made my head hurt. It's done now, although I think it could be better. Maybe sometime I'll have another go, but for now I'll move on.

The second miniature is an archer to round off my small band of bowmen. I had previously made a "youngblood" (ie a novice fighter) with the lower half of a plastic flagellant, so I used this lower body to work as her skirt. I sculpted a torso around a piece of sprue, and added Frostgrave arms and a Stargrave head. Her magnificent hat was in my bits box. 

Here she is painted. I really like this model. My sculpting could be better, now I look at it, but I'm quite pleased with the results. I imagine that she might have been a professional archer, appearing in shows to entertain the people of Mordheim, before the comet struck and the city fell into chaos. Now she puts her skills to new uses, scouting in the ruins.

Even More Space Rogues, And Another Terrain Bit

 Last post, I forgot to add a piece of terrain. I also have been painting some more random Stargrave citizens. I really enjoy making these conversions, but they often end up on my desk for a long time, waiting for paint. 

The guy on the left has Stargrave head and arms, and a body from a sprue of zombies. I'm not sure who made them. He's some kind of angry redneck, and I painted him to look a bit like one of the guys in the old cartoon King of the Hill. 

Next to him is a female alien soldier. I always think of these guys as primitive androids, and painted her to fit in with the little unit of company robots that I made a while ago.

 

These two are made from historical bits. The crouching sniper has a body from a Perry Miniatures Afghan soldier and a head and guns from the Stargrave mercenaries. The lady in the purple shirt has a Bolt Action torso, and Stargrave head, arms and legs.

And this pair are unconverted metal miniatures from Copplestone. The guy on the left looks like a thug from the 1980s. The man on the right is some kind of dreadlocked cyberpunk. The thug is a pretty basic miniature and works fine, but the other guy is a really cool sculpt whole simplicity helps it greatly. He reminds me of one of the voodoo priests from William Gibson's excellent novel Count Zero.

And here's the bit of cyber terrain that I forgot about. It's some cheap leftover bits from some plastic robots (maybe Heroclix) with some bits and bobs stuck on for interest. The console is a Mantic part, and the aerial comes from a Necron gun. Beyond that, I'm not sure!

Two Small Bits of Terrain

 I've been making some bits of terrain this week.

This futuristic building was made from a printer ink cartridge on its end, stuck onto a leftover bit of textured MDF. Most of the details came from pieces of Mantic space terrain, some of them cut down to size. 

Here's the unpainted version. The painting was quite easy, with a dark brown wash for the weathering. I did want to paint some big hazard stripes over one side, but I soon discovered that I lack the neatness to do this, so I just went for a flat red. 

It's quite small, but would break up line of sight, and I quite like the raised height.

I also painted this outcrop of rocks. I bought it last year at a convention, for a couple of pounds. It's 3D printed, and has quite a lot of layer lines. I sanded it down a bit, but rocks are going to be a bit uneven (hopefully). Brown and green washes were used to make it look a bit more realistic, along with a static plant.