News Team 5 and EM4 Bikers

Hi, folks. I managed to finish some more survivors this week. These are from EM4 Miniatures Future Skirmish line and are very nice and very affordable. The News Team comes from the "Street People" section and the bikers come from the "Bikers" section. These were fun to paint, and I mounted them on some more of the cool Fenris resin bases I've been using lately. I think I've seen them all reviewed on Vampifan's blog in the past and finally got some for myself.

"This is Susie Dumbass for Action News 5. We're downtown investigating reports of Living-impaired Americans causing a disturbance."

"Eddie! What the hell is that?!!" Video feed lost at this point. :)

Pics below are a couple of the EM4 Bikers.

And there you have it. 4 more minis for the cityboard. Thanks for looking.

Got a new toy today. A Privateer Press Wet Palette. I was going to make my own, but got tired of waiting for my wife to pick me up some parchment paper. I was working six 12-14 hour shifts in a row lately and didn't have time or energy to get it myself. She was too busy and/or kept forgetting it so I finally just ordered one from E-bay. Looks nice, maybe I'll try it out soon and post about it.

Finished The Last 2 Buildings for the Cityboard

Hi, everyone. I finished (? maybe) the last 2 buildings for the Cityboard. One is a Motel and the other is an Apartment building. They are both from the Sarissa Precision 28mm CityBlock line. It has been a lot of fun to work on these buildings. The interiors are finished with WorldWorks Games textures and I made or downloaded signs from the internet for exteriors.

Pic above is the Roche Motel. I found the signage on a model RR shop and really liked it. Minis are an EM4 plastic trooper on the sidewalk and a Heroclix on the roof.

Shot of the rooftop. Made from WWG print-out.

Side view. More model RR signs. The "hotel" sign comes WWG, I mounted it on some Sintra. The mini is from Black Orc games.

Pic above shows rear of building. Model RR sign and a Studio Minis Zombie. I thought the sign was especially appropriate with this mini.

More Model RR Signs and an EM4 plastic ganger.

Interior view of the upstairs of the hotel. Textures on walls and floor are WWG. LNOE mini.

Pic above: Ground floor of the Hotel. I used a WWG door for variety. Floor is a piece of scrapbook paper. Walls and stairs from WWG.

Peekaboo shot into interior. HorrorClix mini, one of my favorites.

Next is the Sarissa Precision Residential Building. I love this one. Beautiful, sturdy detail. I'm using it as an Apartment Building.

An EM4 plastic ganger confronts a HorrorClix Zombie. I added some scratchbuilt trash bags and ruined furniture to the front fenced area. I thought about putting in flower beds but decided that wasn't very Zombie themed.

View of the rooftop. WWG pipe roof. HeroClix SWAT guy. Made the signs myself in Open Office. The "Quarantined" sign plays into one of the joke signs elsewhere.

Side view of the building with a LNOE zombie and a HeroClix SWAT. The "Splint" billboard is from WWG. The Downtowner Billboard is one I made. Googled a cityscape clipart and made the sign in Open Office. I always see those "If you lived here" signs so I used that, but since the building is quarantined, some smart-ass changed "home" to dead. Kind of feeble I know but I'm easily amused. :)

The rear of the building. Signage from MicroTactix Twilight Streets set. HeroClix Swat getting ready to grenade a Reaper prepaint zombie (front) and two Black Orc Games zombies. LuckyJoe making clicking sound as grenade arms. "Eat this, scum suckin freaks". You were right Dangerous Brian. :)

Top floor of the Apartments. I may subdivide it later like the ground floor. The walls are papered with scrapbook "wallpaper". The floor is WWG from Shellendrake Manor. A Black Orc Games Zombie is about to die for good at the hands of a plastic EM4 Trooper.

Close-up shot of the ground floor interior. Walls and doors from WWG, floor from scrapbook paper. Mini is Hasslefree Mini's Gruff. The doors can open and close. In the front of the building there are some scratchbuilt trash bags, a bloody matress and a broken love seat sofa. All made from Sculpie. I added some bloodstains with Tamiya clear acrylic red. 

View of the interior from the side. Doors are open...

View from the rear of the building. Doors are closed. Oooh, I hear you saying. Doors that open and close. :) Sorry cold medicine is kicking in and making me more goofy than usual.

Well, that's it for now. Got nine buildings ready for the table with playable interiors. I can now die happy. Still got a lot of Zombies and Survivors to paint, and I've got some Ainsty Street furnishings coming. Thanks for looking.

EM4 Plastic Troopers Conversions

Hi, folks. I've been working on converting my remaining EM4 Troopers. These have been simple conversions, but I think they're effective. They were certainly fun and easy. I got a lot of my ideas from reading articles on the COmbat Zone Chronicles.
http://combatzonechronicles.net/
The first one was a hand swap with a Hero Clix mini to give a different pistol.


The next one is another HC pistol hand swap.

This one had the left arm & hand holding the knife replaced with one of the left hands from the dual gripped pistol. Shaved away everything but the hand, leaving a pointing pose. Looks a little too stiff, though.

The next one is one of my favorites. It's a sniper. Made the sniper rifle by trimming down the standard autorifle, drilling a hole for a new long barrel made from a small gauge rubber-coated wire. Barrel inserted and glued in place. Then added a small bead at the end of the barrel and a longer bead for a scope. Pretty crude but I like the way it came out. Barrel may be a little too long though.



Same mini, different angle. I like the way this pic came out. "Say hello to my little frien'." :)

The following are a few more conversions where I replaced the EM4 autorifles with some rifles from GW Catachan Jungle Fighter sprues. They're a little large but I think they're okay.




Well that's all for now. All I need to do now is paint these guys. Thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

Update on the EM4 Plastic Troopers

Pic Above shows basic Trooper Squad assembled and primed with Krylon Italian Sage.

Here's a little update on my EM4 Plastic Troopers. I assembled and glued the Command conversion kit squad, the heavy weapons squad, and 5 of the basic troopers. I had to do a little bit of a conversion for one of the Command squad guys because I had inadvertently been sent 6 right arms and 4 left arms and so had to come up with another left arm. That was not a problem because you end up with an extra set of the basic arms when you buy the Command Conversion kit and heavy weapons guys with the troopers, instead of just buying the metal arms by themselves. Anyway, I took one of the left arms holding a knife from the basic set, and cut off the hand at the wrist and attached a hand and pistol from a Heroclix mini. Then I sprayed painted those 15 guys. I'm thinking I'll keep the paint jobs basic so I sprayed them with Krylon Italian Sage Satin spray paint. I had used that color on some terrain in the past, and like it's vaguely military look. I'm planning on giving these guys a black magic wash, and some highlighting with some lighter greens. Also thinking of swapping out some of the rifle with some Heroclix weapons. Anyway, here's a few WIP pics.

Pic below shows the basic troopers backs with backpacks attached

The pic below shows the assembled command conversion kit minis with metal torsos after spray priming.



The last pic (below) shows the heavy weapon kit guys. I really like these heavy weapons. They're very detailed and nicely modelled.



That's all I have for now. I'm hoping that by blogging this project it'll help keep me on track. I still have 10 more of the basic troopers left, and I intend to mess around with converting them using different weapons; both Heroclix and GW, and changing poses a bit as well.

Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe

EM4 Space Rangers

Squad with heavy weapons

Hi, everybody. I wanted to show some of the EM4 Space Rangers I recently got. I had never seen nor heard of them before, but I'm really glad I found them. These are very nice sculpts, in plastic, which only cost GBP 2.50 for 5 big minis with additional weapons. EM4's website says "Space Rangers Ref: SFP4
Set of 5 miniatures, 1 leader and 4 troopers. Snap together, interchangeable weapons. Includes choice of personal weapons and heavy weapons so that a standard squad, heavy weapons squad or mixed squad can be formed. Bases included."

I love the way these guys look, I love the snap-together design, I love the fact that you get such a nice variety of weapons, and I especially love the price. :)

Pic below shows Space Ranger Squad with Leader and squad with personal weapons



Pic below is a size comparison shot with an EM4 Trooper, EM4 Space Ranger and a GW Space Marine. As you can see, the Space Ranger dwarfs the Trooper but is comparable in size with the Space Marine.



Another size comparison showing the Space Ranger Leader with a GW Ork.


A size comp showing the Space Ranger Leader with an HorrorClix Alien.


I can't wait to paint these bad-boys up! Once again, thanks for looking, and as always, C&C welcome.

Luckyjoe

EM4 Plastic Troopers size comparison with GW

GW Ork, EM4 Trooper, and GW Space Marine.

Hi, folks. A little back-story about this post. I mentioned in a previous post that I had just gotten my order of plastic Troopers and Space Rangers from EM4. I had seen a post from Germy on Lead Adventure Forum here a while back about these minis. I followed it to his website where there are some excellent articles, including a very nice article on painting these EM4 Troopers, along with some excellent terrain articles. if you've never been there, give yourself a treat and check it out. Germy also recently started a nice new review site for charity, here. Another great site to visit, and maybe help someone out at the same time. Anyway, that's what occasioned the order, I thought the EM4 Troopers were very nice looking minis at an excellent price. I mentioned them in a thread on TMP and had a request from a fellow TMPer to post a size comparison pic showing GW figs with EM4 Troopers. So here we are. :)

After reading Germy's write up I went to the EM4 site and ordered 3 five-packs of the plastic Troopers at GBP 2.50 per pack. I messed up and forgot to get the Heavy Weapons Troopers (GBP 3.95 for 5), Command Conversion kit (GBP 3.95 for 10 differently equipped arms and 5 more troopers), and Space Rangers (GBP 2.50 for 5) with that order. So I e-mailed EM4 and they very graciously allowed me to add those to my initial order so I could save on shipping. I was very pleased with the excellent customer servce and am equally pleased with the outstanding quality of the minis.


GW Catachan Jungle Fighter and EM4 Trooper. As you can see, the EM4 Trooper is much more realistically proportioned than the GW figure.

Here's one of the basic Trooper squads. I like these minis a lot. One of their best features for me is that they snap together. That way you can check how you like the pose before you glue it, and unsnap it if you don't like it and change it.



Next (below) is the Heavy Weapons. I haven't assembled them, yet, just pictured them with the Troopers. EM4 offers you the option of buying the Heavy Weapons (which are metal) either with 5 Troopers (GBP 3.95), or separately with just the 5 metal weapons w/o Troopers (GBP 2.00). I went for the option with the 5 Troopers. As you can see the metal weapons are awesome.



Next is the command conversion kit. Sold either separately (GBP 2.00) or with 5 more Troopers (GBP 3.95). Once again, I went for the added value of the 5 additional Troopers. You can swap out the arms from the conventional Troopers to "to make officer/nco figures from the basic plastic Troopers set. Possible arms are pointing, carrying pistols, SMG's, medikit, comms link, grenade."


Next pic is a selection of alternative metal torsos. I think those are part of the Command Conversion kit but I don't see them on the website. Or maybe they were just a nice little surprise gift from EM4. Whatever the source I really like them, and think they will add some good variety.


Next article I want to show you some of the EM4 Space Rangers, which I discovered incidentally while buying the Troopers. Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe