The Space-Pirate Dreadnought Ramona

Hey Internet,

The other night I finished my most recent project, the Space-Dreadnought Ramona. 

Named after the most beautiful flower of them all, she is currently serving as the flagship of a band of Space Pirates in the outer reaches of the known Universe.



Very soon (in fact, as soon as I finish uploading this post) she will have statistics and rules so that she can be used in games of 'Full Thrust'.



The model itself is a Spur Class Heavy Cruiser from Spartan Games' 'Firestorm Armada' line, part of their Syndicate faction. In my humble opinion, this is one of the most fantastic looking space-ships that I have ever seen what with its sleek, evil looking 50's curves and big ball-shaped turrets.



Because of its retro design, I thought I'd paint it in a nice two-tone 'classic car' colour scheme like the one here;



I'm really happy with my handy-work, but what do you think?

MM.

Admiral Lazarev and Greig.

Hey Internet,

I painted some more ships and thought I'd put them up on me old blog.

In an effort to make my Ironclad games a little more balanced, I've done two of the most powerful warships in the Tsar Alexander's navy, the Admiral Lazarev and the Admiral Greig.

Both were interesting ships, both triple-turreted Frigates. Despite their appearance and low freeboard they were not monitors but sea-going warships.

The models are triple-turreted ACW monitors from 'Tumbling Dice's 1/2400th Range. Like all ships in this scale that dont have sails they were a joy to paint and took near to no time to get finished.

I've also, well, glued a little bit of paper to, the my model of the Great Eastern, meaning that she is now finished and ready for battle.

Ive got some more bits on the go, will post them once they are done.

MM.

Kimagure Class Pursuit Cruiser

Hey Internet,

Although I was sort of happy with the spaceship that I posted up the other day, I felt that plain green was just too boring, so Ive added a few yellow highlights to jazz it up a bit.



Also, Ive identified the model as a Battletech Kimagure Class Pursuit Cruiser.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Kimagure



What ya' think then?

MM.

Assorted Painting

Hey Internet,

I did some painting and thought I'd blog it up.

First up, a large siege howitzer for my Russian Colonial project. Its a foundry model from their Franco-Prussian war range. It used to be painted a nasty blue, but now its a nice green.


I've also been expanding my minor horde of Russian infantry over the last few weeks...


and adding to my assortment of 'other Victorian and vsf things'.....an Automaton....Nicola Tesla....the Tsar of all of Russia.....Miss Marple.....


Ive also got a pair of 1/2400th scale Ironclads painted, the HMS Dreadnought and the HMS Ajax. Both are new models from Tumbling Dice, and are really rather nice. The Ajax in particular.




My last little effort to show off is a bit of an odd ball really - a space ship. Ive not done any space ship gaming in yonks (at least 5 years!), but I saw this model a bit roughed up at the bottom of a box and thought Id give it a lick of paint. Ive had the model for ages. I think its a Battletech something-or-other, not sure what thought.

Using my crappy, highly dangerous Dremel like thing that I got from Lidil ages ago I mounted it on a nice acrylic flying stand (from Spartan Games).

Its Green with green and red bits because I watched an old episode of Star Trek recently and felt like painting something up vaguely Kingony.

I'll need to play some Full Thrust now....


MM.

Central Asian Magnetism

Hey Internet,

Just a very quick update. This week I have cracked on with the worryingly enjoyable task of re-basing all of my colonial russian/khivan stuff. Getting to around the 60 figure mark now. I also painted four whole russians!

Slightly more interestingly, due to my immense irritation with bent bayonets,  I have gone from storing my figures in foam boxes to storing them in lined box files.

I started out by lining the boxes with steel paper and attaching base magnets to my models, but that did not work out. The base magnets doubled the thickness of the model's bases, amongst some other things.



Rather grumpy that I had spent £20 on magnets that looked crap, I then found out that pennys are made of brazen steel rather than copper nowerdays, and are as a result magnetic! That meant I could just line the file boxes with cheap magnetic sheeting and they'd stick to it.....so that's what I did.



The magnetic attraction this way round isn't as good as having magnets on the models, but it is far cheaper and the models don't look awful, so its a winner on balance. The attraction isnt bad by any means though, as this photo shows they are happy to be lent on a 45 degree angle without any of them moving - so its plenty good enough to keep them safe on the back seat of a car.

Little Vicky

Hey Internets,

Ever since I was *yay high* I can remember going to the Bovington Tank Museum every year or so, and each time coming to the conclusion that the Vickers Independent was the finest example of an armoured vehicle in their expansive collection.

When Copplestone Castings brought out a kit for the thing I bought it without really thinking, and ever since it has bolstered the forces of the Tsar in their apparently eternal struggle against the foul Queen Victoria.

However, for a long time 'Little Vicky' had been painted in a rather unbefitting, gordy black and gold colour scheme, with some crappy bits of plastic crudely glued to it for a smoke stack (if you want to see it, its somewhere in the archives of this blog) - but times have changed.



Here she is in her new green and white livery. I chose the colours after seeing an Ottoman warship from the 1870's wearing the same paint, and deciding that it looked rather nifty.



Here she is with some Eureka Russians, just to show scale.

I have to say, I'm rather chuffed with her, and am quite looking forward to see her steaming across the table.

What do you think?

MM.

May Day in Khiva

Hey Internet,
I've accentually got a bit of painting done this week. I had two days off last with a nasty virusy bug thing, but put the time to good use, wrenching models off their naff old bases and glueing them on to pennys.

The bases are just fine gravel with tuffts of static grass.

They are painted with a simple 3 stage drybrush of Coat 'd Arms (CdA) Barbarian Leather, followed by CdA Mid Stone, followed by Games Workshop (GW) Kommando Kaki over a base coat of CdA Chocolate Brown.

So, here they are, with their new bases.

Some Russians. Figures are from Eureka, with a converted West Wind Officer in the background.


Some Arab Types. These figures are from all over the place, and not great...well...at least I am not happy with them. And I need more. Lots more.


And of course a few colonial adventurers. All from Wargames Foundry.