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.

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.

This blog still lives!

If you're still with we after a near two month “hiatus” then thank you.

First things first:

The Website – still very much a failure to launch scenario, but I'm not too concerned about that for now. I think in all honesty I'll downgrade myself from a “boutique webstore” to a garage supplier.

Purchasing – if you want either the Desert Insurgent or Techno Communion set's drop me an email, sales at miniaturesofthenorth.com. I've gone through a fair few runs of the mold so far, thanks to all who picked some up, I may yet break even... one day. (I have about 5 Techno Communion sets left and around 20 Desert Insurgent sets). Payment though paypal.

Sculpts – Pictures or it didn't happen right? Oh well, pics below.

Projects – Narrowing and solidifying. I'll chuck “refining” in there as well. By that I mean clear direction, solid designs, crystal clear 'universe' and... rules. I'll be creating separate pages on the blog to house all this.

Right so here's the important bit:

Space Opera: Rebellion Protocol. More sci-fi armour and less bayonet gothic. All very much WIP.

Bronze Age: Fantasy Hoplites (tests)

Cyclopes and Dwarf Stone Golem

Also tests in 10mm and 15mm

Tests for something new... 19^th century clockpunk. Frankenstein like Black Praetorians will probably get done first, all your favourite horror elements (bats, black dogs, evil scarecrows, witches and all that good fun stuff.

Desert Insurgent Prototypes

I've had these prototypes in my possession for a few weeks but it's been a tough slog to find time to organise things. This isn't probably news worthy but I'll get a real update in the coming weeks.

Overall I'm really happy with them! Here are my first passes at colour schemes and paint jobs... aherm, my enjoyment of painting far outweighs my ability. The desert guys speak for themselves really, white armour and gun casing to evoke SF Space Opera and the Peacekeepers are the Empires locally recruited militia, hence the red black and gold (colours of the Empire).

I know it's early days on this range but I'm planning on going more Byzantian on the Imperial forces and more Arabian on the desert insurgents (good guys).

It will be a few weeks before I order up a few lots and offer them for sale, I want to get some shots of the metals and a brief and brutal review article completed first. They will be very limited, drop me an email if you are interested in getting a few quickly: sales at miniaturesofthenorth.com

I wont lie, these were quite a trick to put together! No more so than usual metal miniatures but I did find myself going in with some putty to hide a couple of joins. I wouldn't want to assemble a huge amount of these so I will dissuade people from buying lots of them unless they insist. They are definitely for the experienced and patient modeller.

Unfortunately one of the Peacekeepers right arms was damaged in the molding process so it's not sale worthy, it took me less than a minute to fix it with putty and I've photographed the work here. More than likely I'll lower the price for the box but throw in the miniature anyway, we will see.

Here's what I'll be offering as a set – full contents of the mold: