Making "V"-miniatures on a budget

I got very inspired by John Yorio at the 54mm or Fight when he painted his Sci-fi Warhammer miniatures and a Space Marine for his son. I'm impressed how he managed to bring out the details in the miniatures. I found this so inspiring that I wanted to try a similar project my self, but as I'm not into Warhammer miniatures it had to be some readily available 'Space Marines-Army men' I brought to the workbench in july (but not completed before now).

Since I'm not into GW I had no preferences to paint these 'Marines', but this year it's actually 40 years since the TV-series "V" was aired, and I saw it on Swedish television the first time. Perhaps I could turn a handful of these 'Space Marines' into lizzard troopers??

The miniatures

The bucket of futuristic soldiers are usually available in regular toy stores from time to time:

I picked out the reddis/brownish figures as these were closer to the uniform-color I was looking for in the first place.

I'm also very impressed by all the figure-conversions made by James at Quantrill's Toy Soldiers, so I decided to try a simple one and just remove a bayonet and add visors to their helmets with miliputty.

This time I only primed them with 'plastic-primer' from a rattle-can...

...and a orange color-primer. I hoped that the primer would serve as base for the uniform color, but it didn't match so well...

So the uniform needed to be painted as well. Here are all the basic colors added:

And then they're given a dirty brown-ish wash, drybrushed with a lighter color and adding texture to their bases:

Some close-ups of the completed figures:

The Spaceship

My figures needed a space-ship so I found a 'Skyfighter' for free at Thingiverse, re-scaled it so it would look about right size for my figures and 3D-printed it. Even if it was 3D-printed as a kit the Spaceship needed a lot of filling and sanding:

Then it was given a couple of coats of spray filler, which revealed that further filler and was needed.

Then it was given a couple of final layers of spray filler, and the last parts added:

Finally some paint to bring it all together:

I'm looking forward to finally deploy these V-miniatures and their landing-craft in an upcoming game soon. Please follow the blog for updates.

For a Few Dollars More - Deleted scenes

When first playing the scenarios from the movie "For a Few Dollars More" and letting the results create the final storyboard, there was unfortunately some footage and scenes which was removed from the "Storyboarder's Cut" version. I regret that so much as there was scenarios from the movie I wanted to play to see how they turned out. Therefore I I played those scenes added the Deleted scenes:

On the way to rob the bank in Santa Cruz

As a diversion maneuver Indio sends 3 gang members and Manco to rob the bank i Santa Cruz, while Indio and the rest of his gang robs the bank in El Paso. Manco has no intention robbing the bank in Santa Cruz...

...and fans 3 shots rapidly on the outlaws...

...and are only hitting 2 of them. The third shoots back at Manco...

...and Misses (!)
Manco does not, and this was a success for Manco even being shot back at.

Wild challenges Mortimer to a duel

When Wild - The Hunchback recognizes Colonel Mortimer in the cantina, he seeks revenge for being insulted by Mortimer in El Paso earlier and challenges him to a duel...

-He shouldn't have. Facing the best shot in the Carolinas, The Hunchback is chanceless.
Another success for Mortimer.

The Final Duel

Mortimer eventually faces Indio in a final duel. Mortimer has lost his gun on the ground and Indio think he has the upper hand in this duel. -Until Manco arrives and add to the favor for Mortimer by lending him his gun:

And Mortimer draw and shoot slightly faster than Indio (needed a re-roll) and guns him down.

The deleted scenes played in these scenarios turned out more the way they did in Sergio Leone's final version of this movie, and our heroes probably lived happily ever after....

Unless Manco accepts Mortimer's invitation to a partnership 'next time'....

-Time will show.

The Model, Military or Railway tour of '24 - Part 5

The weather had finally changed to the better, and there were good conditions for riding motorcycle again. Staying in Linköping overnight, I had a good starting-point to visit an old narrow gauged heritage railway located just some 35km outside of the town. I have a soft spot for narrow gauge railways. This has a gauge of 600m.

Risten - Lakvik Museum Railway 

This heritage railway is run by a group of most friendly and helpful enthusiasts, so they took me on a tour through their engine shed.

There they had a German steamlocomotive in running condition with WW2 battle damage (chimney shoot off, patches in the roof to seal of bullet holes and shrapnel markings on the suspension):

There was one other engine in the shed that really caught my interest. This is a original German military HF130C of the same type I made from a LGB-model. This locomotive had been used at an industrial railway since 1948. I did not know that the engine in these locomotives are identical to German submarine engines.

There were even an old disused model railway stowed away in the shed:

They did not have any 'museum-shop' except for an excellent café:

And that was actually the one thing on today's to-do list. While heading west wards I passed this:

More than 2600km ,a new rear tyre and several experiences later it's perhaps time to start thinking about returning home as it will take another day just driving home again. Besides I think my youngest son misses me:

I hope those of you who have followed me on this tour had a good time and enjoyed yourself. Thank you for reading, and especially thanks to those of you who commented! 

On Monday there will be another update on this blog again, but on a completely different subject.

Please follow. 

The Model, Military or Railway tour of '24 - Part 4

Those museums and places I like to visit closes 'early' in Sweden,  so if you like to visit more than one such place a day, some careful planning is necessary due to distances and travelling time. Let's see how many I have time for today.  Først one is:

Miniature Kingdom 

This is a large commercially built model railway display located in Kungsör. It is pretty new as well.

It shows different regions in Sweden with a lot of key elements and cameos. This 'Sweden in Miniature' is also built to a very high standard and the scenery is not 'overloaded' with details. And it's not too many trains running at the time to 'disturb' that impression.

And in model:

Stockholm:

The heritage narrow gauge railway at Mariefred:

Famous Swedes:

And some military presence:

Boden fortress

They are expanding with new construction stages. Perhaps this will reveal what to expect?

They have collected a couple of layouts that's been appearing in movies or tv-series.

They also have a layout for kids to operate.

A small and simple layout contained key elements from the city where I spent last night, Eskilstuna

Many of the layouts buildings are built after the Swedish originals and are 3D-printed in parts (with a FDM-printer).

They even had a table that would probably be interesting for the wargamers.

The shop was small though...

So time to move again to see if I have time for the next attraction today (which I had).

The Swedish Air Force Museum 

Sweden had the world's 4th biggest air force during the cold war, and have so many aircrafts to exhibit so they don't need to display many models. It was very interesting though as this museum has several aircrafts which the only sample left is exhibited here.

Gloster Gladiator was also used by the Norwegian air force.

...the 'Storch' too...

One cabinet of models:

And some at the entance:

Interesting that Sweden used Saab Tunnan jets in UN service during the Congo Crisis. On the ground you can see a couple of the KP-cars from my previous post yesterday:

I'm quite not sure which 'craft' this is:

Actually it's a Futoro

The shop was interesting too...

Their Café was to high standards, and a nice place to spend some time while waiting for the rain to stop. -Which it didn't...

Tomorrow's plan is very weather dependant...