15mm Ion Age - Adder hovercraft

 More minis that have sat unpainted for far too long. These lovely hovercraft are from 15mm.uk, originally part of the ion age line I believe. There are version with wheels and tracks as well instead of the skirts.

Prior to moving from Vancouver I had these partially painted. I got hung up on what to use to highlight, I tried some nearly fluorescent green and it didn't look right. So it sat.....and sat.

 

 

Eventually the grey adder was released, a APC variant (rather than IFV I guess). I grabbed a set and decided to finish these bastards. 

Naturally the difficulty with any tank, and especially green ones, is to try and make it not look like a blob of colour. I'm not sure that it's as non blobby as I'd like, but it's done. And that's a win.

 

6MMRPC: Week 21 Ion age Adder WIP - Please help

Work Continues on the ion age adder. I'm struggling to try and match it thematically to the khurasan siler also pictured here (not painted by me). The initial airbrushing seemed to match reasonably well, but I appeared to make the mistake of inking with black all over....too dark. Now that I brought it back up with the base colour....and then even more with a brighter green, I'm sorta stuck on what to do.




Obviously I should break up the expanse of green a bit more. The ion age 'stock' paint job here, shows a good use of bands of colour to differentiate the styles of adder (largely turret/armament changes). I don't think I want it as bold as this. I did think some weathering (mud on the skirts, big dust smears by the air vents) and chipping (silver/black, possibly some rust) would help.....but I think it needs something more.

Viewer suggestions would be very much appreciated. 

 So far my suggestion has been: "So pick a few hatches or weapons, whatever, and paint them a different base colour the. Highlight etc separately. Could be as simple as blackening the guns and using. Tan for a few hatches.And you can also use a trick I read about which is to use a progressively lighter base coat as you go up the vehicle." (h/t Bryan).


So please feel free to chime in with some direction here. You can see in the foreground of this pic what I have right now. The middle guy is the test fig. This gives an idea of what I've tried, and what I have to move from.

As background, I purchased a painted set of figures from Richard Chief Lackey (who made the starport slum buildings I think). He appears to recently be no longer active on tmp, which is a shame b/c that's how I caught his frequent auctions on ebay. He has some quite varied and nice stuff up almost continuously as mingjerkyking.

The figs were the khurasan siler tanks (which I love and largely the reason I bought the lot) and a bunch of NAC figs (seen in my gruntz AAR HERE). I have more NAC I bought myself from GZG (ground zero games) which I need to finish, no doubt I'll colour match here. I like the idea of the adders as some fast moving battlefield taxis with support weapons.

6MMRPC: Week 18 Ogres, Diggas, Musselmen WIP

I managed to miss a week of posting for the challenge, and I'm a day late for this one. Not the best start to the New Year.

I managed to get the legio heroica muslims assembled at last. I ended up getting some advance from Cameron (we piggy backed our order) and bought some CA glue accelerator. Pretty marvelous stuff actually....now your instant drying glue truly does glue instantly. I'm not sure if the glue gets a bit 'tired' over time and glues more slowly, or simply that some materials don't want to stick together. Regardless, a little accelerator on one part, the glue on the other and *presto* they stick together much MUCH easier.

I'm hoping to get these guys primed up sometime in the week when the wife is not working on her clothing project in the craftroom. I can put off figuring out a air scubber/ventilation system for a bit longer yet.

My other work was largely with inking. The ion age Adders get a coat of black ink. I will be able to bring them back up towards their base colour via highlighting now. The camera doesn't quite catch the difference to be honest. The pic below being the 'before' image.

The GW gorkamorka diggas that I am adding to the necromunda/post apoc gang members get an inking of sepia ink.

I think it's probably a bit overboard, but it does work for these guys looking 'grubby'. I'll probably rust up the guns and metal a bit, and start the highlights soon.

These are nice figs for inking as they have deep creases in their faces/muscles/clothing.

Finally we have the mordheim ogre. Also inked with sepia, I can see spots of residue on various flat parts (his hat for instance on the upper left). Not terribly happy about the outcome. I'm sure with highlighting I'll be able to save most of the problem areas though.






I have to say this is a fantastic figure. His wicker backpack has ears of corn in it, a sausage hanging from the side (not shown) and a victim/stowaway as well (seen in the rear shot).

I'm looking forward to yellowing up his teeth as well. I decided to start with a brown and work up to a healthy yellow/khaki.

6MMRPC: Week 11 - WIP Ion age Hovercraft + GW ogre

Fall hibernation has been hitting me hard lately with a serious decrease in enthusiasm for most activities. I have made some small amount of progress with the painting however.

First up, the Ion age Adders. After priming black (last week), I managed to have another go with the air brush laying down a green base coat. This is, for those familiar with GW paint bottles some colour from the mists of time (as evidence by the paint bottle in the pic with no label on it). I don't even know what it's called, but it's probably from the basic or monster paint sets.

I'm attempting to paint match to the siler tank (from Khurasan) that I picked up from chief lackey richard (off of tmp). He paints some great stuff (seen here). I think after weathering the colour will be close enough.

I thin my paints with windex (generic windex at that) and have been trying to figure out the correct ratios. I have discovered it's better to start with windex and add paint, or you are likely to struggle with clogging until the thinned paint gets to the bottom/displaces the thick whole paint. It was a bit of a gong show struggling to get paint to blow through the brush and then suddenly it works and I have massive blasts of nicely thinned green paint overspraying. Obviously this is the right fig/application to be experimenting, rather than something that actually requires 'staying in the lines'.

I then hit the skirts/plenum with a near black grey camo thing (vallejo), and the gun barrels with my current favorite a grey/green. It has almsot no green as far as I can tell.


 To distract myself, I've been putting on licks of paint on the Mordheim ogre. He was at risk of turning very brown, so I've thrown in the blue. I'm currently considering doing his loose shirt as a tan/yellow thing. It might be worth splitting the colour on his cap with some of the red oxide as per his knee patch.

Opinions gratefully accepted.

6MMRPC: Week 10 - Five (incomplete) items for your perusal

It's been a strange work week, and illness has been skirmishing with the household. As a result, I've been a remiss in my efforts to actually get paint on some miniatures, although I have been active in other parts of hobby-ing. I managed to cut up and deflash a number of figs. Many are  assembled, and I even partially primed stuff. This is the type of easy thing I tend to work on when I can't summon up the verve to get on with paint.




1 - First up is the Russian 28mm Naps. These are more of the Perry's figs I received shortly before the challenge began. To the left are some lead jaegers. I've decided my plastic jaegers will have the forage cap. To be honest, the russian infantry all looks VERY similar. The jaegers do have a lighter green coat (I may be going too light with this, we'll see), and black harnesses. As opposed to dark green and white harnesses.

2- I managed to clean and prime these "Adder" hovercraft from the ion age. Run by Gavin Syme of 15mm.uk the range has been very cool. I have a fair amount of their stuff. There are some things that haven't really grabbed me, but most have.

I intend on adding this to my NAC force (from GZG) which got some play time with Gruntz (which will mean MORE green painting). I figure these will make some nice fast and small troop transports.

3 - These folks are the freebies I got back in September. The chainmail figs (orc shaman and trooper on the left, and 2 dwarves) are very clean castings. I was very impressed.

Two human 'diggers' from GW's gorkamorka are in the back. I'll paint them as random post apocalypse/necromunda gang type figures. Should be easy.



The mordheim Ogre, as noted by some commentators, is a great characterful model. It would appear he has a victim in his wicker backpack as well. The kislevite female archer/scout I'm less enthralled with. She is FAR too busty. Also her sword arm will probably need to be pinned as it doesn't want to stay attached.

The last fig is a beastman centaur. I like it....sorta. The head is a bit silly with a skull helmet over a fairly diabolic face with a braided goatee and horns. Not a fan. The super dumb part is his weapon. I suppose a club with multiple spikey bits is on par for technology, but the frickin thing is taller than a human. Also, it probably doubles the height of the fig which is rearing and pointing his weapon straight into the air. I'll definitely be making a conversion with this.

4 - This is the modular refiner set from pegasus games. It's been around for a long time, and I finally picked one up probably even within the last year. It's truly tedious to clip out and clean the flash though. I'm hoping it won't be utterly confusion to assemble. I do see numerous picks on the web of these things lurking in the backgrounds as scatter terrain, so I'm hopeful of the final product.





5 - A non-hobby item; The fall forest bounty. I went mushroom picking last weekend with a friend who does it regularly. This was the haul between the two of us for just under three hours. Chanteralls (yellow), hawks wings (top brown/grey), some oysters, and some other stuff I forgot. It was a tasty week to be dining here.