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Tuesday 16 November 2010

[PROJECT NEWS] A Bit Stalled.

Welcome back,
                                   a bit of a general update on progress today. As things have been so hectic of late, I haven't had time to take any pictures (not that there is much to take pictures of to be honest). So what have I been up to?

Well I built another two of my Martian tripods and came to the conclusion that they definitely need some sort of support if I want to use them for gaming. I'm thinking that I'll drill small holes underneath the body and mount them on brass rod for support (now I just need some brass rod to get on with that), secondly I'm going to mount them on CD's as bases, after a quick test I realised how difficult they can be to pick up so, I'm thinking either a double layer of CD's to help with that or a solid terrain piece that I can grab a hold instead of the models. So basically I'm waiting on materials and a bit of experimentation to proceed with this part of the project.

I've also been preparing the next Infantry Battalion of my British Army for painting, normally this would be an hour or so's work for the entire battalion (to snip each stand of four in two and then glue them to wooden spatula's for painting) but it took me that long to do two company's worth. The problem being that I bought a battalion of Baccus infantry in marching pose which come on a much narrower sprue and which has to be cut three times instead of just once (and I can't quite get my cutters in between the individual models so it's more like 6 cuts). Suffice to say I was a little frustrated, I'll get back to them soon though for once they are finished I can move on to my Lancers and my Machine Guns.

Finally there has been more work on a small terrain project, inspired by Christian's entry in the Build Something Contest on Lead Adventure I'm attempting to make a 6mm version. Progress is a bit slow but I'm getting there, pictures will be forth coming as soon as it looks like something.

And that's about it for the moment, a bit of a rubbish update but an update no less.

Haarken

Friday 12 November 2010

[W.I.P] Martian Tripods.

Welcome back,
                                   well it was almost inevitable that I would post another tripod related update today and well here I am (So much for slow and steady). I just couldn't resist having a crack at putting one together if I only so I could get a better impression of their size. I have to say that after one false start where I'd picked up two right legs rather than a left and a right, it went together really easily, I used a combination of green stuff and super glue to hold the legs in place . I'm still mulling mounting it on a metal rod to attach it to it's base as it's rather delicate, I figure I can probably disguise it as a tree or piece of terrain but I think it would lose the effect of the open space under the legs. Much pondering will commence shortly. Anyway more pictures.

Martian Tripod & Baccus 6mm Colonials





Martian Tripod & Baccus 6mm Colonials




Martian Tripod & Baccus 6mm Colonials
 



Size Shot


Hope you enjoyed the pictures.
Haarken

[PROJECT NEWS] The Fighting Machines Emerge.

Welcome back,
                                    Well the Martian tripods have arrived and let me tell you I am incredibly happy with them, whilst they are not exactly what I was looking for and they're probably not most people's cup of tea, I think that they are simply fantastic and that they will be a brilliant addition to my project.

Tripod

Slight and spindly really doesn't go far enough to describe how very fragile and delicate these little beauties are, cast in resin and reinforced with tiny steel rods for support, they are the most fragile models I've ever handled, still can't let a little fear get in the way, they're just models at the end of the day and they just one purpose. Wargaming.

Tripod


There were a few bits of flash to clear up, but nothing too difficult and nothing unexpected, still dry fitting them at the moment, seeing how they fit together and trying to work out if I need to add some extra support (I'd rather not have to but it might be necessary to mount them on a rod through the body and let that take all the weight).

Tripods Legs with Baccus 6mm Colonial Infantry for Scale.
I'll be progressing with these very slowly, I really want to take my time and get them done to a good standard so it might be a while between updates on these, I will of course be updating other bits of my project along the way.

Thanks for reading.
Haarken 

Wednesday 10 November 2010

[PROJECT NEWS] Martians On The Way!

As Mars approached opposition, Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred towards midnight of the twelfth; and the spectroscope, to which he had at once resorted, indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an enormous velocity towards this earth. This jet of fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, "as flaming gases rushed out of a gun." 
 
A singularly appropriate phrase it proved. Yet the next day there was nothing of this in the papers except a little note in the Daily Telegraph, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of the eruption at all had I not met Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer, at Ottershaw. He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a scrutiny of the red planet.” - H.G. Wells


Welcome back,
                                   Just a short update with some news and a particularily pertinent quote from as I'm sure you'll all recognise H.G. Well's “War of the Worlds”. The update is due to the fact that my Martian tripods are almost here (the post man left a note to say they wouldnt fit through the letter box. Unfortunately my next day off is Friday so won't be able to collect it and take pictures of them until Friday. Understandably I'm excited and couldn't wait until Friday to post an update.

Haarken

Monday 8 November 2010

[Finished] The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

Welcome back,
           Well the votes for the first round of the 2nd Lead Adventure "Build Something" Contest are in and tallied and I placed a distant third behind Malamute and Axelgrunt. The final voting figures for Group B ended up being:

Axelgrunt         - 96 (44.2%)
Malamute        - 81 (37.3%)
Haarken           - 36 (16.6%)
TimHerr1847  - 04 (01.8%)

Congratulations and all the best of luck to Axelgrunt and Malamute who go through to the next round of voting and thank you to everyone that voted for me, I really appreciate the support.

In retrospect I wish I had been a little more adventurous with my entry, it wasn't the most technically impressive build nor did I really push myself to the boundaries of my skills, next time round I'll be aiming for a much more complicated and impressive build. Anyway on to some pictures: -


Up first we have a couple of work in progress pictures that were a little too finished to show at the time, having base coated and dry brushed the whole piece I then decided I needed to add some more interest, cut the green stuff and some Z Scale model tree's off ebay.
Work In Progress: The Floating Islands base coated and dry-brushed.


Work In Progress: The Floating Islands base coated and dry-brushed.

Finally we have the finished piece, I took a fair few pictures for the competition so rather than waste them i'll post them all up here.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

And a final picture for a sense of scale.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

Naval Brigade of HMS Atropos skirt the edge of the Floating Islands of Atlantis.
Hope you've enjoyed, I know I certainly did.
Haarken







Thursday 4 November 2010

[Finished] The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders).

Welcome back,
                           a brief update tonight i'm afraid, well I finally finished the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), I struggled to get them finished last night due to family duties but now they're all done. These were based and flocked in the same way as the DLI and the Naval Brigade, with Games Workshop Static Grass and Woodland Scenics Medium Green Foliage.

The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)

The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)

The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)
The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)

The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)

As mentioned in previous posts the kilts were painted with Games Workshop Ultramarines Blue with Goblin Green stripes over the top, the tunics were GW Blood Red on top of GW Scab Red.

The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)


As with the previous finished post I included a couple of pictures of the army as it stands. It's really starting to look like a larger force, I especially love the overall impression that you get from 6mm. Hopefully will begin another Infantry battalion next tuesday as I'm working until then. The plan at the moment is for at least two infantry brigades of three battalions, a cavalry brigade and plenty of artillery along with some vsf goodies.

Pictured: The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), The Durham Light Infantry, The Naval Brigades.

Pictured: The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), The Durham Light Infantry, The Naval Brigades.


Pictured: The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), The Durham Light Infantry, The Naval Brigades.
Hope that's not too many pictures, more updates soon.
Haarken


Tuesday 2 November 2010

[W.I.P] The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) - Progress.

Welcome back,
                         as I promised the other day I've made progress on my latest battalion, The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), I had a day off work so had a lot of time to work on them. Having painted their kilts on Sunday, I set about painting their socks and tunics on Monday night and the rest of them today.

Work In Progress: The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)
As with all of my battalions there are eight stands (one for each company), these are ready for sand and flocking, which hopefully I'll get done tomorrow.


Work In Progress: The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)

The helmets are painted white, not strictly correct for home service uniform but the helmets just wouldn't look right the other way, a bit of a compromise but I think they look pretty good. Now just to get them based up.

Work In Progress: The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)

Hopefully I'll get these finished up tomorrow and a new battalion base-coated, anyway until then...

Work In Progress: The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)

Haarken



Sunday 31 October 2010

[W.I.P] The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders).

Welcome back,
                          a brief update today I'm afraid. Work has been pretty hectic lately and has eaten in to valued hobby time, a pattern that unfortunately looks like it is going to continue right up till Christmas, that doesn't mean that I haven't been productive with what little time I have had.

After copious amounts of indecision I finally decided on which Highland Infantry regiment I was going, and as you may have guessed it is The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), I've gone for a pretty simple and totally incorrect colour scheme, but one that I think will work on 6mm miniatures, which is vertical green stripes over blue to give the impression of tartan. It obviously looks nothing like tartan up close but if your at least a foot away it gives the right impression (or so I think). Unfortunately no pictures yet as the weather was awful today and I just couldn't get any taken (I'll definitely post some up on Tuesday though).

In other news, voting is due to start for the Lead Adventure Forum's "Build Something Competition", my entry "Floating Islands Of Atlantis" is located in Group B. There's some extremely good entries in there too and I urge everyone to go have a look, lots of inspiration to be had, you could also vote whilst you're there.


That's all from me for now, more pictures and an update on Tuesday.
Haarken


                                

Tuesday 26 October 2010

[Finished] British Aeronef Battleship Squadron.

Welcome back again Ladies & Gentlemen, 
                                                                                as I promised earlier I have another Aeronef laden post for you today, finally finished touching up the bits that needed doing to my scratch built battleships. These were firmly inspired by the pre-dreadnoughts and turret ships of the Victorian era, the inspiration should be fairly obvious to those with knowledge of the Victorian Navy but the first ship HMS Royal Oak is inspired by HMS Victorian & HMS Sans Pareil (1887), I just loved the idea of the main armament being located in a single turret and the overall design of the ships.
                        
HMS Royal Oak (Victoria Class)


The second lot of ships were inspired by the layout of HMS Inflexible (1876) & HMS Colossus (1882) with the two turrets placed en echelon amidships, so that there was some degree of all round fire from the two turrets. Some compromises were made with the design as I'm still getting to grips with plasticard modeling (I would love to revisit these at a later date when I'm a little more confident about my abilities).

HMS Conqueror & HMS Colossus (Conqueror Class)


The bulk of the ships was built out of styrene from Evergreen, I'm pretty sure it was the 2mm stuff, the decks were again made from styrene, this time the really thin timber cladding stuff and the funnels were made from tubes of styrene. The turrets (VAN-7011 British Twin Gun Turrets) and masts (VAN-7001 Spare Masts) are made by Brigade Models and are available separately.


10th Battle Squadron (Reserve): HMS Conqueror (Conqueror Class), HMS Colossus (Conqueror Class) & HMS Royal Oak (Victoria Class)
I thought it might be useful to see the varying sizes of the different ships, here is an idea with examples of each ship class that I own.

From Left to Right: Conqueror Class, Victoria Class, Exeter Class, Ralwalpindi Class, Steadfast Class, Cossack Class

Hope you've enjoyed the update. 
Haarken

[Finished] British Aeronef Cruiser Squadron.

Welcome back again,
                                        I did more work on the British Aeronef fleet over Sunday and Monday and got them up to a point I was fairly happy with, they're not the best painted nef's in the world but I'm pretty happy with them, they're certainly a lot better than they were. On to the pictures anyway:


13th Cruiser Squadron: HMS Minotaur (Exeter Class), HMS Centaur (Exeter Class), HMS Leopard (Ralwalpindi Class)  
The Ralwalpindi and one of the Exeter class cruisers came in one of Brigade Models starter packs along with the escorts and a French Fleet, the other Exeter I bought separately. 

13th Cruiser Squadron: HMS Minotaur (Exeter Class), HMS Centaur (Exeter Class), HMS Leopard (Ralwalpindi Class)
Once my French Fleet is painted up I'll be looking at expanding the British Fleet, at the moment I have my eye on another Ralwalpindi, a Britannia Battlecruiser, an Albion Fighter Carrier and some Arethusa Destroyers. Of course that will mean that I have to expand my French fleet too... and the ideas for a third and forth fleet...

13th Cruiser Squadron: HMS Fortune, HMS Fury, HMS Fearless (Steadfast Class), HMS Minotaur (Exeter Class), HMS Centaur (Exeter Class), HMS Leopard (Ralwalpindi Class), HMS Hunter, HMS Hornet, HMS Hotspur (Cossack Class)


I'll post another update this afternoon featuring my scratch built battleships. Thanks for reading.

Haarken

Sunday 24 October 2010

[Finished] British Aeronef Escorts.

Welcome Back,
As some of you may be aware I began painting up my British aeronef fleet for the Atlantis Campaign over on the Lead Adventure forum back at the beginning of the year, unfortunately the response to my pictures was hardly that amazing (in retrospect I can see why) and I lost all desire to paint up the French fleet. With the launch of my new blog I decided that it was about time that my British Fleet had a second outing, of course lying in harbour for an extended period of time does no favours to any fleet and so the fleet in preparation for it's review was ordered (quite literally) to dust off the cobwebs, holystone the decks and to apply a fresh coat of paint. 

From the back: HMS Fortune, HMS Fury, HMS Fearless (Steadfast Class), HMS Hunter, HMS Hornet, HMS Hotspur (Cossack Class).


The main things I wanted to fix were the decks, which had been painted pretty dark, I really wanted them to be a lot lighter than they were and I think the ships look a whole lot better for it. Other than that it was mostly a case of touching up the spots that I felt needed some work. Unfortunately it's been a lot more work than I initially thought and so I only have the escorts done, anyway thought I'd better post a few pictures to show that I have been doing something this week.

On Patrol: HMS Fortune, HMS Fury, HMS Fearless (Steadfast Class)


In addition to painting up my British aeronefs I've also been working more on my terrain piece for the Lead Adventure Forum "Build Something 2" Contest, although I was pretty happy with it I felt that it needed something else, so I've added some Z Scale trees that I bought off Ebay, they're not the greatest of trees but for the price that I paid for them they are an absolute bargain.


I also began work on a new terrain piece, the inspiration came from Christian over on the Lead Adventure Forum, of course I didn't want one in the same scale so mine will be for 6mm. Pictures of that on Tuesday probably, i'll try and get more aeronefs done for then too.


Haarken


Tuesday 19 October 2010

[Finished] Naval Brigade.

Welcome back to Martians & Machine Guns,

On Sunday I posted pictures of the progress I'd made on the Naval Brigade, in my little bit of free time yesterday I painted the bases and moved them one step closer to being finished. I can however proudly report that today they are ready for action (barring a few little touch ups). I managed to get the last coat of dry brushing done early this morning leaving me most of the rest of the day to get them flocked up and waiting for a spot of decent light to take pictures in. So without further ado let me present my Naval Brigade.

Naval Brigade of HMS Atropos & HMS Panther.


The bases were flocked with Games Workshop Static Grass and Woodland Scenics Medium Green Foliage, having been a long time Epic collector, I used to just flock my miniatures with the static grass but I've found that the addition of the foliage really helps to break up the bases and add a little more colour. I also tried a little experiment with a small twig on one of the bases which I think looks pretty good, not something I'd be willing to repeat a lot but definitely something that adds a little interest.

Naval Brigade of HMS Atropos & HMS Panther.


As I've stated previously I have a pair of Nordenfelt's and a pair of Gatlings to add to the Naval Brigade (I want to end up with at least 2 Bases of Infantry and 2 Machine Guns I think) but I need to place another order with Renedra before I can get started on them. This means that  next up will be the Highland Infantry.

Naval Brigade of HMS Atropos & HMS Panther.

Obviously I couldn't take pictures without doing an army shot, so the army so far:

Pictured: Naval Brigade to the front, Durham Light Infantry on the rear.
Pictured: Naval Brigade on the left, Durham Light Infantry


Anyway in further news, I've also made progress on my entry for the Lead Adventure Forum "Build Something" Competition, after several coats of dry brushing the whole thing began to look much, much better and a lot less like the "crushed weetabix" that it resembled. Since I had the static grass and foliage out today it got a coat of that too, now it's just a question of whether I have anything else to add to it. Once again pictures once the competition has closed.


Haarken





[News] Spartan Games Announces Dystopian Wars.




Spartan Games has released the first previews of it's latest creation Dystopian Wars. Due to be released in November 2010 it will initially feature four main factions; the Kingdom of Britannia, the Empire of the Blazing Sun, the Prussian Empire and the Federated States of America. Set in 1870 the game is very heavily influenced by Steampunk, and features amongst it's wilder creations Landships built to rival Cathedral's, Aerial Aircraft Carriers and Double Decker Paddle Ship Aircraft Carriers.

First indications of size put the battleships and carriers at around 5-6 inches long and 2-3 inches wide, though it remains to be seen if this is a consistent scale across air, sea and land. What is almost certain is that there will be no infantry models, with suggestions that infantry will be represent by either card tokens or not at all.


It is rumored that all three elements are able to take part in the same game, rather than there being three separate game systems, this is certainly an interesting idea if it works and I look forward to future news from Spartan Games on this.

There is almost certainly going to be more factions in Dystopian Wars, a world map on the Spartan Games website shows the Covenant of Antarctica, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Coalition and the League of Italian States. Of these the secretive Covenant of Antarctica holds perhaps the most draw to this wargamer.

Looking at previous Spartan Games releases it is hard to imagine that the miniatures for Dystopian Wars will be anything less than brilliant.

Haarken