A couple of 28mm Sci Fi updates

A few little updates. Back in August I had one of those lucky finds shopping at Big Lots. I found a Secret Saturday Griffin Stealth jet for $5. I decided to see if I could convert to a dropship. Here's a link to the earlier post.
I finally painted it in the "night camo" pattern.



Pics above show the dropship with an AT43 container and some EM4 Troopers for scale.

Next is a quickie. A little while ago Vampifan had a nice review article on his blog featuring some Black Orc Games bikers and Black Scorpion Bikes and Bikers, here. I had some Hot Wheels Motorcycles I bought a while back for gaming, but I didn't have any riders. I was inspired to try out a Black Orc Games rider on the Hot Wheels Bikes. I had one Hot Wheels that is practically made to order for the Black Orc Games Rider. Here's some pics:
Pic below shows the Hot Wheels Bikes with a HeroClix mini. I used the bike in the center.

Pic below shows the HW bike with another HC mini for size.

A WIP shot of the assembled Black Orc Games Rider on the HW bike. All I had to do with the biker was spread his arms a little.

Below pic is the Rider after block painting and dipping. I still need to go back and retouch the rider, and maybe add a weapon on his back.

Overall, I think the Black Orc Games rider is a pretty good fit for the Hot Wheels bike. Thanks, Vampifan, for the tip about them.

Last item is another lucky find. This one from Hobby Lobby. In the clearance section I found a Battle Force Army playset for $2.39. It had 2 pretty nice Hummers and a Tank, plus some 54mm plastic soldiers. The Hummers are a hard plastic with black-tinted windows and pretty nice detail. Had a couple of goofy roof-mounted weapons which were easily removed. The tank required a little more work, mainly to the undercarriage, but still had pretty good detail. The 1st Hummer and Tank are now all done but painting, maybe will add some stowage. I taped the windows on the Hummer and took it apart and spray painted it with white primer, followed by a black spray.
Here's what it looked like initially, shown with a HC min for size.


More pics of the Hummers and the Tank to come next week. When these are done I'll use them for some Combat Zone games.

Thanks for looking, Luckyjoe.

Girl Gangers for Combat Zone

This a start on my Girl Gang for Combat Zone. They are a semi-professional paramilitary group composed entirely of women. The street name of their gang is the Black Widows. Hence the black clothing. The minis I used are EM4 plastic Gangers and Heroclix, and most have been converted. Here's some pics.
Below 2 pics: Left is a HeroClix mini with an EM4 plastic Ganger Head. The right one is an EM4 plastic Ganger with an HeroClix head.


2 pics below: Left is an EM4 plastic Ganger with minor changes to the head. Cut off a large feather headdress and removed a long braid. Right mini is a HeroClix repaint.

















Pic at left is a plastic EM4 female Ganger with arms from the male ganger with a shotgun. I also trimmed the hair a little.


I'm thinking about adding a black hourglass shape onto the backs of these minis to go with the Black Widow motif. Only thing holding me back is I will probably screw it up. Anyway, thanks for looking.

28mm Terrain for Combat Zone

I was inspired a while back by Germy's Combat Zone Project posts on his site, here. If you haven't seen these, you should check them out. I also got back into visiting the Combat Zone Chronicles site. This is a great site with articles on terrain, minis & conversions, scenarios and many other useful features. Once again, if you haven't been there, you should check it out, here. I am really loving the EM4 plastic minis. They're very well made, with very good detail, easy to convert, and very reasonably priced. Here's the EM4 site.
Anyway, I've been working on making some terrain for Combat Zone and here's pics. The first group of pics below are of a mostly demolished ruin made mostly from the Hirst Arts Small Brick mold, and based on a 6" round piece of craft wood. I chose the small brick mold because I think it resembles cinder block. Most of the rubble on the piece was made from putting miscast Hirst Arts bricks from various molds in a plastic bag and whacking it with a hammer. I then glued that debris on to the base. Tried something new with painting these pieces. I filled a spray bottle with magic wash and tinted it black with some craft paint, and used that to spray the ruins, instead of priming and then painting. I was hoping the magic wash would not only paint the ruins and rubble, but also seal it and help hold the rubble onto the base. I think it came out pretty good, and the rubble is holding on to the base pretty well.



The next group of pics is of another ruin. Same construction and painting method. For this one I made a partially destroyed corrugated iron roof. The roof has a frame made from matchsticks. Onto that frame I laid sections of corrugated iron made from cereal card which I ran through a crimping tool. One of the reasons I wanted a roof on this piece was to provide a platform for extra elevation for snipers.





The two pics above show a mattress made from Sculpie polymer clay. I got the idea from an article on the Combat Zone Chronicles called "Putty Rubbish". I made a mattress, a chair and some trash bags a while back. This is the first time they'll see use.
The next group of pics below is of another ruin, this one with a stairway and a little bit of the second floor left.


The pic below shows the sculpie chair I made a while back.


This was a fun little series of builds. I'm really pleased with the way the "black magic wash" worked. It brought out the detail of the unpainted bricks very nicely and helped seal the rubble to the bases. I'll probably continue to use it for the rest of the ruins, though I may make it darker. Thanks for looking and comments are welcome.

Luckyjoe

Combat Zone Troopers and Clix Gangers

Hi, everybody. I did a little more work on my Combat Zone project. Painted up my first squad for Combat Zone and finished some Clix Gangers. Here's some pics:


Pic above shows my plastic Troopers. 2 were basic without conversions. The 1st and 3rd from the left are conversions.

The pic above shows a side view the same squad. It shows that I actually removed the mold lines this time. :) Thanks to OrdinaryBass from TMP for the tip that I could remove the mold lines even though I had already base-coated them. I went back and removed mold lines from 25 Troopers. They do look a lot better and it didn't even take that long.

Pic above shows the Clix Gangers with 1 Last Night on Earth Mini (the Nurse). This is prior to a MinWax dip for the HC minis.

The pic above shows the HC minis post dip. I think this is one of the best results I ever got with the dip. I'm tempted to try the dip on the Troopers.

Thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

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

Imex M113 Conversion, the backstory :)

Hi, folks I just realized I posted WIP pics of this conversion before posting pics of the original. Ooops. Here they are.
Pic Above shows a side by side front comparison view with an old GW Rhino and a GW Space Marine for size comparison.


Pic below shows a side by side back comparison view with the old GW Rhino and a GW Space Marine.

Pic below shows a side by side height comparison with the real Rhino in front.



Another side by side comparison. Note the lack of detail on the side of the cheapie M113


Pic below shows side view of that M113 with a GW Space Marine for size. As you can see there's a lot of converting needed, but that's just what I like.:)


Anyway, thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

Converting an Imex Police Playset M113 to a not-Rhino Update

Hi, folks. This is a continuation of an earlier post. I've been working on converting an IMEX Police Playset M113 APC I got from Hobby Lobby to a 28mm scale not-Rhino for my boys for Warhammer 40K. It's a nice lttle soft plastic M113 with a lot of potential for conversion. So far I've only done one side. Here's what I've got so far. I added a piece of cereal box card to the side. Then added the hatch doors to each side. Added a piece of popsicle stick under the door for a step. Then I added a smokestack made from a piece of wooden dowel. I drilled the dowel to add detail to the smokestack and a piece of curved wire for an exhaust pipe. Then framed the hatch with matchsticks, added cardstock over the matchsticks with rivets made using a 1mm punch and cereal card. Added a couple of rhomboid shaped panels made from cereal card and balsa backed with screen wire for vents. Spray-primed with Rustoleum white primer.
Here's some pics:

Pic above shows the conversion after a white spray prime.


Added the bottom section with wheels and tread to show height. One of my 11 year old son David's WIP GW Eldar for size comparison.


The shot above shows the WIP not-Rhino with an EM4 plastic Trooper conversion. His left arm was cut away from his pistol, leaving him pointing with his index finger.

That's all I have on this conversion now. I need to repeat the same process for the other side and work on the front. The top and back I intend to leave as they are. Once again, thanks for looking and C&C welcome.

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