Totally Random Figure

Howdy folks,

I'm finally getting around to posting this figure...fittingly I seem to have waited until we had a some snow on the ground and overnight windchills down to -25c last week...very fitting.  This figure has been in my inventory for quite sometime and on my workbench partially painted for probably 3-4 years.

It was kindly given to me by a buddy of mine that I met while dropping off and waiting for the kids at the bus...at the time, I was only painting historical themed miniatures and hadn't really gotten past or prior to the World War 2 timeframe.  He on the other hand, exclusively painted fantasy...so when he discovered I had a very shallow painting pool, he gave me a figure that he thought would be perfect to get me out of that bubble.

Unfortunately it has been long enough since I assembled the figure that I have totally forgotten what the name of it is...or even what company makes it.  SO, if any of you are dialed into the pulse of whats what out there, please feel free to comment below. 

 

Now, since the time I assembled this beast, I have stepped outside of the comfortable WW2 bubble and have painted fantasy (thank you Frostgrave) and have been happy to have done so.  However, because of how epic this figure is, I just couldn't imagine what the paint scheme should be...and I didn't have a plan for getting there either.  I had already tried a first attempt at painting and didn't like the results...hence the 3-4 year (probably longer) delay on the bench.

 

 

At the end of the day, what really helped was reframing where I thought this figure could fit in overall...I'm thinking some awesome boss figure for Frostgrave or similar...and I really think the changes I made to my painting style last year really helped me get through this one. 

 

 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pics...let me know what you think...I really tried to emphasis shades and the quirks of the sculpt of the model, leveraging the detail in those to make them pop and highlight.

   

 

  

Lead Mountain Progress - Expedition 2018

 

Painted:

28mm: figures: 44 (+1)

            vehicles: 3

 

15mm: figures: 12

             vehicles: 17

             terrain: 1

Purchased - 26

Progress - +51

Legion of Stormtroopers...

Howdy folks,

As you recently saw, I am continuing to dip my toe into the Legion water...by this point, I'm pretty sure I'm past all the toes and getting closer to the ankle.  I was really pumped to get the Snowtroopers finished, and maybe in my future there is some Hoth type scenery, etc to come...not sure, but have seen some very inspirational work online.

In the meantime, I recently went through the Stormtrooper expansion box to give these guys a try...first, I have to agree with many posts I've seen...the sea of white stormtroopers is starting to get to me...the poses, like those already seen, are very dynamic for these figures.  It is not hard to imagine them doing battle on the small table.

Previously I had already tackled a couple of speeder bikes (zooooom!) and had based them in the same theme as some rebel troopers I had painted...ala Tatooine or some other desert appropriate environment...I'm happy with how this set turned out and they do look very much in the theme of deserty scenes.

Oh, one thing that I really wanted to do...besides get a nice looking overall paintjob...I wanted to make sure I applied some appropriate weathering to these figs...nothing worse that having crisp whites in the desert...its never that clean!

Anyhow, if you're here...chances are you're here for the pics...So, here goes...

 

"Bazooka" trooper...

 

 

Standard blaster-dude

 

Heavy Trooper, rocking the MG, I mean...SW-42...

 

Section commander - troop leader

 

Again...similar-ish poses with some subtle diff's...

 

 

 

Lead Mountain Progress - Expedition 2018

 

Painted:

28mm: figures: 43 (+7)

            vehicles: 3

 

15mm: figures: 12

             vehicles: 17

             terrain: 1

Purchased - 26 (+7)

Progress - +50



Ticket to Hoth...Veers and co.

Hello hello,

As I'm contemplating the whole Star Wars Legion, I wanted to continue with my "lets try out these figures" approach to investing and keep answering for myself, can I actually paint these.  When I saw General Veers and the Snowtroopers pack at my LGS, I jumped at the chance to further explore.  The figures themselves look very dynamic...they all have great poses and look very tactical, loll.

Veers has an excellent sneer as he's about to get all shootout...and the Snowtroopers have a great range of dynamic poses, looking very operational and 'assaulty'.  It took me some time to get a paintscheme that I really liked and that also mirrored what I remembered the troops to look like from 'Empire'.

The box art from FFG had a couple of variances in the colour schemes...and the release pics showed a different shade as well...

--pic taken from Flight Fantasy Games website--

 

So, I then went to the internets and carried out a fairly complete search for movie screencaps and even found some shots from deleted scenes that gave a better amount of detail on the snowtrooper overall...if you're in doubt, trust me there are dozens of sources for pics...all the way from movie caps to Star Wars Battlefront art to game caps, etc...not to mention, as I was working through my colour choices and getting paint on model...Sorastro released his video and gave me another perspective...

 

For the bases, I again went back to some recent Star Wars Battlefront shots and go the idea of pseudo Star-warsy trench planking...this combined with some Citadel Valhalla Blizzard (an awesome snow effect) gave me the basing I really wanted as well...

 

Between all those sources and ideas, I landed on a scheme that I really like...I think mirrors the look I wanted...so, I hope you enjoy the pics...take care.



Group Shot

General Veers...

Unfortunately, my camera could not cope with the lighting...and I did not realize till much later.

 

The SnowTroops…

Of the troops, this one is my favourite dynamic pose...

Flame-dude...

 

Section commander - troop leader...

 

Blaster carrying soldats...fairly close in pose, with some subtle variations to be unique...

 

 

 

Lead Mountain Progress - Expedition 2018

 

Painted:

28mm: figures: 36 (+8)

            vehicles: 3

 

15mm: figures: 12

             vehicles: 17

             terrain: 1

Purchased - 19 (+8)

Progress - +50

ADATS to the Rescue - 4 CMBG Support

Hey All,

As part of my ongoing 4CMBG project, I have recently completed the latest addition, a gun section of two M113 mounted ADATS (air defence anti-tank system).  These beauties came to fruition for the CF and the Canadian Army in the late 1980's...if memory serves me correct, they came into service approx in 1988-89 with 4th Air Defence Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, yup...Air Gunners.

Comprised of 3 batteries dispersed between Baden and Lahr, the regiment was responsible for higher headquarters and airfield defense.  Combined with the Bofors-Orelikon twin 35mm gun and Skyguard radar, the regiment could throw an impressive amount of ordinance in the air and downrange if need be.  Now, if I recall correctly, doctrine at the time kept these folks fairly close to the airfields, I'm not certain they would have been available to the average troop or company for AD support.  I think this would have stayed the responsibility of the MANPAD sections.

Having transported them in the past, they were certainly an undertaking to move from A to B...the thing that impressed me the most about the ADATS were the gunners themselves.  Yes yes, I know...they're air gunners...BUT, the amount of dexterity, control, and coordination that was required of the gunners was amazing.  I say this because, these gunners used a joystick to control the trajectory of the missiles, these missiles were guided by a laser designator (ala beam-rider), and these missiles were smokeless and traveled at Mach-3.  The dexterity to get them on target was simply impressive - especially given that there was a point where the laser bloomed too much to allow controllability...so you had to be on!

We had one of the young gunners (hook privates) in the pilot seat one time...no word of a lie, that fellow flew the aircraft for about 40 mins (we kept altitude locked), but the hands on the controls were smooth.

Anyway...war-ish story over...I very much enjoyed painting these models up...they painted up quite quickly.  The part that took the longest was painting up the camo netting and making the license plates for the vehicles.  I found a link that gave the number range of all the M113 ADATS and then I spliced about 3-4 separate license plate decals to reflect the appropriate number.

Here are the pics folks...take care.

 

Have a good one...hope you enjoyed the pics.

Lead Mountain Progress - Expedition 2018

Painted:

28mm: figures: 28

            vehicles: 3

15mm: figures: 12

             vehicles: 17 (+2)
             terrain: 1

Purchased - 11 (+2)

Progress - +50

How I painted...I mean, spent my summer...

Hello folks,

It's good to see you all...yes, previous reports of my being alive were not over exaggerated.  I am still here and to show you how I painted my summer, I thought I would share a bunch of pics of some of the figures that I finally cleared off of my workbench.

I was given these Reaper figs a little while back (thanks Mike) and really liked the look of them...they were different from what I currently had on the paintbench, different from what I was collecting, and all in all were a fun diversion to try out a different paint idea and practice shading and inks.

The Shadow came up very quickly...I think it only took a few hours over a couple of nights...and that was more to let the inks dry...the scheme itself was fairly simple, which certainly lets projects progress quickly.  I must say I am very happy with how the figure turned out in the end.

These sci-fi grunts were an interesting challenge...more so in what scheme to use.  Afterall, I had been painting a lot of Stormtroopers, so there was no motivation for me to paint them white...ugh.  Instead, I got a BSG collectable from my wife that she had found in the local comic book shoppe...it was one of those buy the item, open the bag, see what you get.  In this case, I got Chief Tyrol

-picture from Go Figures Collectables-

...and looking at the collectable and the figures, I decided to paint these troops up as if they were deck hands who had been given some random armour and told to be part of the security force (ala BSF for those that know the acronym).

I think the concept worked well, I'm happy with the colours...it took some mixing on my part to get the right look and shade that I was aiming for...so yeah, another happy venture.

 Thanks as always for the looking...I hope you enjoy! 

Lead Mountain Progress - Expedition 2018

Painted:

28mm: figures: 28 (+5)

            vehicles: 3

15mm: figures: 12

             vehicles: 15
             terrain: 1

Purchased - 9

Progress - +50