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.

Hobby Off Run...

After work today I swung by Hobby Off. Basically it's a big second hand shop for all kinds of hobby stuff... games, musical instruments, stereo and computer components, cards, figures, models, trains, toys everything.

I hit the 1/72 scale WW2 aircraft models, and came away with these for ¥630 each. the Thunderbolt will be painted up as an RAF Thunderbolt Mk II to support a future Chindit force in Bolt Action. The P39 and P40 will be painted up as early war USAAF support for my US Platoon in North Africa and the Pacific.

I also picked up another Kotobukiya MSG attack helicopter drone (not pictured) and this gigantic MS Gundam MSN-04 Sazabi in approximately 1/60 scale I believe. You can see it dwarfing those TAG Marines on the 80mm round. Not sure when or where I will be using it... but I have a 28mm scale giant robot now....

I do have a couple 1/48 scale mecha models that remain unbuilt, and a number of LBX kits that stand about 1/3rd as high. The LBXs are a bit too small to make believable cockpits spaces in the torsos... i will probably use them as Sentinel-like robots instead.

Or maybe once a month...

January was a pretty quiet month hobby wise.

I did decide to get into Bolt Action - mostly because of Facebook conversations with my friends back in the States; particularly Lee (the man behind CIA games, and an annoyingly good professional miniature painter).

So last month I took advantage of a free shipping and free model deal at warlord Games - indeed because of the efficiency of Royal Mail's international delivery - I often seek out distributors in the UK over US and even Australia based ones.

The Warlord stuff (D-Day Firefight Starter set and the Italeri produced M4 Sherman Medium Tank in 1/56) came along rather quickly. The starter set included 20 US infantry, 12 German infantry, 1 Hanomag halftrack in 1/56, a smaller format version of the basic rules, plastic ruined farmhouse terrain piece, 10 D6s and 10 order dice (five each of black and olive).

I got busy building a US BAR gunner and soon confirmed that the Warlord produced minis are not to my taste. I had expected that, and already had an order in for seven packs of Artizan US infantry figures, as well as an order in for applicable Vallejo model color paints from Volks in Osaka. Interestingly, despite being ordered on the same day, the Artizan shipment from the UK beat the Sagawa transport shipment from a shop 4 hours away by car. I love Royal Mail.

Writing off the plastic infantry is a bit of a waste, but given the two vehicles and dice and book... i think I would have spent more on them separately (20 for a PDF of the rules (the cheapest version), 20 for the M4, 17 for the Hanomag, 16 for the farmhouse, and about 10 for the dice... so 83 pounds total for the 70 I spent) so I have no compulsions about sending them off to the parts bin or more likely gifting them to a friend who would use them. Also, although I like the Italeri kits... future vehicles will probably be Rubicon... they are just cheaper and I think a shade nicer.

Now, with figures and materials in hand... I've decided to set the goal of having my American reinforced platoon table ready for my trip back to the States in August to table against Lee - who's notoriously unlucky with dice - heheheheheh.

In other news, I am waiting for the sealant to set on the first 6 painted minis of 2016, and the new house. I'll post them when I get the bases finished.

Happy New Year 2K16!

My New Year's resolution is to post more often... twice a month is my minimum goal.

So to start off 2K16 here is what I've been putzing with:

base: Hot Wheels Mid-Scale (1/50) 1959 Chevrolet Impala.

rear wheels: the front axle from a Fastlane haul truck (those giant mining dump trucks).
front wheels: axel from a "Mars Attacks" truck from Mantic.

scale mini: Wargames Foundry

The haul truck wheels are hollow, so there will be some filling or plating with plasticard. I'd like to do a bladed front bumper, and a pintle mount or turret. Windows will be armored over, and I'm leaning toward a rusty rat-rod type paint scheme. The back bumper is also pretty high, so I might sling two oil drums under the boot.