Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Autobot Slammer

After creating Blitzwing I started to look up Autobot tanks. I came across Slammer, a bot I'd never heard of before. I liked his blocky design so decided to create him in miniature.

I used a Megatron body as a starting point and built up from there.



 I'm pleased with the final result, he is obviously a tank. Bring up the heavy support.


Fellow Tank bots.


Monday, March 25, 2024

War of the Roses

I've been getting into the WOTR lately and even bought a set of rules to play some games. Test of Resolve is what I opted for after a lifetime of researching it. One thing I really love about these rules is they give you nice army lists for battles. This is just what I needed to give me a plan of action. I have chosen Tewkesbury as a starting place and Hastings' units to be exact.

I haven't bought the scenario book yet but the battle list has been included in the example pages. That's all I need at the moment to start painting.


I like big bases I cannot lie and so these units will be 8-9 men to a base. The bases are 80x60mm. I'll paint these up just to scratch that itch and see where we go from there.

Back in the late Nineties I bought some WOTR figures from Foundry, I think they were £15 for 50 or something silly. They were clearing out old stock if I remember correctly. Of course I bought some and have sat on them ever since. Now they are selling for £14 for 8.


So looking at Hastings' battle first, I've decided to start with a unit of archers. I like the fact he has Superior Retinue rather than Household men at arms. This is a nice bit of unit character and I couldn't resist putting the first company together. I chose to model these Superior Retinue as heavily armoured bill men. There's a few tough looking characters in there too.
I have stuck the old Foundry figures on cut up MDF to raise their height a bit. They are old Perry sculpts so kind of match the Perry plastics. In this batch of elite billmen are sculpts from Mark Copplestone too. They can now be ordered from Forlorn Hope miniatures and are a fantastic match for the Perry's range. They are quite pricey but are very nice.

The lists for Tewkesbury below.

1
This is just what I've been looking for as a guide to start collecting and painting. If it all goes well and the period holds me, I can also paint up Warwick's forces for the battle of Barnet too.
Update: Next day, next coat of paint. There's a real trend at the moment of cracking through these lightly armoured figures using Contrast paints. Not being one to buck a trend, I thought I'd give it a go and see what all the fuss is about.
These figures were sprayed black then grey at a slight angle. Finally a xenth highlight of white was applied from above. The results were quite good with some nice shadows in the clothing and equipment. All the sprays are rattle cans from Halfords.


Amongst these archers is a test pack from Athena miniatures. Very nice sculpts that match the Perry's well in scale.

The other company of Billmen Retinue I sprayed black, as they have a lot of armour. I'll dry brush this lot with metallics first before doing the clothes.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Creating Blitzwing

I always liked Blitzwing and I had planned to build him from scratch. However, I ended up finding a mini toy from the 'Siege' range which was quite a good likeness.  I added bits of plasticard and a cannon on his back and I was pleased with the results.
Being a Triple changer, Blitzwing can turn into a jet and a tank. I have a good tank model for him already under way. It uses the same cannon so the two should work well.




This other Decepticon is a repaint of a keyring Megatron. I need to come up with a good name for him. He reminds me of a crab so perhaps Scuttle would do. It sounds shifty which is good. 

I had fun working out the tertiary colour palette so loved by the Decpticons and cartoon villains as a whole.

He might be a tad short maybe but he's still quite a chunk.What he lacks in height he makes up for in mass.

Here is is with his other triple changer Astrotrain. I've decided to model my Astrotrain on the idea of him being huge.




Friday, March 22, 2024

Great! My new blades have arrived!

woohoo look at the size of the box, 100 blades, that should last me a life time.

 Had to go to Amazon to order these as eBay didn't stock any dangerous blades. I mean you could of expected them to sell some sort of craft knife but no, I mean what's the worst that could happen!?
 

Open on a shot of a hospital waiting room. A slow pan in reveals a hand wrapped in a sanitary towel and gaffa tape, in a zip bag.
Cut to a five hours later at home, man sits at blood stained table looking sad.
 Pan up to reveal man smiling when he realises he can still hold a brush. 

End scene, roll credits.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

AK Puddles

It took long enough but I finally received some AK puddle mixture, after my initial eBay order went AWOL in the post.
Many moons ago while basing these Weird World War Germans, I had created puddles for them in the mud mixture. A few months on and I'm ready to fill them. This is a new product for me, but one that seems easy to use.


I simply poured the mixture into the gaps I had made and that's it, job done. There were a few bubbles, but I used a lolly stick to just take these out.
It's shiny and is very eye catching, gleaming on the snow. So a little goes a long way to make the bases 'pop'.


I didn't go too crazy with it, learning my lessons from the snow earlier. Just little touches here and there really works the best.

 Boot prints are always good to fill with the muddy liquid. It's the sort of product that once you have it, you'll find loads of places to put it. War of the Roses muddy fields and ECW command bases spring to mind for me.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Cybertron Terrain

Its spraying day today and I've got a lot of terrain to get through. Starting with these futuristic bases from Micro Machines. These give loads of wonderful hi-tech flavour for a cheap price off eBay.
They also have some cool features like sliding doors etc. This is already earmarked for Wheel jack's Lab.


The doors are a little small for most bots but are good for vehicle modes.
Light bulb power generators.

 As it rained I had to rush everything inside. Just waiting for the sun to come out to finish the job.







Update, today being a dry day, the rest of the terrain was sprayed.
The various purple spray paint was given a light blast of silvery blue to give it that metallic look.