Converting Old Mantic Models: little space soldiers, a demon mercenary and The Thing

I had a bit of free time over the weekend. Here in the UK, it was unpleasantly hot, and I spent as much time as possible indoors. I opened the big box of random sprues, and found a bunch of old Mantic miniatures.

Mantic have made some decent stuff - their skeletons are particularly good, and used to be dirt cheap - but they have produced some... less fantastic miniatures. Their plastic goblins are pretty awful: they've got very little detail, they're made from some horrible plastic-resin material, and it's generally quite hard to tell what the heck is going on with them. However...

I've long been of the view that the most important bits of a miniature (unless it's some insanely complex GW sculpt with books, banners and the like) are the head and the weapon (or at least the hands). What this means is that by attaching a good head and arms to a ropey body you can distract from the bad parts enough to end up with something acceptable. In this spirit, I waded into the goblins.

I threw the original heads and arms away. Instead, I used Perry Miniatures Afghan arms, and the WW1 style heads from the Wargames Atlantic "Bulldogs" sprue. A little bit of cutting was required to get the heads to go on properly, but nothing elaborate. The only problem with the guns was that it wouldn't be possible to arrange them so that the models were taking aim. No great issue there, as you get loads of guns on the Afghan sprue.

I really, really like the positions of some of these models. That's largely down to the excellent Afghan arms, which allow for a lot of interesting options.

I painted the bodies brown, and highlighted with successive drybrushes. I didn't bother to pick out any details, as it's not worth the bother. The heads were painted bright green: partly to fit in with another batch of goblin conversions I did a while ago, and partly to get away from the idea that these were short WW1 Tommies. The hands and exposed flesh of these little chaps was painted blue.

The end result is quite decent, I think. The goblin bodies are always going to be a bit rubbish, but the new arms and heads really improve the models.

*

The second part of today's post continues the "random Mantic models" theme. Again, I've got no idea how I ended up with these miniatures. 

First up is a plastic orc, who was thankfully made out of a much nicer and more normal material than the goblins. He's a neater, crisper sculpt, but still nothing special. I gave him a horned head from the Frostgrave demons sprue. His arms and gun come from a Mantic "plague" warrior, who has a lot of spikes on his arms and shoulders, which went well with the head. I painted the whole thing red: he reminds me of the trolls from the Shadowrun game. I imagine him as some kind of thuggish mercenary.

The final creature is the most interesting, I think. This was made from the body of the plague soldier who provided the red chap with his arms. The body has a stretched, twisted quality, and looked as if it was about to turn into something else. All of this made me think of The Thing, and so I got some bits together and turned him into a warping, shape-changing monstrosity.

I liked the idea that his head wasn't needed anymore, and would just flop to the side while horns and tentacles burst from his body. Having the big tentacle and the spikes all pointing the same way gives the model a sense of movement. I sculpted an eye to replace his head and act as a focal point.

The model was painted in flesh tones, with a lot of washes to vary the colours. I undercoated in black and then painted a variety of odd colours to sit under the flesh: bright red, camo green and blue. Hopefully this makes the flesh more unwholesome and variable. The head was deliberately left rather lacking in detail: it's no longer important to this creature, after all.

I left the clothes in drab shades and painted the eye with a bright blue pupil, to draw attention. I've got to say, I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Horrid, really.

Loads of Tyranids - zoats, zoanthropes and spore mines

 Hello again! It's time for a big post about tyranids.

I've been slowly working on a bunch of old tyranid models over the last couple of months. First up, I was able to acquire a second metal zoat fairly cheaply on ebay a while ago. This chap has a missile launcher. While he's a very detailed model, I found it quite hard to work out exactly what was what with his weapon. I suppose it's all "biological stuff", so that's not too much of an issue. I enjoyed painting this model a lot.

Here he is with his friend, about to hit the town.

Next up are three zoanthropes. These are floating psychic creatures that functioned in the game as tank-shooting artillery, a bit like lascannon teams. These models are the second iteration of the zoanthrope and were released around 2000: the first version was a four-limbed creature like a Tyranid warrior with a very big head, and looked a bit silly (like a lot of the very early Tyranids).

Originally, these guys had large helmet-like shields that went over their heads, and were usually painted like bone armour. However, these shields obscure their heads, and I think they they look better with their nasty little faces on display. They're identical models, although someone had trimmed the spikes off one of the miniatures. If you want to bulk out your army with a conga line of giant evil sperms, this is the unit for you.

Last of all, I've painted a unit of spore mines. Spore mines were Tyranid artillery, either fired by a creature called a biovore, or dropped in from on high and left to drift around the battlefield. They were essentially a mobile hazard, and were probably intended to slow down and confuse the enemy. They come in three varieties (frag, acid and krak), and were both plastic and metal. I bought some of these models as a bunch, and others came with various old tyranids. I collected them together until I had enough for a little unit.

Strange looking things, really (they remind me of Smarties), but they do fit the rather jolly colours of the rest of the army, and they're actually quite nice miniatures. They would make good weird little aliens, too. 

I'm not sure what I'll be painting next, but I think it will be some kind of fantasy creature. We shall see!

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.

It's not Ripley, honestly

 Once again, I've gone back to finishing off some of the huge pile of random models that I've accumulated over the years.

First up, here's an entirely original space explorer, made with Frostgrave female crew bits and a barbarian's head. 

Second, I found a broken knight from a Privateer Press game, which I'd bought in a bunch of stuff ages ago. It was missing arms and a horse's head. I added a medieval head and used green stuff to make armour for the horse's neck, to fit the style of the body. The armour reminds me of bomb diffusal suits as much as medieval barding. The rider's arms came from an Atlantic Games "Grognard" soldier.

The paint job is somewhat menacing, in vaguely fascist-looking colours. I added a number to the horse's rear to suggest that this isn't a knight: it's Faceless Trooper 04, out to do evil.

And finally, a couple of female models that I've had for ages. The lady on the left was done in a cyberpunk style, and the woman on the right was painted in a dark blue business suit. They're not amazing castings, but they'd probably make decent random space people. They might be the quickest paint jobs I've ever done, including the plastic monopose termagants from last week.

More weirdness next time!

Zoat!

There are many strange things in Rogue Trader, the ancient tome from which Warhammer 40,000 comes. Some have been elaborated in ever-more-excessive detail (space marines), others haven't changed much (imperial guard) and some have more or less disappeared. 

So, very briefly: zoats were great big tortoise/rhino/ogre centaur things that worked for the tyranids as elite troops and, weirdly, ambassadors. The tyranids produced hormones that made the zoats loyal, but every so often some zoats would break loose and usually ended up working as mercenaries. Famously, according to Rogue Trader, the zoats lived on "Zoatibix". 

There were four 40k zoat models: they all used the same lower body, which makes me wonder if they weren't very popular.

The zoats appeared in the first tyranid army list, which was published in White Dwarf. However, by the time the first codex appeared, they had disappeared. They got a sort of mention in a later codex, as "Colossi" who fought in the "Zoastra-Attila War" against mankind. A zoat appears in Blackstone Fortress, so they're clearly out there somewhere.

Anyhow, I like zoats. Perhaps it's that they're a bit like dinosaurs, or just that they're rather odd. I was very lucky and won an ebay auction for two zoats for a pretty reasonable price on ebay (they normally go for silly money). I painted the first one in a scheme reflecting the model shown in Rogue Trader.

There's loads of good detail on this model: just the two pistols are great sculpting. I was surprised and impressed by how crisp and neat this thing is. It's listed as being sculpted by the Citadel Design Team in the old blue catalogue, but I'd be interested to know who was involved. 

I also took the chance to paint up a few old plastic termagants. These models don't actually overlap with the zoats, but they've got a certain goofy charm.

Another Hive Tyrant and a Load More Tyranids

 I found an old tyranid hive tyrant in a cardboard box, which I probably bought about 25 years ago. I stripped it down and rebuilt it.

This is the second incarnation of the hive tyrant, and appeared in the second tyranid codex. Rumour has it that Games Workshop got into trouble with the owners of the Alien (20th Century Fox, I assume) because it looked too much like the queen from Aliens. I'm not sure if this is true, but I do recall an article on GW's website saying that it looked a bit too much like a certain film franchise. The third version of this miniature largely ditched the second's style, and has remained so ever since. And if you think that's confusing, just wait.

Anyhow, it was a right pig to assemble. I ended up pinning pretty much every limb. I gave it two deathspitters and a barbed strangler: I doubt that this shooty loadout would be much good in battle, but it does look cool. The original model came on a tiny base, the sort that is now used for Space Marine terminators. I gave it a much larger base, to suit the model and hopefully provide some small amount of stability.

It got the usual Hive Fleet Behemoth colour scheme - lots of oldhammer red. It was quite tricky to paint, with a lot of hidden parts that were hard to access. Here it is.

Hideous, really. I particularly like the ammo-scrotum for the barbed stranger. Lovely.

*

Here are some other tyranid models that I've been working on. These are von Ryan's leapers, a sort of smaller version of the tyranid lictor. Their job is to creep up and attack enemies in close combat. 

They're recent plastic models. To be honest, they are both good sculpts and massively overcomplicated. I didn't especially enjoy painting them. I used a base coat of while, with dark blue contrast paint over it - looking back, I don't think this did anything that a simple wash wouldn't have done. They'll do.

And here are some more new miniatures. These are "neurogaunts", a new form of tyranid. I've no idea what these things do, but I felt that they'd make quite good hormagaunts. Okay, let me explain this.

Back in the days of the first tyranid codex, the only hormagaunts you could get were big spindly metal things that toppled over if you looked at them too hard. They didn't look much like other tyranids, especially not the little red termagants, to which they were meant to be closely related, and were much larger than genestealers, which are the tyranids' close combat experts. Now, these new neurogaunts are the same size as the little oldhammer termagants, and I think they work well as hormagaunts. And if you've read this far without getting a headache, I salute you.

Anyhow, here are some. They're really nice models, with a good range of poses. They were extremely quick to paint, since they've got no eyes and only a couple of colours.

And here is a big swarm of these guys. They don't come out well en masse, but you can see that a horde of these things does look quite impressive. A case of quantity being a quality of its own.

Anyhow, that's enough space bugs for now. Next time we'll have some more Stargrave conversions.

Some Kind Of Alien Ostrich Monster

The older I get, the less the whole "grimdark" thing appeals to me. Not for any deep reason, but just because I find it rather dull: too much sepia, mud and inexplicable piles of skulls for my tastes. Of course, people can do what they like, but I find myself increasingly increasingly drawn to make brightly-coloured models of "some kind of robot" or "a space adventurer". Also, outside Warhammer, you don't have to deal with the endless people shouting "heresy!" at each other.

Anyhow, I was in Southampton last weekend, and I visited a Forbidden Planet shop for the first time since the pandemic. If you're wondering, FP is a chain that sells comics, sci-fi and related merchandise, some bits of it classier than others. On the discount shelf, I found several big art books going for almost nothing.

I bought Battle Milk 2 and 3, which seem to consist of design work by a group of film artists, ranging from the realistic to the cartoony and kitsch, and a lavish book called Alien Race, which appears to have been the basis for a film pitch about a "horse" race on another planet and features loads of cool beasts and their weird riders. In any event, it seems that nothing came of it, since all the books were from 2010 or so. I got them for £5: they should have cost £80. 

As an author, it strikes me as slightly sad that books with so much content should be going so cheaply. Anyhow, I found Alien Race quite inspiring, and put together a weird creature of my own.

I had a pair of legs from some kind of mech toy, and a head and neck that I'd used years ago in a failed conversion of the Jabberwock from the Alice books. The neck was from a dark elf hydra, and the head came from a much-chopped squig model. I must have hacked through a lot of metal to make these.

The trouble about toys is that they're often made out of wobbly plastic that isn't very nice to work with (and have dreadful mould lines). The best way to stick this thing together was to use a lot of glue and pinning, and to attach the legs in a sort of full-on sprinting pose, which suited the rather goofy head.

I gave it a bright paint job, influenced by racing cars. I'd had the base lying around for ages - I think it's from a Warmachine model, but I'm not sure how much it's been converted by its previous owner. 

That's me done for now!

Ripley in a Powerloader

 I've got quite a bit of time to myself at the moment, so I've been making lots of models. 

I went to the local games shop and bought the "Sulaco Survivors" boxed set from Gale Force Nine's Aliens game. I love Aliens, which I first saw when I was 15, and which blew me away. It's still an awesome film, and I'd been interested to see what the models were like for a while.

It was also, I'm sorry to say, one of the cheapest things in the shop. Back in the day, you bought models in blister packs, usually in small 4 or 5-man squads of metal miniatures. They tended to be anything from £5 (usually for a character) to £15 (for a little squad). I still remember the outrage of each metal wraithguard costing £8 (about £12 now, which is still enough for one robot).

Anyhow, most GW characters are £20 or more - and £20 for a single plastic goblin seems outrageous to me, even if he does have a magic stick. Boxes of units are generally £25 or more. Other companies make cheaper boxes - North Star's plastic box sets for Frostgrave and Stargrave are really good value - but I don't usually want 20 blokes, even for the good price of £20. 

So, the Sulaco Survivors set was £12. It includes two models for Ellen Ripley and Bishop each. Ripley is in the powerloader that she uses to fight the Alien queen, and on foot and "enraged". I expect that this means that she's a special character in the game. Bishop comes in standard and "broken" form, for when he's been torn in half. Try getting a GW special character for less than £20. Or several of them in the same box. From a film franchise.

As it turns out, the models are good and sharp, although I had to scrape off a lot of mould lines. Assembling the powerloader Ripley was quite fiddly, and I had to paint most of her separately. It's a really nice, neat model, and really captures her about to clock the Alien queen.

My pictures don't really do it justice, but this is a very nice model and I'd recommend it, although it's probably for more experienced modellers (which both of my readers probably are). I had a good time making this and I'm pleased with the result.

Next time, more robots.