Dropzone Commander PHR Force

Good Lord how has it been nearly two years...

I have been painting in all this time, just not photographing or uploading, as you can see!

with isolation upon us, modellers are finally tackling back catalogues. In my case, that includes this previously half-finished starter army for the PHR in Dropzone Commander:

 

Three Neptune Medium Dropships, an Athena air superiority fighter, four medium walkers, two command walkers, two Junos, and a pair of Taranis rocket launchers.

Everything except the command walkers is magnetized, so arms can be swapped between various walker roles, and the flyers are on their removable pegs to reduce the possibility of damage. Since I re-posed some of the legs, and to support them in battle, I laser cut some bases for the walkers to steady on.

Here you can see the close-up on their camouflage. I am not a fan of the default-bone colour of the official scheme, but was caught by an urban dazzle camouflage in the rulebook. I adapted the colour scheme (blue-grey, with pale-grey and deeper-blue accents) and applied it to mine. The hexes were airbrushed on with laser-etched painters tape providing the mask. Hitting it in different patches like this makes it look like the camo sweeps across the model in reaction to movement or surroundings.

The effect on larger, flatter surfaces like the Athena or the Neptunes (Below) really enhances the organic curves of the PHR and their advanced-tech feel.

It also allows for Neptunes to be individualized, without illogical big numbers or stripes.

The Taranis launchers are not glued in, so they can appear with weapons exposed, or sealed up in full scuttling beetle mode.

Infantry will join the vehicles shortly, but I am clear-basing them as well, and it'll take a bit of extra work fishing them off their bases, painting them, and gluing them down.

Now I just can't wait for the quarantining to end so I can throw these on a battlefield!

Mobile Brigada

After a long hiatus, I finally have photos of my Mobile Brigada. Currently, they have a gloss coat on them, but I may overlay that with a matte varnish, at least on the armour. I like them shiny, but I'm not certain I like them quite so shiny.

First up is the converted Mobile Brigada with Combi-Rifle. For the sake of Ice Storm, he has this weapon for most of the time, so I figured I might as well convert him with one. It's also convenient that there's a profile of this with tinbot, who I'll have fun converting in a little while.

His look, since the red-paint blog post, now has select white shin guards, a unique number (which I intend to carry across the entire cluster of them), and white detailing on either shoulder pad, as well as on the mask. There's multiple layers of faceplate, and I wanted to make each one distinct. The gun's a basic matte black, and the glowy vents are my usual light turquoise over white. Much like the Geckos, my figuring is the Mobile Brigada are meant to take heat from enemies, letting lighter armed infantry get away with minimal shots, so they're bright red, rather than a typical combat-subtle drab.

Next up is the converted Multi-Rifle armed Brigada. I didn't want to just do same pose different weapon, so this guy's been converted to actually be holding his gun. It was an interesting conversion to make, and was done before the box was announced with an HMG pose almost identical. The shoulderpads' insignia is the usual Nomad symbol, combined with the one for Corregidor. The upper right arm is scratch-built in essence, attempting to mimic the armour plating already there, and the head reposition was remarkably easy, needing minimal puttying.

Those guys aside, let's talk for a second about the new Mobile Brigada box...

(Taken from the Corvus Belli store page)

First, I love the look of the HMG and Boarding Shotgun versions. Very aggressive, very combat-but-not-shooting.

Then there's the female models. I don't mind the Missile Launcher's pose, but why. Why are there boob-plates? They're so ineffective, and unlike light armour, where you could argue they need to not be massively clunky, heavy armour has no similar problems!

That, and why is the hacker variant directing traffic? Why is she armed with a pistol? I think this could have been a time for CB to make really interesting combat-pose models, distinctively female without boobplates, and a hacker who is first and foremost a heavy infantry with a big scary gun, and a hacker second. I would love for them to take more influence from Ghost in the Shell, and less from Minority Report!

Also, final issue, and this is a big one, for the Mobile Brigada hacker: she doesn't have a backpack. Somehow, unlike every single other MB soldier, she has no power plant, no heavier weapon I guess, and if you ask CB, they can't even send one as a backup. Heck, they couldn't even send a fourth in the box and let me decide whether I want it or not. We've seen such an increasing standard from Corvus Belli over the last while, and this seems a step back in an annoying way.

Anyway, next time I shall have Grenzers or Spektrs, (or both, I guess) almost rounding out the Icestorm adventure!

Converting Ice Storm Nomads

I return!

In the last month of not updating the blog, I have gotten married, gotten a new apartment, and attempted to move everything here without resulting in a broken pile of pewter and plastic!

As I settled in, I've done some work on the Morats, and decided to start prepping the Nomads for painting. A friend and I swapped models from two boxes of Operation: Icestorm, resulting in us each having two of everything. I have determined to not have utter duplicates in the force, meaning I need to convert seven models of the box. Luckily, the two male Alguaciles could get away with a simple arms swap, but the female Alguacile was a bit more of a challenge.

Corvus Belli loves giving its female models pinup poses, but luckily there was enough gap between the legs to pull them to a wider (if still a bit hippy) stance, and her arms were thin enough to carefully reposition into a firing stance.

...the one problem was the hair. I had to change it, and the only thing for it was a trip to the barber's shop!

I'm not exactly the gentlest barber...

 

(Sorry for the blurriness of the photos; I'm still using my cell for pics!)

I first carefully cut off all the hair and shaved her head down to just a scalp. This took some careful gouges/cuts with a boxcutter, and even closer trims with a craft blade.

Old Man Hair!

Then came careful puttying of the short hair around the sides and back of her head. I wanted to go with a more military-standard short cut, with a bit of a bizarre flare. I want to make the Alguaciles (and Nomads in general) look as though they struggle between professional military and individualist themes. You can also see in this one the modifications to the body pose.

(Whups, flipped the photo order)

Next up, after the first round had dried, I added a blob of putty to the top, gave it a part, and pulled it down on the far side, to give a bit of individual style.

As usual, I tend to work fast when I get closer to the final stages, so here's a 'finished' shot: I used a craft knife to turn the blob into individual hairs or clumps, gave her a single lock over the forehead, and then a hairstyle that's very short on the left, gradually getting longer around the back of the head until it hangs down to the jawline on the right side.

Next up I'll put on photos of the other two Alguaciles. I'm hoping when painted the hairstyle will work. I will likely give her a black wash to see if anything stands out.

See you hopefully sooner than another month from now!

Pre-Wedding Update: Geckos, Morats, Artwork!

With my wedding about a week away, I'm sure I'll have _loads_ of painting time shortly. That said, there's some stuff I've managed to get work done on in the interim.

Morat skin! It's a bit glossy at the moment, but it's been highlighted from a purplish colour up through red to dark fleshtone. It adds a vibrancy to the skin, and prevents it from suffering a pinkish fade.

The faces on these two is a bit more limited in visibility than...

...the Huntress! Here you can see a lot of skin painting, because she's got a lot exposed. I am amazed at the amount of detail sculpted into this dangerous woman. You can see all kinds of minor muscle clusters around her ribs, as well as more realistic folds where her body twists. With this much skin you can see how the red seems to glow!

And if not, here's a nice close-up of her to get the idea. Again, I'm not certain I like the level of gloss, but since I'll be layering over with varnish coats, it'll not really hold through. It was interesting trying to highlight skin so it looks natural, but in a colour no normal skin is!

But wait, there's more...

I have been sketching for a few days trying to figure out what I would do for Gecko shoulderpads. I have one or two I know I want to paint on, but I need to pick the "Named" shoulderpads.

I themed this off nose art from bombers, which will hopefully explain the mix of weird/random, and 'sexualized' sketches (if you can make out the tiny doodles)

This is typically how I decide my freehand before actually applying it. A lot of sketching to try to figure out how detailed I'll need to go, and to get an idea of what it'll look like in the end.

Soon, I hope, I'll have after-pics of awesome Gecko shoulderpads! After here meaning after painting, after moving, and after wedding...

Geckos Nearly Done

Well, despite the madness of the holidays, I've still managed to get some painting done! The Morats have been getting some armour painting, though I'm not certain how I'll paint the main plates. More importantly, I've made forward progress on the Geckos!

I love how, with no TAG arms, they look so stumpy!

First up is the main bodies. I've been carefully washing with agrax into the cracks, and even more carefully drybrushing white and edge highlighting to get the sharp redness.

Put 'em up... you wanna go?

It's been hard getting just the right amount of highlight. As much as his paintscheme is awesome, the main Infinity painter I feel does his models too pink, not enough red. To that end I've been trying to carefully only highlight with white, and if it goes too strong, I cover it in red and try again. I'm also trying to make the armour not look metallic red, which can be a challenge.

Now I need to determine where, if any, to depict white stripes and alternate colour plates. I may do the pilot's arm bands, torso, and chestplate in black, as well as certain elements of the helmet and legs in white. I also purchased a Gundam decal sheet so I can do a lot of appropriately accurate "Caution" warnings and arrows, since every real military vehicle has loads of those just in case. I'll have to consider where on the TAG warrants such a warning!

The metal bits are done in my favourite NMM-with-metallics method, going right from almost-black to mithril silver. I've decided to go a bit brighter than I normally would for military troops, because these are TAGs driven by pilots who know they're going to be spotted, might as well be flashy!

After I decide where all the proper military elements will go, I shall also be adding pilot art. (Think bomber art circa WWII.) I need to decide what style to do though: I can't just go scantily clad women for both! I'll likely pull inspiration from said bombers, and also any Starcraft Terran Marines I can find; they often have neat elements of the sort.

Not So Camouflaged Update

After great deliberation and much consideration, I stripped the paint from my Geckos and started again. As much as I liked the camouflage look on the infantry, for the TAGs it just didn't quite feel right. (Also, the paint came out fuzzy on the feet for some annoying reason, and that just can't be let go!)

Eventually what I figured was unlike the line infantry, who want to not be readily seen, the Geckos can't really hide, so instead they're trying to draw fire to help keep the nearby infantry safe. Also, in boarding actions, being a large terrifying blazing red behemoth could help when a poor defender hears the ominous thumping preceding its bursting around the corner, weapons blazing!

That said, images time!

So far they're entirely red. At some point I'll decide which plates (if any) will become other colours, and how to pattern them. These lads were airbrushed, with proper Vallejo Air paints, and I'm getting more used to using an airbrush for detailed work, not just coating or basic highlighting. I'm certainly nowhere near an expert yet, but I can at least come up with something competent looking!

Ah, the forest of bitz. Even more than the main body of the tag, these parts make me happy I'm going the red route. The bright shiny red shoulder pads alone make it worth the effort.

Next up is careful highlighting of edges, and determining if (and by how far) to highlight brighter than red. If you're not careful, the red starts looking either orange or pink.

I also have finished Tomcats photos, I'll probably do a post with them this Sunday.

Nomad Paint Options

As I have cleaned, assembled, and basecoated my Nomads, my mind turns of course to paintschemes. I like to have a good idea before I start putting paint to model of what I will end up with, otherwise I tend to get bogged down at the halfway point trying to decide what to do for a certain section. In this case, it's especially important with the model count being so few, and the look of the models being so clean.

Luckily, I managed to snag the last copy of the art book from my FLGS and have plumbed it for fun things (I am a sucker for art books). I scanned a few photos of models I know I have, and put 'em in Photoshop to colour. I have a tablet that doesn't see as much use as I wish it did, but for things like this it is ideal. I can test out schemes quickly, imitate paint effects, and not worry about having to soylent green any models after too many applications.

As a preamble: I love the Ghost in the Shell series. The look of the combat armour, suits, 'tanks', etc. I love that even with opticamo, they still have nice drab outfits, and am leaning towards a look like that.

With that, here's what I have been musing over:

First up is a variation on the default scheme of Corregidor. Most of my models are (and will be) from this ship, so having a good strong red scheme seemed like a good idea. While I understand the mentality of "it doesn't matter their armour colour: Adaptive camo will take effect", to me, there's no reason to strain your poor camo computer by making it red to start!

With that in mind, you can see the three-part scheme above. I've done default bright red for the really noisy big things that aren't hiding: Hellcats, TAGs, possibly remotes, etc. Next up are the "support models". Represented here by a Custodier, this class would include Daktari, engineers, and the like, and feature a nice distinct white scheme.

Finally the black on the far right, while technically a hellcat in miniature, is meant to represent the more stealthy soldiers: Intruders, Zeros, and the like. Black on grey sets them up nice and dark, with red influences to tie them together. The advantage of this scheme is it follows the classic colour design combo of red-black-white, the disadvantage is it is nowhere near camo-like or Ghost in the Shell.

Holding to the white theme; One of my first wonders was an all-white scheme with either orange or red as accent colours. On this one I've also added a digital camo pattern, which if I do, I may do as hexes instead of squares. Being consistently white gives this one the advantage of being arguably more in line with the Ghost in the Shell feel, while maintaining Nomad similarity and allowing me to distinguish Bakunin and Corregidor. I'm not entirely sold though on HOW white this one is. I tend to find pure white schemes tough to make look really slick. Any mar, any inconsistent thickness in the paint, and the effect is ruined.

I've also toyed with one borrowing from above, but replacing the default white with a more urban drab. I would still heavily theme the white in patches, especially on the support models, but any of the 'line troops' would have a nice pale colour, not specifically indicative of any one background, but neutral enough to make it hard to distinguish features. I keep the red belts and details, and above have the digicam and non digicam versions.

Finally, a more olive colour. This one appears a bit minty-green, but I'd play with that colour to make it nice and neutral, using Russian Uniform as the base. In this one, white is used sparingly (and again almost exclusively on support models), and the red is limited. The mild green influence would help them be complimentary.

Overall I'm leaning towards the last two, with digital camo only applied if, once the model is painted, it feels like it wouldn't be too busy.

Currently you'll notice all the helmets with a shiny black. This is because the 'eyeslit' arrangement is not good for binary vision. My first solution of course is to turn them into up-armoured plexi, but I may decide to do them in standard colour, and just claim that where you can't see an eye slit, it's really a complex polymer/fibre-optic cable grouping that gives a better range of view, still protecting the face and allowing for a HUD.

Now comes the part where I sit with the various schemes, seeing if one starts to intrigue me more. Then I do a test model, and if I like that, paint the rest of the force!

I can't recommend this method of scheming out colours enough though. You can set up one, then do the "adjustment layer> hue/saturation" to pull around and get wildly different colours you may not normally think to use, but once you see them on the model, look right.

The Infinitely good, the bad, and the ugly...

I have formally given up GW. That's not the point of this post, but it does explain how things ended up happening the way they did. I love their models still, their art (and universe) is fantastic, and the rules are generally getting better, but I just can't take their business practices anymore.

That left me with no sci-fi (or sci-fa) tabletop game. Like many others, I'm sure, the next closest port of call was Infinity by Corvus Belli. If you haven't taken a look at it, I highly recommend you do. The first time I was introduced to it, the pitch was "squad-scale combat that's got great mechanics". Ever a sucker for more models, I wandered over to their website, and was frustrated to find it an utter chaos of javascript.

I am a graphic designer by training. I dislike javascript so much because while it can be a great tool for internet navigation, it can also be used to make clean website design and navigation an utter nightmare. Infinity's previous website was lousy with the latter. I also mostly get into games because of the look of the models. Your game could have the coolest mechanic ever, and if it has mediocre or uninteresting models, I'll look elsewhere. By contrast, I will endure awkward rules, so long as the models continue to be fantastic (see above...)

In a nutshell, Infinity's website was a mess, I couldn't find out what troops were 'standard' or which were characters, what a range looked like as a whole, and so I put them aside. More recently, with a lack of sci-fi games, I swung back around to take a second look. This time they'd updated the website so that looking at an entire range was a thing you can actually do now! As I flicked through, I found Nomad models really spoke to me. Sure they're bright red, but for the most part, their armour is practical, relatively logical, and even on women: properly covering.

Specifically, I loved this:

Those models are lean, mean, and I can even overlook the field of view issues. The poses are compelling, everything feels like it makes sense, etc.

Similarly, this model quite strongly attracted me, for the reasons above:

Dynamic pose, interesting weapon design, strong colour scheme, and a woman in actually pretty practical outfits! (No power-armoured corset or stiletto high heels.)

Something I started to notice with a lot of the line though; while some models are fantastic looking, and others are 'okay' (and all ranges have models people will think are 'okay'), Infinity suffers from some models I think are absolutely ridiculous or outright ugly, and I can't figure out how they got past prototyping.

First up is what I am going to call the "Jethro Tull Sniper" or, as some others have pointed out, "Elmer Fudd":

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a highly-experienced, efficient, sought-after sniper. That is also a pose no sniper in history has ever made. Try it yourself: Balance one heel on your knee, and suspend a (presumably) 12kg weapon off said knee, and picture firing at any significant distance with it.

I understand not every sniper has to be in full prone sniping position, but if you're going to have him shooting, at least make him look like he could!

Next up is one that needs some explaining first. The "Daktari" is the Nomad version of a combat medic. They're daring, unarmed, and equipped to help heal downed soldiers. They're known for swearing in Turkish and for being badasses when it comes to healing, just not killing.

Picture in your head a combat medic. Heck, picture a modern military, and the guy who officially runs around with the medical gear. Looks a lot like a standard soldier minus the rifle, maybe, and with perhaps a little cross somewhere to denote his or her status? Now take a look at this:

Look at that... I know Infinity has a pin-up line, but this isn't that. There is nothing "Combat" and barely anything "medic" in that image! Yes, I know there's an alternate version that looks much more so, but man...

Finally, in the game Infinity, some models can actively hack others. This can shut down their armour, or in some cases, even take over robots and have them working for you. In this world for all that they've been inspired by Ghost in the Shell I suspect, they still manipulate the digital interface like Minority Report; hand up and with a holographic screen. The thing is, that only looks great when you can see all the CGI screen stuff. When that's not there, say on a model without it, the result is this:

That's jazz hands, or a surprised cat. I know folks have gotten transparencies printed that have the screens on them, and kudos to Corvus Belli for making those available, but it's still not a great look.

Why the post ranting about all this? Well, as any weak-willed gamer knows, the lure of a new game (and new shiny models) is an almost impossible call to resist, and I now have a Corregidor starter set and reverend custodier. Soon you will see a couple posts as I play through possible colour schemes and get to work starting a new science fiction-y force, and I had to discuss this first. I love so many of the models produced for Infinity, but I don't think I've ever had a reaction like this where it's beyond "eh, not for me" and right into "why did they..."

As a final plug, do take a look at their site: The rules are free to try, and it has mechanics I am so happy to see in a game.