I posted earlier today about model making and kit bashing. I was supposed to be working on MHN today, but we’re finishing my basement so there is a work crew in my house and I’ve discovered that makes working from home and getting into the writing zone a little weird. So what the heck, let’s post some more minis on the blog instead.

First up, I need to remember that most of my regular readers don’t realize how damned tiny these things are. So here is a scale shot of some familiar items to give you an idea. Those are .45 ACP. (my desk gun is a S&W 625).

And yes, believe it or not, I actually do find this a relaxing hobby. 🙂  Sundays after church, I paint minis with my kids. Monday morning it is back to the word mines.

Up first, a monster.

This is for an upcoming IKRPG.

As many of my regular readers know, I write books for Warmachine, but I also play the game. These next few are from an army that I’m running right now in a local league.

These were camo painted with a sponge technique using bits of blister foam.

It is actually a pretty easy method. To make sure they were shaded I highlighted them black first, then spray primed white directly down on top. Since the under coat was lighter, even though it is all the same camo color, they do look properly shaded with sunlight coming down.

The leaf clutter on the base is made of birch seed pods, but to scale they look like leaves.

Then you’ve seen this guy, but I finally got him finished.

Yes. He does look a lot like me when I was rocking the murder hobo beard. I named him Ivan.

Stripes are a challenge. Tats are actually pretty nifty to figure out, because you can’t just paint them on without them looking stupid. You actually mix the paint with whatever the base tone flesh color is, and then slowly layer it up. Cool stuff. (if you’re a geek, but I digress)

I painted the next three in one sitting. These were done rather quickly, but they were experiments in different color schemes for different Warmachine factions.

Khador, which is sort of pseudo-Tsarist Russia

I went for a dirty white. I like the scheme, but the next one will need to be more dilluted layers, as white is difficult to paint without looking streaky.

Then Menoth, which is a sort of Old Testement jihadi religious fanatics. With lots of fire. (the bad guys in Into the Storm)

I went with black, purple, and gold.

 

And Trolls. Because who doesn’t like trolls?

He’s no Melvin though.

And here is a group shot of a bunch of the characters I’ve done up for IKRPG.

I just found out about this one. One of the guys behind it is Jason Walters, who I worked with at Hero Games in the production of the MHI RPG. He’s a good guy, and if you are a gamer, this is a pretty nifty product. Check it out.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/erasable-gaming-maps?ref=home_location

We just sent out the update. We are adding Bubba Shackleford’s Professional Monster Killers to the coins. These will be included with all the Alpha tiers.

 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/451021352/monster-hunter-international-challenge-coins

We’ve got just over a week left, so please tell your friends.

 

I wanted to show how modeling works for the folks who aren’t in this hobby. I really wanted to make a couple very specific characters for gaming purposes, bu there weren’t any existing minis that fit. So when that happens, you can just build your own.

If you get into this for a hobby you will eventually end up with a giant box of spare parts to choose from. Also, Privateer Press sells all of their individual bits on their online store if you need something really specific.
For example, I wanted a troll pirate/warrior. So big ax, shield, and jaunty hat. 🙂  So I got a regular troll, took the hand and ax off a jack, but had no arm. So in goes a super glued chunk of paper clip for the skeleton.

At the same time, for an IKRPG character concept I needed a black guy with Solomon Kane hat, a pistol, and a gun… Good luck finding that. So modeling to the rescue. Reaper hat, Rastafarian head shaved to fit, Warmachine body (the poncho is a nice touch, pistol and sword off of a Dystopian wars samurai, paper clips and super glue later:

 

Up next, I take green stuff putty and sculpt a new arm on top of the wire. I made it chain mail rather than try to mess with creating muscles. The buckle actually came out okay.

I also had to shave down the troll’s other arm with a hobby knife and green stuff over it to match.

Then paint

So very specific. 🙂

And it really isn’t that hard to make them look like they were meant to be that way.

And I’m a pretty crappy sculptor, but slap some paint on there, put some highlights to disguise the novice sculpting (and keeping in mind that this is way way smaller in real life) and it looks like it came from the factory:

This is another kitbashed model. For those of you that have read Into the Storm, this is my attempt at creating a Savio Montero Acosta. If you haven’t read Into the Storm, go here now, because it really is awesome:

http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=monshuntnati-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B00EUSMLLE

No WiP shots on this one, but basically just swapping hands and gluing extra bits on, but even that and you can get pretty character specific

Because Acosta can never have enough swords and guns, (I loved writing that lunatic) and speaking of bits, the swords on the back come from the poncho body above. See? Lots of extra bits for everyone.

 

 

So I screwed up yesterday’s announcement, but the anthology Space Eldritch 2 is available now!

And that is a pretty awesome cover for Lovecraftian sci-fi. 🙂

http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=monshuntnati-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B00G8PFZYW  *

My story in this one is called Dead Waits Dreaming. When the last ship left the system Atlas was a thriving colony of half a million people, but when the patrol ship Alert arrives thirty days later, everyone has gone missing… Except for one solitary survivor, who happens to be incapable of dreaming.

And then you’ve got stories from a whole bunch of really good authors. Looking at that list, I think I’ve Book Bombed half of them individually. I know Steve Diamond’s is about an asteroid prison where not everything is what it seems, and he probably wrote it on the clock back when I was his boss in the military industrial complex. Jerk… Howard wrote the sequel to the excellent Flight of the Runewright, as he needs to keep expanding out into fiction that doesn’t require all that difficult drawing stuff. Eric J. Stone is the writer who has been nominated for every award there is, including Motortrend Car of the Year. Dave Butler has the finest mustache of any author alive. Tom Selleck respects Dave Butler’s mustache. And more!
There’s one review so far, and it is just 4 stars… However that is because the dude bought it for just Howard’s story, didn’t read any of the other 90% of the book, and then rated it comparative to the expense of the whole anthology against his enjoyment of that one story… Yeah… I’m pretty sure that’s not how anthologies work… But anyway, what I’m getting at is please leave an honest review after you’ve read it. Unless of course, you didn’t like it, because then nobody wants your negative waves, man.

 

* Full disclosure, when you buy the book through the link I put to Amazon, I get an extra % for the advertising refferal. In fact, once you enter Amazon through any of the links on my page, whatever you buy on that visit I get a refferal, so it is pretty sweet.