Category Archives: Sci-Fi Gound

GZG’s 15mm Fuel Drums

I painted up GZG’s 15mm fuel drums (type A) the other day. They were easy to paint. I primed them black, dry brushed on some gray, then a smaller dry brush of red-brown for rust.

I based them on some small wood rectangles, then glued some sand on the bases. Then I washed the sand a sepia color, then dry brushed the sand with a tan. When that was all dry, I brushed on some very thin PVA glue-water mix to hold it all together a bit more permanently. The I dry brushed some more tan, as I felt it needed a bit more.

That makes for some cheap and easy terrain. 🙂

In the past, I had assembled a card stock “print-and-fold” barrel, and it took a lot of time to cut the small bits out, and gluing such a small thing was tricky. I think these metal barrels we easier, quicker, and much more durable.

GZG’s Grav Mini Drones

Hello. I noted a few days ago that I was painting GZG’s Grav Mini Drones for Reddit’s April mini painting challenge. Well, they are complete.

Cleaned up and ready for primer. As you can see, they are pretty small.

Primed. “But,” you ask, “There are only seven. Where are the other two?” Well, I primed these in the backyard at night, and when they were dry and I was bringing them back into the house, I dropped two in the grass. The very long grass that I have not cut in too long. I went back outside with a flashlight, but I could not find them.

The next morning, in the sunlight, I found them right away. 🙂

Attaching the “post”. I got some acrylic rod at the local hobby store. It cut easy with wire cutters, and super glue worked just fine on it.

Painted. Not the most realistic paint job, but a real drone would have been solid gray or dull black, and where’s the fun in that? Most of the detail is in the bottom. which you really won’t see much of during game play, so I had to do something to give visual interest to the smooth top.

I painted the top first, then the bottom, and then washed the bottom in black. If I was to do it over again, I would had painted and washed the bottom first, then painted the top.

Making bases with Green Stuff. This was the first time I didn’t have to work around the figure’s existing base, so I had a lot more freedom.

Complete.

This base is my favorite. I might go with variations of this base in the future. It looks good, and was fairly easy to make and paint.

What would I do differently? I would take more time making sure the base edges were flat. Some of them had rounded bulges on the edges, and when I painted the edge black, it resulted in some sloppy looking paint jobs.

Reddit’s Monthly Painting Challenge

I’m a redditor. Reddit has several excellent subreddits related to gaming and miniatures. http://www.reddit.com/r/wargames is an especially friendly place for 15mm Sci-Fi gamers.

Anyway, a new subreddit, http://www.reddit.com/r/taleofredditgamers has just been started, and each person states what they will paint, then posts progress reports. The project must be done by the end of the month.

This month I am painting GZG’s Mini Grav Drones, and I’ve already run into problems. 🙁

Sandbag Terrain Made From Green Stuff

This past week, when I wasn’t at Kingdom-con, I made some sandbag terrain from Green Stuff. I’m not going to get into how to work with Green Stuff, the link I provided covers that.

I’ve never worked with Green Stuff before. It wasn’t too difficult. I made 2 different sandbag walls, using 2 different methods.

I was making some bases for Khurasan’s Female Auxiliaries and I had some Green Stuff left over, so I made the first sandbag wall. A few days later, I made the second one. The first one, I kept the sandbags connected in a row, not cutting all the way through Green Stuff. For the second set, I decided to make individual sandbags, and stack them.

I think the individual sandbags looks way better. It didn’t take much longer to do, either.

I have a tool that has a textured grip, so I rolled the grip across the top of the sandbags for texture. Paint, black wash, sepia wash, and a dry brush.

I based them on thick cardboard, because that’s what I have around the house. Vinyl wall spackle mixed with sand in a thin layer on the cardboard, then some sand and very little static grass, since my battle mat is desert themed.

I hope to mess with the Green Stuff some more in the future.

Painting Khurasan’s Female Auxiliaries

I’ve finished my Gruntz army (post coming soon) and I am painting some “character” figures, still in 15mm Sci-Fi, in anticipation of my Traveller 5 rulebook arriving from the Kickstarter. I ordered a bunch of civilians, aliens, robots, etc from both GZG and Khurasan.

One set from Khurasan is their “15mm Female Auxiliaries in Light Armour with energy weapons (x5)” (TTC-3008).

Here they are cleaned up, before painting. There was minimal flash, and just some very minor mold lines to take care of. They cleaned up very quickly.

And here they are done. They went pretty quickly, since the body-suits are a solid color. I spent more time on the hair than anything else. The painting & wash was done in an evening.

I did want to do something different for the bases. Up until now I’ve just done the standard “ground with sand” and maybe some grass. I did my best to avoid the “pitcher’s mound” and make the base level, but it’s tough without removing the figure’s built in base.

So, I went with a kind of polished concrete look, with some industrial stuff on it. I made it shiny with Citadel’s ‘Ardcoat.

I’m pretty happy with how they came out. I used spackling for the base, as I’ve been doing with my Gruntz army. I think next time I’ll try Green Stuff. I just got some to make sandbag terrain with, and I’m eager to try it out.

Tabletop.MagiGames.org

Miniatures and the games that use them.