Preview Minis Arrived

Another really quick update.

I received my preview casts the day after I posted Gavin's pics (gotta love that mail). I won't post additional pics because Gavin's speak better than any I could take of raw lead. Let me just leave it at, "I'm very happy and they are nice casts."

I have been asked to try to demonstrate the uses for the fleet scale mecha and so far have the following ideas in mind -

• Fleet scale fighter stand-ins (their intended purpose)
• 6mm infantry
• 2-3mm ground mecha

The first is easy enough as I have spaceships to show them off along side, however, I really do not have any suitable 6mm or 2-3mm minis save for those based up for Land Ironclads which, honestly, are very much Victorian style organizations.

I am open to suggestions for possible other angles to go. I know Mik from Mik's minis wants to use them as some sort of micro-bot swarm. I can see them as pretty cool minions for a Toy Man type villain in a 28mm superheroes miniatures game.

These should be available through 15mm.co.uk soonish I hope, but we'll have to wait for the official announcement to know for sure.

Take care and thanks for reading!

-Eli

Haven't Given Up On The Lead

It has been a bit since I have posted anything about my miniatures projects. I have not been overly motivated to put brush to metal of late but I have been working on some things. The most active painting project has been the 2mm Land Ironclads stuff, but even that has been set aside. Another project was some troops for my VSF imagi-nation of Elistonia. I've included a few WIP pics to show you how these are going -

Rough color blocking showing the sorts of color being used. Elistonia is not a huge nation so expensive dyes are reserved for caps and officer's uniforms.

Packs, bread bags and simple bedrolls are carried by each Elistonian soldier.

The collected sum of what I have painted in 2mm for my Martian city-states. Approximately 360 citizen warriors, 240 household warriors, 69 tribal cavalry, 26 household cavalry, 15 sniper/scouts, 3 armored rumat brehr with cannon howdah, 3 unarmored rumat brehr each carrying 2 martian jezzails.

Martian infantry. The household warriors in the front were painted with more metallic color to show their better armor. They are also placed in closer order between the two lines to show better discipline. The two lines represent the Martian tactic of using "cutters" and "shooters" together.

A bit blurry but this picture shows the green of the Martian mounts under the yellowish skin and metallic armor and weapons of the Martians. These MArtians are painted as tribal warriors, recruited from the area around the city itself and are not well  armored. The household cavalry that I did have more metallic color on them and their mounts to show their better equipment. They are also based in lines as opposed to these tribal warriors who fight in loose wedges.

2mm Tribal Martians for Land Ironclads

I finally had a chance to go through the contents of the army pack I ordered from Irregular Miniatures. Because there are no dedicated Martian figs in the Irregular line, I ordered an Earthly army that seemed like it would fit the feel of a Martian force. My original plan had been to do the army of a Martian city-state but the contents of the army were decidedly less organized so I decided to build a tribal coalition of wilder Martian nomads and such.

Everything in the pic, with the exception of the front cavalry block, came in the army pack and comprises a pretty decent size force. The infantry, beasts, and cav are mounted on 20x40mm bases with the artillery mounted on 20x30mm bases.

I won't go into too many details just yet. That can wait until they are painted, but this should be a fun project.

Take care,

-Eli

Latest Martian Settlement WIP

So, after seeing my WIP pics of the earlier Martian settlements, Rob over at ArmChairGeneral asked me if I would do one (or more) for him. As I was wanting to keep building, I figured why not.

Up until then, all my pieces had been built on pretty linear flat rocks, so I decided to make this one a little more three-dimensional. I also wanted to build somethign bigger than I had so far. Taking a large tear-off of cork tile I then layered up several more pieces near the center of the piece. This came me a central hill jutting up from the city below.

The picture to the right depicts the city in the early layout. It shows the cluster of larger, metropolitan buildings at the top of the city, including what has become a characteristic of my Martians settlements - the tower spire. Below the hill, in the foreground is a rather haphazard cluster of buildings that will make up the lower class section of the city.

The picture below shows the city about 90% through the construction process. You can see the walls and towers in place, showing that this city may have once been fortified all around, but having since let the defenses give way to more living space. To the far left of the pic you will see a large temple structure with a massive dome that marks this city as one of particular importance to Martian religion. It sit atop a raised rocky outcropping of its own and the structure crowds to make use of every inch of space atop that rock. You can see the more haphazard commoner street to the right. Some of the roof tops of the larger buildings have penthouses or patio structures on them.

I still have to figure out how to paint this one. Once again I got carried away with construction and created some terribly tight spaces to try to get a brush into. I really need to paint the buildings then glue them in.

Enjoy,

-Eli

2mm Irregular Arrivals

My gaming buddy Iken and I have been gearing up to make a serious go at Land Ironclads and in doing so we place a big order for 2mm troops from Irregular Miniatures. In all, we ordered three army packs, a supply pack, and a few odds and ends planes, elephants and such.

I will note that while I like doing business with Nic at Eureka, I really couldn't justify ordering the Irregular stuff from him. The cost for the figs, even after exchange rate, come to about 15% more and Irregular only charged us 10% shipping instead of the regular 15% that both they and Eureka charge (because the order was only 2mm stuff). They shipped the order on the 1st and it got here today on the 9th. Fast shipping across the pond.

Only the elephants and one of the army packs is mine but I'm only building one force and Iken is building two. We will be sharing the supply pack but I'm not sure if we are just doing generic supply bases or if we are going to divy them out to specific armies. I haven't been able ot handle the minis yet as they were shipped to his house, but I must admit that I may have ordered the wrong army but I am sure it'll get used nonetheless.

I ordered the Afghan Army pack as I thought it would have a different feel to it than the various European army packs, but it looks, at least from the glimpse in the picture, like the mix of figures may be a bit TOO different. I'll reserve final judgement but I may end up having to make a Martian tribal coalition instead of a citystate army. Iken is planning to front me some of his cav as his alien army he is making doesn't use them. The elphants are going to be converted into Martian beasts but more on that later. I am going to be doing some of the most microscale conversions I've ever done to try to get my 2mm to look like a VSF Martian army ala Space 1889/John Carter.

Stay tuned for more updates!

-Eli

More Martian Settlements

this could be arranged along canals as narrow, canal-side settlements. The picture to the left gives you a look at the simple but effectivestreet orien

The Martian settlements project has been highly experimental but incredibly fun. I have been trying to find more and interesting ways to do them. This is one of those.

What you see is a table edge section of city with a fortifiefied city gate, towers and wall. This would be perfect to set up at the of the table so there is a bit of local color without having it be center stage. This is also the first piece that I tried using accent colors on, giving several of the buildings a crimson stripe as well as the towers and gate.

Future plans for this and other pieces like it include additional table edge sections or possibly modulare city interior pieces that will allow me to create cities of various sizes. Another thought is that pieces like this could be used along canals. The picture to the left show the orientation including a curious back alley.

Hope you like!

-Eli

Martian Settlements For Land Ironclads/Aeronef

Sooooo,

It seems that I have been away from miniatures for a bit. Not true.

Since losing my digital camera, as lame as it was, I have been a bit gunshy about trying to post on miniatures projects because I coul;dn't seem to get any good pics. I have since had some luck taking decent WIP pics with my camera phone, so I thought I'd start to post some stuff that I've been working on.

The first thing I'd like to share is a WIP of some town/city terrain I have been doing for use with Wessex Games' Land Ironclads and Aeronef games. The general scale of these games is 1/1200 or thereabouts though the infantry figures used are generally 2mm which is more like 1/900 but any smaller an they may as well be cardboard counters. So, I took some scrap balsa, some cork tile and got to work.

These are actually quite simple to make. Tear off an area of tile to form the roacky outcropping upon which the Martians have built thei settlements. The cut various sized bits of balsa and get to work laying out your settlement plan. I decided to keep them relatively simple and work mainly with simple rectangles for the most part. The three that are pictured above were the first three I did and show a modest township as well as a two smaller locales that might work well for some sorts of monasteries, villas, etc.

After they are aseembled, they are sprayed black and then painted with a combination of rusty red earth tones for the ground, an off-white color for the buildings and simple black for the doors and windows. I thought about painting the doorways another color but really it just blurred the details and at this scale, I just needed the hint of door and windows. In some places, where hte balsa didn't cut right and left some rough edges, I painted the pieces like ruined buildings showing a mix of the white-wash and natural red Martian mud.

In a future post, I'll show off some additional work I've been doing with this project, but I hope you like the results so far.

Thanks,

-Eli