Cowboys vs Aliens

Hi!

It's been a bit quiet here on my blog but I have been quietly beavering away with my ongoing Peter Pig Weird West mini project and have finished a second unit of 12 rifles!

Riflemen

The figures are almost entirely comprised of Peter Pig's rather good 15mm Wild West range apart from a singly Laserburn hunter after I realised that I was short a figure for a nice 12 man unit!

I went for lots of browns, greys and blues again with the colour scheme and rather like how they turned out, even if they are possibly not too historically accurate and unlike the pistol unit, they have  a bit more interesting of a selection of poses as there's a few shotgun toting types amidst the unit.

This gives me two full units for my Weird West force which is rather surprising and I seem to be almost putting together a full army without meaning to!

Here's the full force as it stands:

A Posse of the Rootinist, Tootinist Varmints this side of the Rio Grande!

I must admit that I've really enjoyed working on the little guys and look forward to adding some more mounted units before adding some character figures into the mix. Having had these chaps for an absolute age (as best as I can remember, I got them in 2006-7) I am overjoyed to actually have them painted up and am constantly pleased and surprised by the little details the Peter Pig figures have. 

While they are mostly going to be seeing action somewhere in the West, I do plan on using them as disgruntled settlers or Grox herders for my Alternative 40k setting too. Sadly they are true 15mm scale so some of my other figures kind of loom a bit over them but I'm looking forward to working on more of them and dare I say it, pick up the remaining units to complete an actual factual army!

 Grox Herders defend a promethium store on Farpoint

In order to keep the painting mojo going, I've been mixing all manner of other figures into the paint queue to stop me getting bored and I've managed to complete the first two of my Boglin figures:

Boglins

They are from a set of soft rubber toy figures I picked up from Tesco a few years ago as they looked suitable for 15mm sci-fi gaming and I've finally managed to paint a couple of the bounders!

The soft rubber meant that I couldn't clean off the mould lines and I never bothered stripping off the original paint and just primed over the top. I was pleasantly surprised by the sharp details they had lurking about them as their teeth and beady eyes really came out well. A good coat of varnish has firmed them up enough for use and I hope to paint the remaining four over the next week or two!

I've no idea who made them but am rather sad that I didn't pick up a couple more packs when they were available as they are rather fun. Mounted on 25mm bases they are a lot bulkier than an average 15mm scale figure but they do the job as some foul mutant from the depths or a toxically inclined alien for the good guys to shoot at in small skirmishes which is fine with me.

Hopefully I'll finish the last of my Salvage Crew this weekend too and will be able to post some pics of them next time along with a few random figures I've been working on over the last couple of weeks so watch this space.

In the meantime, All the best!

Weird West Cowboys

Hi!

Last week I previewed some 15mm scale Cowboys I've been painting and I've managed to finish a unit of 12 of the little chaps.

Cowboys

I've had the little chaps for at least 10-15 years now and some were painted (badly) as colonial militia for my old Stainless Steel Rat project and I figured it was high time that I did something with them rather than having them just languish in a box.

After a bit of pondering, I decided to base them up with a mixture of individual and group bases with the vague idea of using them as a Weird West force as I've got enough to form 3-4 units all told and with a bit of bodging, I can easily add some more unusual elements such as zombie gunfighters or warwagons...

I've now got the first half of a rifle unit painted and hope to get it finished for the weekend before moving onto some mounted troops. I've also got some sci-fi salvage team done which will be getting photographed too as time permits!

I seem to have really got into 15mm painting again after almost six months of working on all sorts of other scales so we shall have to see how I get on but in the meantime, all the best!

Homicidal Pepperpots Tutorial

Hi!

Last week I made myself some Dalek proxies in 15mm scale and I've been asked to put together a step by step guide on how to make the angry little fellows so here goes!

EXTERMINATE!

Supplies

To make the proxy Daleks, you will need a selection of plasticard (cardboard will do at a pinch!) of different thicknesses, some plastic rod and some plastic embellishments (I picked these up from The Range in their craft section for about £2.99 and they are dead handy).

Building The Daleks

The first step is to cut some pieces of the plastic rod (mine is 7mm thick) to 10mm lengths and then fasten on a piece of 2mm thick plasticard to it. This gives the backpack/rear of the armour. Next add some smaller sections of plasticard to the sides. I used slightly thinner plasticard for this and cut it to 7mm sections. 

Next add a smaller piece of plasticard in front of that (the right hand of the pic). 

Next use a small piece of thicker plasticard to the front of the robots body and the basic shape is done. The next steps were to add some extra panelling to the rear of the armour to add some more detail. Finally peel off one of the larger embellishments and glue it on and the Dalek is starting to take shape!

Once the head is in place, peel off two small dome embellishments and stick them on the sides of the head giving the flashy communication lights. A third dome is reversed and glued in place to give the eye stalk and then a small piece of wire to give the laser gun/cattleprod/deathray. On the other side, I added a small piece of thin plastic rod to make the basis of it's manipulator arm.

As I already had six basic Daleks, I wanted to add some commanders and heavy weapons to my fledgling force so I gave two the normal manipulator arms by using another of the small domes reversed and glued in place while the remaining two became heavy weapon Daleks by gluing a small dome in the centre of their casing and fastening on a small piece of thin plastic rod!

While not perfect representations of the Daleks, they do the job. If I had endless patience I would add all the little domes on their casing to give a more classic Dalek look but as they are now, they will do and they make handy additions to my other projects, be they Imperial Extermination droids or Ghoulani Enslaver bots!

It took me about an hour to make four of them and cost about £1 worth of materials and if you do an assembly line approach rather than stopping to take pictures, it takes even less time and I'm rather pleased with how they turned out. Hopefully I'll get the remaining four painted this week and will showcase my fledgling force then.

In other news, I've been furiously painting my way through my 15mm gubbins and have got a load more cowboys done as well as the first four members of my salvage crew and will post some pics up in the coming week!

In the meantime, All the best!