Eyehole Brush - you know, a brush... for your eyehole.

Back from a makeup-brushes-for-painting-minis run at the ¥100 store... got me an "eyehole brush".

I'm still not going to paint eyes on my minis... but it's nice to see daily proof of your job security.

Vietnam-era Flying Boxcar

I have two of these Disney Planes Cabbie toys. They are a wonderful compromise on scale for table top use. Shorter wings and thicker fuselage fits in well. One of them will be a mercenary plane based on the seaplan from The Expendables, and the other will be a Vietnam-era transport.

Paint is mostly done (it still needs a red prop warning line on the fuselage), and I began applying decals - from a number of different sheets - today. I need a decent day of low humidity to clear coat and I probably will add a few warning decals still. Cockpit windows, weathering, prop magnets, and landing gear need to be finished up.

Markings and paint scheme are fictional. I decided to do a Marines C-119 painted in a manner similar to the AC-119 gunships with black lowers and "South-East Asian" camouflage upper surfaces. GreenStuff World's decal sheet had an appropriate name, "Rice Pattie [sic] Hattie", that seemed something a Marine aircrew might paint on the aircraft. The scorpion tail marking is from Gnomish Workshop and is a call out to a fictional squadron from a t-shirt I got at Target years ago.

Elevated Train

I began disassembly and priming of one of the two train cars I picked up. I had originally seen these trains at Toys R Us in Matto about nine years ago. They are a deluxe version of a popular line of friction powered train toys that have light and sound effects. These are Hankyu 9000 series trains, a later version of the trains I used to commute when I was an exchange student in Kobe in 1997.

I didn't pick them up at the time because they were about twice the cost of the regular trains in the line. However they recently went OOP and I managed to snag two used ones on the intertubes. I wanted these because of the walk-through cab design that reminds me of the El in Chicago and NYC subway trains.

The intent is to use the bronze-base metal technique to make them look like scuzzy urban trains, then apply some blue striping and grafitti decals, before finishing off with a few washes to dirty them up more. For those not aware, the 'bronze-base' technique is a way to quickly paint tarnished metal by applying a drybrush of aluminum or gunmetal over a bronze basecoat. The peek-through of the bronze creates a rusty or grimy effect in the crevices. I tried this technique out on an Ameri-Towne building I had laying about and was very pleased with the results.

Weathered Buildings

This is a tenement from TT Combat. It's not a particularly detailed MDF building, but they are extremely affordable. It went together quickly and I modified the garden appartment to place the balcony away from the street. Basic paint, and then lots of washes. Added some grafitti, both decal and hand drawn.

I also built and painted a few of the Sarrissa Precision South-East Asian building I got. Its just a basic brown undercoat with lots of washes to make them look aged and weathered. Going to cut up some old towels for the thatch roofs.

Patrol Boat, River and two Fiats

Built and painted a PBR from Sarissa Precision today. Modified the roof with some hemp twine covered with crumpled paper sealed with ModPodge. Created a better feeling of canvas over metal supports.

It has some interesting proportions, probably not quite to scale but allowing minis to be placed on the deck. It is missing a forward dual-fifty turret, so I'll have to figure that out. I also changed the order of the rounds for the radar, and sanded the top-edge to make it look more accurate.

While I had the paints out I finished up the windows on two Fiat 500Fs I bought at the car museum years ago.

Supplies

Some things in Japan are incomprehensibly difficult to find: string that isnt plastic; mitre boxes; nail files; old people wearing masks; wood stain that isnt actually acrylic paint...

I went to four stores to find nail files. None of the drug stores carried them. Go figure. This is the resultant haul. Auto primer for minis. Notebooks that look like passports. Combat Magazine Vietnam issue. Superglue. Spray bottles. And a cheap Moscow mule (ginger ale and vodka).

TTCombat Brownstone

Building the three brownstones/tenements I got from TTCombat. Not a fantastically clever MDF design, but the price is really good.

April Paintings

Aside from doing a bit of work on the UltraModern Armoury. I also managed to paint up some WW2 infantry this month.

First up were seven USMC, the Ceramcoat Sea Green airbrushed on as a color base very nicely, and was able to be touched up by brush. German Camo Beige web/canvas gear, Leather Brown boots and holsters, and helmet covers of Khaki with Camo Olive Green and Mahogany Brown spots washed over in Khaki. Weapons are Gunmetal and Mahogany Brown; base is Iraqi Sand.

But that is a lot of white folks. I think one of the things that has kept me from historical WW2 games is the segregation of US Forces. So one of the things I decided was to integrate my units. There was some integration of combat units, notably K Company of the 394th Infantry Regiment (coincidentally a Pittsburgh unit) after the Battle of the Bulge; I have decided to fudge the dates and have my platoon, based on K/324th, integrated while the unit was fighting in North Africa. It's ahistorical, but I don't care... so much of the hobby is ahistorical... I'm changing this one.

So here are my first Army guys:

Five And A Half More...

I finished painting more minis this weekend. I was rather taken by the finished colors on the urban guerrilla pictured at right. I had used two Ceramcoat shades of green on her clothing and they finished rather nicely I thought, so I decided to use those colors as the basis for my trooper schemes. You can see the results here, the male troopers are ex-Grenadier castings by EM-4/Mirlington, the female is from Copplestone Castings.

The troopers were done a bit slap-dash, but they came out well enough. The guerrilla (a Copplestone Castings' Partisan) was painted to a much higher standard, with yellow marking stripe on the grenade and a storied baseball team cap.

At the far left is the other plainclothes cop from Northstar's "Fistful of Kung Fu" line. Probably should have gone for a higher contrast between vest and shirt, but I wanted to try that purple. Sue me.

Trooper Scheme:

Uniform: Ceramcoat "Timberline Green"
Armor: Ceramcoat "Dark Forest Green" with VMC 053 "Chainmail Silver" scratches; with VMC 010 "Bloody Red" optic lens on the helmet.
Boots/Holster/Electronics: Ceramcoat "Charcoal" with VMC 053 "Chainmail Silver" drybruch on the edges of electronic devices.
Firearms: Ceramcoat "Charcoal" barrel/GL/magazine with VMC 053 "Chainmail Silver" drybrush, and VMC 062 "Earth" receiver
Beret: VMC 011 "Gory Red"
Pouches: Army Painter "Army Green"

Urban Bases: Ceramcoat "Hippo Grey", drybrushed in Ceramcoat "Bridgeport Grey" and flocked with Woodland Scenics "Burnt Grass" static grass.

Housekeeping

Slight overhaul of the blog design yesterday. It seems the template I use is not fully supported anymore, particularly the wallpaper has been discontinued. So a quick modification of the banner and a drop in of the Delta Green web-kit background have brought things back to a look i am content with. the delta green background is particularly fitting, I think, as this blog was started six years ago as a campaign chronicle and web-supplement for my Delta Green campaign.

I also painted up an 18th miniature last night - he was all I got done yesterday. I wasn't feeling great yesterday morning, so after dropping the kids at school I laid down for a two hour nap that ended when my daughter came home from school. Anyway, a Copplestone Casting's biker from the Future Wars line to go with the one I painted last week.


Oh and happy news yesterday that Copplestone Castings sales and ordering will be managed by Northstar from the 14th of this month (which is the day before payday, woot!). This puts most of my favorite lines (Northstar, Artizan, Crusader, and Copplestone) in the same online shopping basket. Woot!

Painting Miniatures of Color

I am a really big fan of diversity - both in life and my gaming table - one of the reasons I prefer Vietnam era wargaming to the segregated army of WW2, for example. However painting miniatures that read on the table as non-white is not as easy as it might seem.

This is a skin tone tests for non-white characters. In all I'm rather pleased with the results... the only disappointment is the dirtiness of the white suit... but the photo accentuates it and it looks better in real life.

All the skintones were Vallejo Model Colors. For the three Asian figures on the left (Yakuza gangster "oyabun leader" painted as a low level chimpira in flamboyant red suit, and a "heroic cop" both from Northstar's Fistful of Kung Fu line; female "citizan militia" painted as a Hong Kong SDU officer) were painted with VMC 036 "Bronze Fleshtone". It is a bit stereotypically yellow, but it reads as "Asian" more than any more nuanced tones I've tried. It shall be my go to Asian skintone.

Next we have a "news team minder" painted as a city detective (from Copplestone Castings's Future Wars line) painted with Valleho Model Color Extra Opaque 140 "Heavy Skintone" which I think will read well for both Hispanic/Latino/Chicano and North African/S.W. Asian characters.

Finally "corporate babe 2" (also Copplestone Castings; Future Wars line) painted as an armed female corp with Vallejo Model Color 044 "Dark Fleshtone"which I fine to be a very attractive, rich black skintone in miniature - the photograph really doesn't do the actual miniature justice... she looks gorgeous in person... with just a hint of dirtiness to the white suit. I will definitely be using this color more often.

So those are my basic skintones for non-white miniatures... I would like to find more shades for each that could offer more variety while still remaining identifiable at scale... I have four or five shades of Caucasian/white fleshtone by comparison. However the fact is that real skintones aren't as defined - my wife and I are nearly the same shade for example... and at scale the slightly cartoonish choices of skintone become more important to distinguish the miniatures intended ethnicity. In my previous batch of minis I had experimented with "Heavy Fleshtone" for a lighter-skinned black woman, and "Elf Skintone" (VMC 004) for Asian characters... the results were a Latina-looking woman and two white-looking women respectively. Indeed the Asian characters skintones (two at center) are hard to distinguish from the the three "white" skintones used on the redhead corporate babe with the sword (VMC 089 "Cadmium Flesh"), the partisan in magenta watchcap (Ceramcoat"Medium Flesh"), and the biker on the end (VMC 100 "Rosy Flesh"),

Eleven Minis Painted and Counting...

I've actually gotten some painting done. Six old west minis (mostly Foundry and an Artizan) that were actually started back in Pittsburgh at one of our paint nights... what... three years ago? Four? Well they are finished.

I also finished five Copplestones (I think the biker is one of his Grenadier sculpts from EM-4/SG mirlington) from scratch. In the background are two 1/55th scale cars... the Unimog 1500 is from Siku and was picked up on Ebay last fall... the Honda CRZ is from Majorette and was one of two I picked up at the supermarket two weeks or so ago.

I've got about a squad's worth of WW2 US Infantry from Artizan cleaned and mounted, and a platoon's worth of Copplestone Casting's Chinese troops that will be painted as WW2 Royal Thai Army, all waiting for dry weather to be primed.

I actually did some hobby stuff.

First vacation day in the new house... no kids, no wife... went to the Japan Motorcar Museum and shot about 400 photos of cars before my battery gave out, picked up a couple 1/48 scale Fiats in the gift shop... lunch, home improvement store for washers, and other odds and ends... then I actually did something directly game related:

Three cars (2 previously mentioned diecast Fiat 500F's, and one plastic BMW 7 series) taken apart, bodies abraded and primed; 27 washers glued into 27 Reaper plastic round bases; 5 EM4/ex-Grenadier Future Warriors minis, 2 Copplestone Castings Future Wars minis, 4 Northstar Yakuza Gangsters minis, and one Empress Afghan Insurgent mini, cleaned, based and primed.

I actually did some hobby stuff today. first time in years.

Now for some Sons of Anarchy before they get home...

Hong Kong Police Cars

First draft of police car decals, version: modern HK, for my "Fistful of Kung Fu" forces.

Layout is based on the 1/50 scale BMW 7 series models I have - and is a pretty traditional jam sandwich design. Hong Kong does have British-style Battenburg cruisers but they are limited to traffic division vehicles, standard patrol cars are still like this.

Optimized for clear decal film printed and applied to a white car. Rear bumper decal is over printed to allow it to be wrapped, and the rear plate text will be adhered over a yellow painted plate.

Wow. That was one heavy box.

Okay. That was quick. The nice people at Volks wasted no time in getting me my order of Vallejo Game Color and pumice basing compound. I went all in and got, pretty much, the entire line. There were a few out of stock items, but by ordering two 16 color sets and then filling in the blanks, I was able to get most everything. I'm actually only missing the Gloss Varnish, Thinner, and Metallic Medium. I can deal with that.

Yesterday my order of Liquitex Acrylic Gesso (both black and white) arrived, joining the 14 Ceramcoat pots I picked up at a craft store in Kaga. Toss in my sable brushes and I really don't have an excuse to not be painting anymore.

Well I do have to go to work today, so hopefully next week we will have some painted stuff up. Fingers crossed.

Grenadier's Future Warriors 28mm: 19 Years On

Nearly 20 years ago (christ, it can't be that long ago), Grenadier released a line of cyberpunk/post apocalyptic miniatures under the Future Warriors name. The minis were sculpted by Mark Copplestone, who was known for having worked for GW. The sculpts (as all of Mark's work) were excellent, beautifully proportioned, clean, a filled a sorely underrepresented genre of miniatures: 28mm near future.

It didn't hurt that the troopers were dead ringers for Colonial Marines from Aliens (and were a damn sight better looking than the licensed minis from Leading Edge Games (which sucked frankly).

The line was commissioned to support the Future Warriors: Kill Zone rules published by Grenadier during those twilight years of the former miniature giant. Sadly Grenadier was already on borrowed time and these fantastic miniatures vanished when Grenadier folded in 1996.

Luckily in 1996 there was this expansion of something called "the internet" and within a few years this invention would reveal to me that the Grenadier minis were not lost to history. Both EM4 and Mirliton SG continue to produce the ex-Grenadier minis (under the names Future Skirmish and Cyber Wars respectively), with significant overlap but not complete duplication. Additionally Mark Copplestone re-sculpted most of the line and offers them on his site as the Future Wars line.

I buy from all three, and this morning I was greeted by a package from Ring-Tail, a hobby shop in Ōita Prefecture. A couple months back I discovered their mobile site and placed an order for seven Cyber Wars packs (three packs of scavengers, three of troopers, and a pack of dataterms). They took some time to arrive, as they were not in stock and had to be ordered from Italy. That said the price was reasonable and I didn't mind waiting.

Today I'm just going to introduce the scavenger figs that I got, there will be shown in more detail as I paint them, with the troopers and dataterms (as well as assorted other stuff that has arrived) getting posts of their own in the coming days.

The first of the three packs is Cyber Wars CW1501 "Scavengers." It is a five figure pack, basically a re-release of the original #1501 Scavengers pack from the Grenadier Future Warriors UK line. All of the figures are Mark Copplestone sculpts dating from about 1994. Four of the figures were later released in blisters of two stateside as #1501 Scavengers and #1513 Street Scum. I have not been able to determine if the fifth figure was also re-released in a two-fig blister. EM-4 also offers these miniatures as part of their Future Skirmish line (from left: #0046, #0043, #0042, #0044, & #0045).

The second pack is labeled "1504 Future Savage," but is Cyber Wars CW1504 "Rebels" (according to Mirliton's web catalog). Essentially a re-release of the #1504 "Rebels" pack from the from the Grenadier Future Warriors UK line. Sculpts by Mark Copplestone about 1994. As above, EM-4 also offers these miniatures as part of their Future Skirmish line (from left: #0076, #0075, #0078, #0069, & #0077).

Finally (for today) is the Cyber Wars CW1521 "Gentleman Scavenger" by Mirliton SG. Consists of one figure from the #1525 "Overlords" pack from the Grenadier Future Warriors line. Mark Copplestone sculpt from about 1994, and offered by EM-4 as #0041 in the Future Skirmish line.

Once I can get my hands on some decent paint, I hope to get these guys finished sooner rather than latter. That shouldn't be too long, I'm putting together an order for Volks as soon as the Golden Week holiday is finished. They don't carry the Game Color case, and it actually costs more than ordering the bottle individually, so I made a list approximating the contents of the Army Painter complete set using Game Color. People might ask why I just don't get the Army Painter set. Well, I have not found a vendor in Japan, I have experience and the highest regard for Vallejo paints, and I can get 40 pots delivered of Vallejo for less than the cost (without tax or shipping) of the 36-pot Warpaints set. Clearly Game Color is the way to go.

Back on the Grid in the 2013

So. It has been a while. The end of 2013 saw my family and I moving to Japan, which has put quite the kaibosh on anything RPG or miniature related. For about four months my internet connectivity was limited to what I could do on my mobile... mostly Facebook updates. But the internet has returned, and the kids are in school, so I hope to be making regular posts in the near future.

Of course, even though I've been busy, I've kept my eyes open. I've collected a number of models from Tamiya's 1/48 scale WW2 line for use with Dust Tactics, and even some Dust Tactics minis from Amazon.co.jp. I've also found a few pull back ambulances that look to scale pretty well with larger 28s like Reapers and Clix, as well as a number of Bandai robot kits that I think have potential for 28mm scale semi-giant mecha, and Space Battleship Yamato plastic kits that scream Full Thrust.  Hopefully I can get something together and throw them up online here in the near future.

But there is a problem. Japanese paints suck. Really, they are freaking awful. I'd been unhappy with Tamiya acrylics before and dropped some cash on Mr. Color brand... which maybe worse. The pigment density is too light and they brush on very thick. The result is a translucent color with a pastey consistency. Tracking down some Vallejo is my priority... sadly that means a trip to Osaka, which is not in the cards right now.

I have discovered a miniature source that stocks many of my favorite lines, and I am currently awaiting delivery of an order of Ex-Grenadier Future Wars minis from them. I'm very excited.

So with a bit of luck I might be able to post something more interesting in the next week or so... from Japan. I do have a few unpublished posts that I will retroactively pop up in the mean time.

Oh. And the blog turned three on Friday. Woot!

Finished: Copplestone Scavengers & Partisan

In May I finally got some Woodland Scenics Burnt Grass flock to finish the bases of my Copplestone Castings scavengers. They actually come from three packs; Two are Sewer Scavengers (FW2), two are Scavenger Heroes (FW31) and the last is from the Partisan Fighters (FW40) pack.  I've had these minis for years - part of a large order I placed in 2004 while living in Japan.  They sat a round for quite a while, were based on washers then MDF rounds, then washers again...  Finally I decided to paint them at our weekly paint night, without an actual plan.

I don't paint particularly well, occasionally I manage to pull off something cool, but mostly I block paint and use Army Painter Quickshade.  This is mostly from a lack of patience and that if I don't do it this way I'll be repainting them forever.

My basic plan is to paint minis into 10 man units/gangs, a nice round number that fits well into VHS box mini cases.  Four of the scavengers here will be part of the same gang, noted by the red articles on all of them - I was inspired by a western gang painted with the same idea in Warhammer Historical Old West.  The tall, man-ish lady will be part of another gang noted by the blue.  Basically I ended up painting Crips and Bloods/TAP Boyz. - though that certainly wasn't planned.

The black chap was towards the end of the night and is based on a friend of mine.  You can see that my accuracy had suffered a bit from fatigue. Still on the table he looks fine and I don't think I'll repaint - though I might use a black Sharpie to nick that red fleck on his dreads.

Of all I think I am most impressed with the Crown Royal bag on the belt of the dude with the SMG.  Sitting around painting with a bunch of old-skool gamers, that part of the sculpt just screamed "Crown Royal dicebag!"  I am rather pleased how the stitching came out.

I got these guys painted in pretty much one night, a couple touch ups and the quickshade applied later in the week.  It was about there that they languished as I was without any dull coat.  Once I got around to picking that up I needed flock... thus the weeks added up.  Finally (a couple weeks later) they stood finished.

These are the first minis I'd completely finished this year, though I have a about seven western minis that were painted and quickshaded before these guys (awaiting dull coat and finished bases).  These guys have already appeared in a Daring Tales of the Sprawl game, and should work well in post apocalyptic, dirty/hard sci-fi and even modern settings. Last week an order from EM4 of ex-Grenadier Future Wars minis arrived from the UK - once my bases arrive from Litko I'll try to get them painted up to oppose these guys in Combat Zone and Cyberpunk/DTotS RPGs.