Category Archives: Sci-Fi Gound

GZG’s Spider Drones

Over the last 2 weeks I’ve been working on 12 of GZG’s Spider Drones – 2 packs each of the standard and rotary canon. I paused in the middle and painted some other stuff, then my bases finally arrived from Litko, so I finished them up this weekend.

I painted them all the same, except for the top, which I painted in a similar style as I did the Grav Drones a while back. Then I based them using Green Stuff.

Cleaned and assembled. There’s a bit of flash around the leg joints that I just left – it was going to be very time consuming to clean, and leaving just added to the “spider legs” effect, I think.

Primed.

Various stages. Here’s was my process:

Do the bottom parts of all of them with a rough coat of metallic silver.
One at a time, do the metallic brass parts, then the black guns, the red lens, and highlights
Wash the bottom in heavy black
Paint the top

Here’s the bases in various stages. Litko 0.8mm thick wooden bases, 30mm in diameter, with a Litko heavy duty magnet bottom under it. Then I pre-cut the bits for the top of the base. That’s some metal mesh from the hardware store – I also use it to make chain link fences – and some square plastic mesh I got at the craft store in the knitting section.

Here’s with the Green Stuff – ready for primer.

There’s the Green Stuff, rolled flat. I put the base on it and use the razor blade to cut it to fit. The copper pipe fitting I use to make the circular indent. I have a smaller one, also. The mesh I just press gently into it, and it sticks. No glue needed.

All primed.

All painted.

A coat of shiny varnish, and then I glued the drone on to it.

Making the bases was fun, but I don’t think they look as good on the Spiders as they did on the Grav Drones. It’s too busy and dark. Lesson learned.

Two New Kickstarters

The Drunk Quest guys have a new Kickstarter for the 90 Proof Seas expansion. I’ve written about Drunk Quest here before. It’s a great game, and the people involved are good people.

Also, there’s a “pre Kickstarter” for All Quiet On The Martian Front. Grab it now, before the actual Kickstarter is approved.

I think this pre-Kickstarter idea is genius. You get some extra goodies, and they get a better launch day. Kickstarters tend to go big the first day or two, then level off, and then pick up again at the end. If a project has a good first few days, it greatly increases the potential success of the project.

Barbed Wire Barriers

I made some barbed wire barriers, and it was pretty easy.

I used:

toothpicks – from my local grocery store
steel wire – from my local hardware store
rectangular wooden bases – from my local craft store
super glue / paint / basing material – the usual stuff

Take a 3 foot long piece of wire, and fold it in half around a pen or pencil. Hold both parts of the wire and spin the pen in such a way that one strand wraps around the other strand. So one stays straight while the other wraps around it. When this is done, cut the loose ends off, and wrap the whole thing around the pen to make the spiral shape shown above.

Cut 3 sections of toothpick. I cut the tapered ends off and kept the middle part. Wire cutters work fine for this. Take 3 sections and glue them to make the “tank trap” shape show in the picture above.

Glue 2 of the tank traps to each base. Prime and paint the base and tank traps. Put your basing material on the base.

Once the whole thing is painted and based, glue on the barbed wire. Paint some rust / blood on it.

There ya go. Cheap and easy. Fairly quick, too.

I use these to play Gruntz, and I make them impassable to vehicles, and infantry has to stop, and take an extra action to cross them.

Khurasan’s 15mm Scientists

I’m still on a “fun painting” kick while I wait for my bases to arrive for my GZG Spider Drones. I just finished Khurasan’s 15mm Scientists. They are a pack of 4, each in a different pose, but I only painted 3 of them, because the 4th pose is a dead one lying on the ground, and it didn’t really interest me.

By “fun painting” I mean I don’t really have a use in mind for these figures. They could be the objective in a game of Gruntz, I supposed – rescue the scientists. But I’m just painting them for fun, not for a specific game or purpose.

All cleaned up and attached to the stick with poster tack. There was very little flash or mold lines to clean.

Painting is done and they are superglued to the wooded base. That’s a 0.8mm wooden base, 20mm in diameter, with a magnet stuck to the bottom of it. Both the base and the magnet are from Litko.net.

The feet on the two male figures are really small. It’s going to be difficult to not cover them in the next step.

I used vinyl spackling mixed with a little water to cover the bases. It applies easily with a brush. In the past I’ve also mixed it with sand and very small rocks to make it bumpy, but in this case I wanted it smooth.

I gave that about 2 hours to dry and then I painted it brown, and the edge black.

I glued on some static grass, and they are done. WIth the grass, it doesn’t really matter that their feet are so small, they are hidden in the grass, anyway.

I gave the guy on the left a pink shirt, because he reminds me of my friend Derrick, and Derrick often wears pink shirts. The bald guy on the right just makes me laugh. I imagine him totally out of breath, scared shitless from the zombies chasing him, really wishing he was in better shape. Also, his glasses are broken so he can’t see very well. Poor guy. He’s going to be zombie chow very soon.

Mantic’s Deadzone Kickstarter Reaches Funding Goal In 33 Minutes

Mantic’s Kickstarter for their new game, Deadzone reached it’s goal of $50,000 in just 33 minutes, and is now at over $178,000. Mantic posted:

Well, we’d hoped Deadzone might be popular (with such beautiful scenery and gorgeous miniatures, we could only hope!) – but seriously… hitting our goal in 33 mins? Absurd!!

The game looks great, and follows their critically acclaimed Dreadball, which was one of the more successful Kickstarters last year.

I’m in.

Tabletop.MagiGames.org

Miniatures and the games that use them.