Thursday, September 23, 2010

Funky Colour Schemes

This link was posted on The Miniatures Page today, it's a forum for plastic aircraft modellers I guess. This particular 46-page thread is about what-if paint schemes the members have come up with, either photos of models or illustrations, mainly for modern planes.

The link is to the last page, but it's worth the time to go through more or all of the site.

Some schemes are just modest variations of what's out there today, others are of special one-offs (final flight planes etc.), but some are right out there.

Which means they're great to "borrow" for some of my other plans - sci-fi sure, but mainly Victorian Sci-Fi, and Aeronef in particular. Maybe Iron Stars spaceships, but I picture them as pretty serious; maybe Land Ironclads too, but ground vehicles get pretty beat up in the course of a day.

But a tiger-skin painted zeppelin? Or hot green with hot blue with more serious blues and greens? Definitely worth trying out! I'd already come up with some national schemes while doodling around, now I'll see about integrating with some of my favourites from this site.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Mimi Redux

More shots of the Screamin' Mimi, showing her business end.



Sunday, September 19, 2010

Canopies Complete, World Continues Spinning

I finally got the last touching up done on my first large batch of helicopters for Vietnam. These have been kicking around in previous posts for a while, but I'm now down to a coat of Future, decals, sealing, and rotors.

Other stuff has been going on in the meanwhile, some of it's below, but a ton has just been prepping mini's for the usual billion other projects going on. Some mounting got started last week, including 28mm sci-fi, more 25mm fantasy, and some 2mm Star Wars.

So with only that brief intro, here's some pics (as always, click on the pic for a bigger version):

The big shot of everything.

Huey Hogs, Frogs, and Snakes, with some OH-13's on the side. Two 13's are for Vietnam, the two medevac ones are for any Korean gaming I do. I still have 4 more of the things primed, I'm holding them back for AK-47 or some other odd side-project.

The other half - more Hogs and Frogs (back), OH-6 and 58 (back at either end), Slicks and CH-46's (middle two rows), more Snakes, including a pair in the Widowmaker paint scheme.

An even slower moving painting project finally got done too. These HH-60's have been sitting around for 18 months, part of a test painting project before I realized I was actually ok at painting these small things. Two are done for the navy, the rest for special forces.

And those of you with good eyesight might have picked out something odd at the back of those helicopter pictures above. As mentioned/promised previously, here's my secret painting project for Vietnam - 80's TV favourites.

The trio.

You have to figure the A-Team got their van's paint scheme from somewhere, so here's a OH-58 done up for clandestine missions. Obviously Murdoch is flying this, so I guess I need another secret project for the rest of the team...

And of course TJ was a pilot in Vietnam before making it to Hawaii, so here's the first Island Hopper...

Last, and most obscurely, Screamin' Mimi from the less remembered Riptide. I haven't watched the show since its original run, but I liked it, and always remembered the Mimi. The red scribble is actually "Screamin' Mimi" in script, but yes, I cheated, it's just a scribble.

My US infantry bases have also been progressing, flesh and uniforms are done, details and weapons are next. Here are a few work-in-progress pics:





I've also been testing my painting skill at the larger scales, using some old (literally - some of these have been kicking around for 25-28 years) figures from D&D days. I have more of these in line, including some that I and my brothers tried painting, and gave up painting, back in the day, and others that have a bit of sentimental value to me, as they represented my favourite RPG characters - Rolstun Goldaxe and the Swerlin/Verlin/Twerlin lineage of disposable magic-users.

Anyway, here are some pics of my first tests, the mummy I winged, the foot knight in red was done using the army painting guide from the D&D Battlesystem book, the elf archer from the advanced techniques guide in the same book, and the foot knight in green was done using a TooFatLardies mass painting technique from one of their specials.