On the paintingtable! Kallistra miniatures update

Hi, here are some new and old 28mm miniatures which I've finished recently. All of these figures were painted for my chaos on the red planet project. I've also built some smaller buildings for my mining colony but I won't post anymore pictures about the colony untill it's painted!

Painted

- 3 Scavengers (now completly painted)

- 3 Kultheans (buglike aliens)

- 2 Halvmörks (dwarvish miners)

- 1 Caladan (alien mercenary)

All the miniatures are painted with a mix of 12 gamesworkshop paints.

The miners' backs, tried out a new painting technique involving block painting and blacklining.

The front of the Halvmörk.

The 3 scavengers.

The back of the alien mercenary, he's the first miniatures to be painted white.

The front of the alien mercenary, the miniatures and others shown on this post were purchased from a LAF-member. The alien mercenary was partial painted but I touched him up a little bit.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures,

Greets,

Russian hordes!

Hi, here's a new post about some of my 20mm figures. This time painted and based Russians.

The soldiers seems to be chinese copies of airfix kits but I don't know which illegal manufacturer precisely?

But if somebody knows whichs figures these are and were to purchase let me know.

The 3 battalions exists of

- 1 commandbase (2 figures)

- 4 squads of 4 bases (32 figures)

A total of 102 figures

The three battalions.

A photo of one of the battalions.

Another shot of some soldiers.

A closeup of one of the battalions.

Greets,

Scrubbery

Hi, today I'm presenting you my 100st post! Scrubbery patches. These patches were really easy to make and ideal for breaking up large areas. They are generic and can be used for all imaginary settings.

I hope you like them,

A short tutorial

Used tools

- Hotgluegun (for glueing bits and pieces)

- Stanleyknife (to cut the edges of the bases)

- Metalpliers (to cut the actual bases)

- Scissors (to cut the broombristles)

- Saw (to saw the bark)

- Brushes

Used materials

- Paint

- Broombristles

- Green liches

- Static grass and other types of foliage

- PVA

- Sand

- Bark

Construction steps

1) Cut and sand the bases.

2) Add textured by adding sand and PVA.

3) Add bark (additional).

4) Paint and drybrush in the wanted colors.

5) Add the broombristles in clumps with hotglue.

6) Add foliage and flock.

7) shake of the excess of flock.

8) Ready to use!

Photo's

The rocky piece, I love the use of bark as rock. Light and goodlooking.

One of the 3 grassy pieces.

Greets,

American Marine Battalions

Hi, here are some pictures of my 2 finished USMC Battalions which will be used in my Okinawa project. The miniatures are manufactured by airfix, I wasn't quit happy with the set because there were 2 sizes of miniatures inside. One kind of soldiers was 1/72 and the others just looked like children but I get them from the "60th D-day anniversary" airfix-kit. Others were purchased secondhand from the online dealer I almost mention in every 1/72 related post.

Battalion 1 exist of

- 1 commander (1 figure)

- 2 squads of 4 bases (16 figures)

- 1 supportunit (2 figures "machinegunners")

Battalion 2 exist of

- 1 commander (1 figure)

- 2 squads of 4 bases (16 figures)

- 1 supportunit (2 figures "machinegunners")

So 2 identic battalions with 1 bazooka a squad ready to engage the Japanese!

The marines based and textured, base ready to be painted.

Close up of the unit. The entire unit is painted with gamesworkshop paints:

- Chaos black

- Dwarf flesh

- Catachan green

- Scorched brown

- Dark flesh

- Mithril silver

- Black wash

Another clos up of one of the units.

The 2 finished battalions.

Greets,

A nice initiative!

Hi, surfing the net today I stumbled on to a nice initiative set up by an army vet who saw action in Afghanistan, far away from family and his hobby and borded of board games. Back in the USA he set up a project called "games for troops" to supply wargamers who are deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq with miniatures, rules and terrain .

Currently he has 4 completed wargame-kits which contains painted miniatures, dices, rules and paper terrain.

- Northwest frontier-set

- Darkest Africa-set

- Wings of war-set (needs some paper terrain)

- Fantasy battle-set

All of these kits are ready to be shipped to fellow wargamers in Iraq and Afghanistan!

So everybody who has some painted miniatures or rulesets he wants to get rid off or simply donate, go to the site and contact mister Arnold.

Link to the website: http://sites.google.com/site/gamesfortroops/home

Always nice to promote charity projects!

Greets,

Mining colony

Hi, I finally started with some terrain for my "chaos on the red planet" project. I decided to build a mining colony colonised by dwarves and other creatures from outer galaxy are testing their luck, a bit similiar to the great Californian goldrush in the West.

The colony's bar (name not found yet) it's here were the miners gather after an exhausting day of mining. They gamble into the night and drink the bars own brewed beer. The beertank on the roof is also used as watchtower, you can never be too careful on the red planet!

The back of the bar constructed from lollypopsticks, cartonboard, corrugated cartonboard and bits and pieces.

The front of the bar with the beertank situated on the rooftop with beer flowing directly into the cafe!

In an earlier post I told about a shed with ventilationvans now I will tell a bit more about this building. The ventilations vans are used by the miners to supply enought new air into the miningshaft of which are 750 meters deep! In case of attack this building is the first to protect because if the vans are destroyed all the miners deeper than 450 meters are doomed to die as they can't escape the shafts fast enought.

The back of the ventilation shed. The entire shed is build around a plastic candy box covered with corrugated cartonboard, lollypopsticks and canvass.

The front of the shed with an alarmbell on the roof, ready to be used in case of scavengers and other creatures from the depths.

A small mill I've build to supply the colony with electricity, this mill is constructed from bits and pieces like plasticcard, styloparts, wheels, ...

Greets,

German Battalion

Hi, further progress is made into 1/72 wargaming. Yesterday I based an entire German battalion with some supportunits. The figures were manufactured by Italeri and were again bought from the secondhand dealer but this time the figures were still boxed! So I bought this box which actually value is 7 euros for 4 euros almost twice as cheap!

Battalion exist of

- 1 commander (1 figure)

- 4 squads of 4 bases (32 figures)

- 2 mortar bases (4 figures)

- 2 "standing" mg40 bases (4 figures)

- 2 "crawling" mg40 bases (4 figures)

One of the "standing" mg40 bases.

The other "standing" mg40 base.

All the supportunits together: 2 mortars and 4 mg40.

The entire German Battalion, the actual plan is to field 3 of these battalions against Americans or the Russians.

Greets,

American Combat Engineer Battalion in action!

Hi, here are some pictures of my finished A.C.E Battalion. So as said in a previous post the soldiers are manufactured by Italeri and Esci and are 1/72. The figures were bought from someone on a secondhand online site, every manufacturer 4 euros for 50 figures! But the sets weren't complete: mortars, machineguns and other nice figures were missing. But again the seller is a cheap supplier for bulking out battalions!

Back to the miniatures,...

The A.C.E battalion supported with a Sherman 76mm platoon steadily advancing toward a native village on Okinawa.

Close-up of the first infantry platoon of the A.C.E battalion, soldiers with minedetectors are clearing the path.

Close-up of the battalions commander and the fourth infantry platoon.

The second infantry platoon is steadily advancing through a small jungly area.

All the pictures used were set up for propaganda purposes.

Greets,

On the paintingtable! Italeri and Matchbox

Hi, last week I painted some new miniatures all 1/72! No photo's for the moment, ... but they are soon to follow.

Painted and based:

- An American combat engineer battalion (33 figures = 17 bases)

- A small American navy contigent (sailors, pilots) (13 figures = 7 bases)

- 2 small American marine battalions ( 34 figures = 18 bases)

Based but unpainted:

- A fullsize japanese battalion (45 figures = 23 bases)

- A small japanese battalion (31 figures = 16 bases)

- Some japanese prisonner markers (4 figures = 2 bases)

New units and things to do on the 1/72 workbench:

- Texture, paint and flock 3 russian battalions (130 figures = 63 bases)

- Panzergrenadiere (italeri) 1 battalion with good supportunits

- Russian infantry (italeri) 1 battalion with minor supportunits

- 2 japanese battalions (matchbox) (100 figures = 50 bases)

Conclusion: To many stuff to paint but I'm rolling 80 figures painted and based in +/- 3.5 hours without dryingtime.

Greets, so stay tuned pictures of the painted units are on their way!

Penal colony watchtowers

Hi, here's some progress on my "Chaos on the red planet" project. I finally started to build some terrain for this project more specified some watchtowers.

These watchtowers will be used to fence off the penal colony from the rest of the planet, from these watchtowers the guards can survey the plains in search of any threats or run away convicts.

Inspirated by the movie "the postman" I now also want to build some sort of miningfacility were the convicts are put to work. With mining equipment, corrugated sheds and storage barns, transportbands, ...

But again to my towers, searching through my stockpiles I found some old soupcans and some old sardinecans so why not glueing them together? So I had a basic shape to work from, I added some details but not much really.

Waiting for some more inspirating I watched "the postman" and put the watchtowers aside,...

Some of the used supplies: corrugated cartonboard, cans, cartonboard, ...

The basic shape of the tower, I have built 2 of these.

Greets,

How to: Jungle Trees

Hi, welcome to my small tutorial on how to make nice and easy jungle trees with a minimum of materials and tools. The idea for making jungle trees came from a quick visit to a cheap discount store, where I stumbled onto a cheap aquarium plant boll used for house decoration. Back at home I sourced some twigs from my twigs collection (make sure you use fully dried twigs) and started my first attempt of making large jungle trees using the purchased aquarium plants. 

First of all I cut out the hardboard bases for the trees using some metal pliers you can also use a handsaw but as this sort of soft hardboard is easy to cut I used the pliers as they are easier to handle without much hassle. When the bases are finished by also sanding the edges, I hotglued the trees on the bases, making sure they were balanced out and couldn't fall over. After that I have added texture using a layer of diluted woodglue covered with fine sand and gravel. 

The hardest part of collecting the most suitable twigs is already done and most of the preparation work is also done so we can now paint the entire piece using a light brown color for the entire piece including both the tree and base. When the basic layer is dry we heavily drybrush the entire piece using a large flat brush with a cream color. 

When the paint is fully dried we can now hotglue the plastic foliage in place by carefully putting small bits of hotglue on the desired place and sticking the plastic plants in place. We do this untill the full tree is covered with the plastic foliage as desired. After that we also hotglue some plastic plants on the base representing undergrowth and low vegetation and also add some static grass and clump foliage which we attch with wood glue. 

The finished pieces ready to be used in your wargame, the same techniques can also be used for making undergrowth bases (the strange looking plant in the last picture is a pine apple heavily drybrushed with a cream color) . Although you need some basic skills making these bases is possible for everybody using the right tools. And by doing it yourself you can save some money as these bases roughly costed a couple of euros in materials. Also found these pictures of the pieces being used in a colonial game.

More tutorials can be found here

Wargame News and Terrain: Wargame Room Finally Finished!

Hi, finally a post with some pictures again! This time my finished wargameroom, a project which started 2 months ago I think? The room is located on our attic in one of the smaller siderooms. My first wargameroom was my bedroom which was densly crowded with terrain and other needed wargamematerials but now with the new wargameroom finished I can decluther my bedroom!

I haven't worked much on the room, my father did all of the work from painting to making the shelving and desk. I helped a bit when I carried some of the needed equipment and material upstairs.

The large shelving unit, just large enought to hold my existing range of terrain but I have no need to worry I still have plenty of storagespace under my gamingtable!

View from one of the corners, in the front my jungly gamingtable and in the rear my workbench.

Another storageplace just next to my workbench. This cabinet will be used to storage miniatures, plastic kits and other small terrainpieces.

My workbench where I will hopefully built more terrain and miniatures! Now he looks still nice and clean but after a months or even a few weeks ...

View from another corner, where the door is placed.

I hope you enjoyed my short tour throughout my wargameroom!

Greets,

Another post without photo's!

Hi, everybody. I'm posting again but no photo's this time! My brother is on a 3-day schoolexcursion to Amsterdam off course he took the digital camera with him.

But unable to take pictures of some old terrain, I've been scratchbuilding:

- 4 big jungle trees (finished)

- 1 jungle base with some bushes (finished)

- 2 watchtower for chaos on the red planet (needs some paint)

- Finished my new wargameroom and move up some of my terrain and my gamingtable.

So stay tuned for some new posts with pictures on the lead forum and off course my own blog!

Greets,