Jumping the shark with 25mm heroic.

This is a strange little personal project, which I'll make no excuses for other than mild curiosity!

Commissioning the mold and some casts will cost me about £150-£200 so it's not a major endeavor.

Following the purchase of some power armoured super humans... I want some mild mannered run of the mill cannon fodder human soldiers. Done in a heroic style, with a 25mm height, I'm targeting a stylistic cohesion with the addition of a visible difference is size. The superhuman's will look superhuman!

The miniatures are in 3 parts, legs, torso and head. The torso's have the rifles attached but even then, 5 different torso's with 5 different legs will provide 25 individual poses.

Then there's the heads, I've gone overkill and have 7 different styles! 35 heads in total will be included in the mold!

I've also thrown in 3 blank torso's so I can make characters, command and support miniatures.

This is purely for personal use but I might have some available to purchase for any mad modeller's out there that want to give it a try!

Off to the mold maker these go. 2 legs weren't photographed here, I'm still working on the "conversion bits" that will use the free space above them in the mold.

#ShoutOut# Anvil Industry: Afterlife- Isaias Cortez

My first painted miniature for Afterlife by Anvil Industry.

Karkadann cavalry and not an elephant

Boy I hope there are no veterinarians or people with knowledge on animal anatomy reading...

You might be forgiven for thinking this is a pair rhino's and the big elephant is, well, an elephant. The sculpts are kind of based on rhino's and an elephant... but not really, for two reasons:

1. That would be a little boring for Sci-Fi and Fantasy
2. I'd fail the anatomy if I tried to go for reality!

Now, enough of the science.

Karkadann come right out of Arabian mythology and are pretty much the unicorn equivalent of the middle- east. They're a pure fantasy creature despite the real world root of the myth likely being rhinos!

The creature is therefore based from rhino physiology, lengthened out a little a toned up in some areas for rule of cool. The head is somewhere between a rhino's and a triceratops, hence the beak!

Two poses, still need to sculpt tufts on the tails then they're ready for molding... I'm shooting to have them done in resin. Onward uses are numerous, initially I'll do sci-fi desert insurgent style riders with lots of baggage and stowage, then some fantasy cavalry for my Fallen Dwarves!

(blu-tack holding those legs in place, hence the 1mm gap)

What's this thing then. Yes, it has an elephants head. The body was intended for a generic sci-fi fantasy beast of burden...I've still to sculpt the head for that creature. I think I might get away with this as is though...

Uses for the not elephant: same as the rhino's, I mean Karkadann.

Head, tusks and tail are separate. Tail needs a little tuft of hair then he's pretty much done. Can't wait to load him out with a howda, baggage and gun toting desert freedom fighters!

Finally here's a little fun project, 25mm multipart greatcoats! Done in the heroic style of citadel miniatures. They might look dorky... but they make power armoured superhumans look like power armoured superhumans by comparison. Will be done in metal most likely, separate legs, torso's, heads and pouches. 4 or 5 styles of heads, a few blank torso's for conversions and such. Mold layout permitting I'll do a heavy weapon rig.

This is a one shot personal mold, if there's interest once they're cast up in the spring I might sell a few to make the cost of the mold back.
(I say one shot because I'm planning to get goodies and baddies made from this, baddies red, goodies blue. A lot of the leadership and specialists will be sculpts and scratch builds on the basic torso's)

Thanks for reading, good to be sculpting again!

Hiatus over... now, where to start?

It's been 6 months since my last post here, the longest gap since I started this blog!

My day job/career has gone manic but I've still had a hand in the hobby. Whilst I've done less sculpting, my attentions have been scanning the web on a variety of fronts to really assess the state of the industry and the trends in terms of releases and peoples interests.

I got a little collection of Games Workshop miniatures during my hiatus, Age of Sigmar and Betrayal at Calth, some Warmachine, Dropzone Commander, Infinity, Anvil Industries: Afterlife, and some LOTR also from GW.

The range of style, size and quality out there is mind boggling! And... it's all great! We virtually want for nothing... or do we?

Where do I begin here. I want to get at least 3 sets* out this year minimum. I don't know what those sets will be though, and if they'll be in resin or metal. The picture here is the main chunk of my work in progress stuff. If you zoom in you'll see a lot of different projects.

I hope to expand the Fallen Dwarf range with Anvil this year, a fair amount is already done in terms of sculpting.

Priority needs determined however on this short list of projects:

28mm Mythology - Ancient Greek initially
25mm Heroic - a one shot mold that will have multipart greatcoat soldiers, scaled small to make superhuman power armour look suitably imposing.
15mm Space Opera - you know, like Star Wars.
10mm Fantasy - Tolkien style
30mm heroic Fantasy - a couple of specific units to add to my small Age of Sigmar forces
28mm Rebellion Protocol - Sci-fi byzantine desert ranges


The list could go on, but you get the idea. I think the 25mm heroic soldier set is closest to finishing, and should go nicely with my Betrayal at Calth game miniatures!

P.S. Anvil Industries Afterlife miniatures are arguably the best quality in the market for their genre, and come in a friendly 'market average' scale and style, compared to say Infinity who I struggle to match up with anyone else in terms of compatibility and scale. I'm literally blown away by them and hope to showcase paint jobs for them here in the near future! Naturally you might think I'm bias here, but I'm genuinely impressed with everything about them!

http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE

Another test mold... 28mm, 15mm & 10mm

Here's a shot of another mold I'm commissioning from another new potential caster!

If they work out I'll be able to use them as masters and dollies for lots of variants and tweaked poses.

There's a few bits and pieces in there, specifically to test the quality of the mold and casts!

A quick run down for anyone interested...

• x5 10mm scale sci-fi troopers
• x4 15mm scale Fantasy Spearmen (different races)
• x4 28mm scale clockpunk rifles (details and clockpunk elements will be added later)
• x1 28mm scale Fallen Dwarf Spearman
• x1 28mm scale Orc Hoplite, with 3 different heads.

This will be shipped off in the next few days, then I'm preparing another lot of minis for another test mold at another caster...

Then once that's done I can get back to finishing lots of sculpts, preparing new ones and looking forward to working with a new (potentially more than one) casting outfit! Cool.

Faun Archer Prototypes

These seem to have turned out not too bad!

When I make retail versions there's a fair number of tweaks and improvements I'll achieve, including more varied poses. Overall though this is the direction I want them to take!

Faun Archers and Arabian Heroic Style

The faun's are for a personal project of mine, and kind of like a proof of concept for the design (semi wild and tribal). If they work out good I'll do some better versions for putting on sale..

Heroic style Arabians, WIP and needs some details and tidy up. Just need to make some heads, weapons and arms! The parts here are some out of production plastics I think, heroic style for reference! I'd love to get these done in resin somehow.