Heroic style Desert Rebels

 

Finally getting round to doing all my old smaller scale sculpts in chunky 'heroic style'. 

Not quite 100% replication but thematically close enough to the old desert rebels. More to follow, personal preference but I'm not keen on making 10 man strong units... 5 max for the time being.

Cultist sculpts (the silly hat brigade)

Here's some WIP shots for the continuing expansion of the Tox Troopers range. 

I had intended to park this line to focus on my mythology ranges, but one last mould for Q1 should round off the line.

The minis are single part, minus the heads, so I'll have more space in the mould to fill that's usually taken up by a rifle sprue (this might equate to 1 or 2 extra minis).

I wanted to avoid the usual tropes of hooded heads, gas masks, executioners masks etc. and went with a slightly amusing conical skull cap. That said, I'm already prepping alternative heads with the usual tropes.

This should prove to be a versatile squad - heroic scale versions of my Desert Insurgents spring to mind.

More to follow, I'm doing a mutant/scavvy squad next along with a few more characters.

Last of the Desert Insurgents - SALE!

Hey all,

I'm down to my final 30 or so sets of Desert Insurgents!

The mold has had a good run but I have no plans to replace it... so this is the last shot to get them before they're retired.

To help get them moving (to clear space and then use the proceeds to fund some new molds) I'm dropping these to £10 + P&P per set. 9 miniatures in the set comes to about £1.11 per mini!

Help me spread the word! Thank you

Oh in other news I've just discovered a local resin caster, Hive City Terrain... the huge backlog of sculpts I have will hopefully have a new outlet in a couple of months! AMAZING

Rebel Insurgent Conversions

Wow it's been a busy week for selling miniatures! Thanks to all who made a purchase in the last 5 days:Techno Communion have far outweighed the Desert Insurgents in popularity.

I managed to find some painting time today and finished off (well 95% finished) the paint jobs on the Peacekeeper conversions.

This could be as simple as a head swap within the Desert Insurgent Mold 1 set but I sculpted a few small capes for dramatic effect as well.

So “in universe” these guys are either Imperial Peacekeepers who have defected and joined the rebellion, or they're insurgents who happened upon a Techno Communion cache of armour destined for the Imperials, and commandeered the armour for their own use.

Next up on the conversion front will be some Techno Communion miniatures. Then all going plan I can get stuck into sculpting again, I think reinforcements for the Fallen Dwarves are in dire need or some attention...

Desert Insurgents - Personal Conversions and new WIP sculpts

I'm about to go into pimp mode.

No not street vice crime, I mean showing off some of my miniatures with cool conversions and alternate colour schemes.

I've had a nice steady stream of informal sales but that's dried up over the last few weeks, just as the end is in sight for the Desert Insurgent Mold 1! Yep, it's close to retirement. I have roughly 35 sets to hand and will order in my final lot of them pretty soon.

Ironic that at the end I now start talking about advertising and showcasing... oh well.

Here's a squad of Peacekeeper defectors: they've read the Rebellion Protocols and sided with the rebels! They look cool right? They'll get white battered armour to tie them up with the Insurgents. Next up, traitor Insurgents (wrap your head around that). A dastardly tribe bribed by the ruling elite of the super city state... kind of like a CIA funded terrorist unit.. among the “terrorists”.

Here's a few WIP sculpts:

Desert Insurgents for sale

sales@miniaturesofthenorth.com if you are interested in purchasing a set or two. Once I clear the existing stock I'll be able to fund the continuation of the range with new molds!

£15 for 1 full set

£40 for 3 full sets

£60 for 5 full sets

Product info and shots of the parts: http://miniaturesofthenorth.com/#/desert-insurgent-mold-1/4579905428

Thanks folks!

Desert Insurgent -Basic Painting Tutorial

Phew, I managed to find time to get a tutorial together! Unbelievable...

I'm down to the last 20 odd sets of these Desert Insurgents and considering retiring the mold already. The range will be expanded but I can't really keep the same sets in production indefinitely, catch em while you can they might be out of stock for a while. Email me (sales at miniaturesofthenorth.com), £15 a set.

I've used a variety of paints and inks here so I'll keep the naming conventions simplistic (along with my basic commentary).

1.Preparation

Wash these things in soapy warm water with an old toothbrush to remove the mold release powder, then once dry clean them up with files and a hobby scalpel – standard procedure.

Here's the metal (with an ink wash so the detail shows up). They can be assembled perfectly fine without any green stuff, and I'm surprised the fittings all line up as good as they do after molding, but I like to stick a little putty over the wrist joints and into the ball fitting of the neck for the sake of it.

2.Undercoat - White spray

3.Colour blocking – Give this guy two coats of ochre.

4.Washing – Use a suitable “earthy” wash or water down brown paint.

5.Drybrush – Get in about the mini with a light drybrush of Bone.

6.Colour Blocking –

Wrappings and scarves: Sandstone

Rifle: Black

Casings and shoulder pads: Dark Grey

Pouches and belts: Dark Brown.

7.Colour Development-

Wrappings and scarves: Wash with “earth” or watered down brown.

Casings and shoulder pads – Roughly layer on pure white. Make it streaky and rough.

Robes – Extreme highlight with Bone.

Skin – err, skin colour.

8. Colour Refinement-

Wrappings and scarves – Highlight with the original Sandstone, for final highlights mix in a touch of white to the Sandstone.

Casings and shoulder pads – Wash with watered down black, then do a final highlight with pure white.

Rifle – Extreme highlights with Grey.

Pouches and belts – Highlight with a lighter brown, wash with brown ink then extreme highlight in the lighter brown again.

Skin – Wash with “earth” and then highlights with a touch of white to the original skin colour.

9. Detail-

Battle Damage – Paint scratches and chips to the edges of the Casings and shoulder pads with dark grey, then a tiny thin line of light grey in the centre of it(leaving dark grey at either side of the scratches and chips). LESS IS MORE.

Buttons and buckles – Simply silver metallic washed with black, highlighted with a lighter metallic.

10. Basing-

Easy – Sand and stone glued in place. Paint it with Ochre (same as the original mini colour blocking), wash it with “earth” or watered down brown then highlight it with Bone. Paint the edges of the base Dark Brown.

Tribal Leader

Pretty happy with this chap! Perhaps an alternate head or two to mix it up.

All things desert: welcome to Hasheraq.

Imagine a planet called Hasheraq. 

Imagine the EMPIRE gained control long ago, wiping out the worlds heritage and creating a puppet government operating under the watchful eye of small Imperial garrison. Only in tribal caves in the deep deserts of the world survive the old ways, culture, history, tradition... and prophecy.

Enter the young MESSIAH, the chosen one, either an orphaned farm boy or a noble born outcast appearing in the desert. He is accompanied by the OLD MAN OF THE DESERT, a hermit of incredible power once a mystical bodyguard of the HOUSE IMPERIAL, turned native sympathiser in years long past.

Enter the DESERT TRIBES, lead by tribal leaders:

Enter the PEACEKEEPRS, local born recruits trained by the EMPIRE to police the people. The appearance of the MESSIAH challenges their allegiance and many now side with the UPRISING.

The IMPERIAL COLONY OF HASHERAQ is in turmoil, time to send in the elite fighting force to quell the rebellion and destroy the INSURGENTS, the white and grey IMPERIAL MARINES.

The UPRISING will need to find it's DESERT POWER.

Desert Insurgents - complete

Some quick shots of the completed desert troops here.

I'm really happy with these and they're possible my own personal favourite so far!

My head is swirling with ideas for them, there's not a whole lot of specific equipment or design that ties them down to one genre – to me they're suitable for Steampunk Victoriana, Sci-fi militaria, Space Opera, Post Apocalyptic survivors.... all of the above please.

The one direction I want to pursue at this point in time is space opera – less hard science and military and more fantastical. I've started some 'Royal Guard' uniformed miniatures that I want to have a space Byzantine appearance (the head will be helmeted). An old man of the desert and a young messiah wouldn't be out of place either.

Desert Insurgents - WIP

I had a lot of fun making these!

The heads are from a little sprue I sculpted and had cast up to save time on 'heads' for my planned ranges, the scarves were sculpted on with Pro Create. Bare in mind these heads are a lot smaller than your average heroic scale head part.

There's a little tidy up to take place on the miniatures, the neck will have a scarf fitting sculpted in place to hold the head socket, and also to give the impression the scarf drapes across the neck and chest.

Weapon still to be made, I'll be using this rifle from the Borderer's as a base, adding blades to the stock and the barrel.