Color guides for my Ground Zero Games UNSC

After painting a couple APC's for my Rangers it was now the time to figure out a nice color scheme for all my miniatures.
I wanted to have fun with a vivid color choice but didn't want to push it to far because I still want a bit of realism on my little SciFi troops.
Since I never really painted 15mm before I followed the advices of some more experienced painters... and the first tip was always:

- 15mm should have high contrasts to stand out!

With that in mind I choose some saturated brownish and greenish tones for my minis...
I also tried something that people always advised not to do in 15mm minis and that was battle damaged armor... Well I tried it out and it was not that bad, It kind of looks okish for gaming figures and I will paint all my Rangers for my Caravela Fleet with these colors.

Ground Zero Games Miniatures are SUPERB! I mean these are soooo detailed that they rival some of the 28mm stuff I have and they are so sharp that they almost paint themselves alone.

Nice sculpts, sharp casting, lots of details & very fast to paint... 15mm is simply great.

Rangers UNSC Color Guide

• Citadel Skull White Spray Primer

Trousers

• Vallejo Model Color 70890 Reflective Green
• Vallejo Model Color 70833 German Cam. Bright Green
• Vallejo Model Color 70857 Golden Olive
• Citadel Wash Thraka Green

Knee

• Vallejo Model Color 70880 Khaki Grey
• Vallejo Model Color 70857 Golden Olive
• Vallejo Model Color 70971 Green Grey

Armor

• Vallejo Model Color 70880 Khaki Grey
• Citadel Wash Gryphone Sepia
• Vallejo Model Color 70978 Dark Yellow
• Vallejo Model Color 70971 Green Grey
• P3 Coal Black ( speckle painting)

Flag

• Vallejo Model Color 828 Woodgrain
• Vallejo Game Color 28 Dark Green
• Vallejo Model Color 70833 German Cam. Bright Green
• Vallejo Model Color 70947 Red
• Vallejo Game Color 6 Sun Blast Yellow

Weapon

• P3 Coal Black
• Vallejo Model Color 70903 Intermediate Blue
• Vallejo Model Color 990 Light Grey
• Citadel Wash Badab Black
• Vallejo Game Color 28 Dark Green
• Vallejo Model Color 737 Green Fluo

Elmet

• P3 Coal Black
• Vallejo Game Color 28 Dark Green
• Vallejo Model Color 737 Green Fluo
• Citadel Wash Thraka Green
• Vallejo Model Color 918 Ivory
• Vallejo Gloss Varnish

Base

• Vallejo Model Color 873 US Field Drab
• Vallejo Model Color 70939 Smoke (wash)
• Vallejo Model Color 873 US Field Drab
• MIG P234 Rubble Dust
• MIG P026 Concrete
• Army Painter Battle Fields Swamp Tuft 6mm
• GF9 GFS017 Meadow Blend

That is it, now to paint full squads of little rangers!

Happy Invasion! Perfect gift from a friend

Well I just recently sculpted some Necromunda bits for a friend of mine and we managed to rescue his old miniature from his bitz box... as result he surprised me with a mini diorama on a plinth!!!

Demi Morgana painted a BUG with a fella on a plinth (from Plinth country) for Bug man, BRILLIANT.

When I opened my mail box imagine my bugger face when I got this:

HAPPY INVASION!

By: Demi Morgana

My friend Demi Morgana painted this for me and for that I cant thank him enough! Great little diorama!
Here it is on my display, next to my minis for a eternity of drooling

HAPPY INVASION!

Painting Guide for the APC's

Finished and ready to transport my two ranger platoons here are a couple APC's that I just painted.

As usual I leave you a painting guide and color formulas so that you can try out a similar paint job if you want to.

Initial ideas

The selection of a color scheme for the APC's was balanced between realistic weathering and also eye candy color contrast... Looking at real life APC's camo's and colors everything is very darkish most of the times and probably a bit boring to paint on 15mm.

Someone once said to me that painting 15mm is very different from other scales because in this smallish scale the contrast is everything and should be exaggerated in order to make a interesting miniature on the table... With that in mind I chosen a strong contrast by creating a colorful camo and then toned down the color saturations with heavy weathering... The idea was to create a balance between cool looking and realism.

Assembling

Old Crow Miniatures APC's models are quite easy to assemble, a bit of glue here and there or filling a micro bubble beneath the chassis was quite fast to do.

I had to choose between basing or not basing my vehicles at this point and even if I prefer non based vehicles I opted to base them because I'm going to travel with these a lot so the base gives the model extra strength and makes it easier to carry around.

For extra detail I added some antennas on the back of both APC's.

Painting Guide

• Games workshop Skull white primer on full based and assembled model

Armor

• Vallejo Model Color 70833 German cam. bright green ( several thin layers to built color)
• Citadel Wash Gryphone Sepia ( on recesses)
• Liquid Mask
• Tamiya Color spray TS-3 Dark yellow
• Remove Mask
• Vallejo Model Color 70939 Smoke ( thinned down washes )
• Vallejo Game Color 51 Coal black ( speckle painting )
• Mig Concrete P026
• Mig Black smoke P023
• Mig Rubble dust P234
• Mig Old rust P230

Tires:

• Vallejo game color 51 Coal black
• Mig Concrete P026

Lights:

• Vallejo Model color 70890 Reflective green
• Vallejo Model color 70833 German cam. bright green
• Vallejo Model color 737 Green fluo
• Vallejo Model color 938 Ivory
• Vallejo Gloss varnish

Base:

• Vallejo Model color 881 Yellow green
• Vallejo Model color 873 US Field drab
• Citadel Wash Gryphone sepia
• Citadel Wash Devlan mud
• Mig Concrete P026
• Mig Rubble dust P234
• Army Painter battlefields Swamp tuft 6mm

Final Thoughts

It was a fun little project and happy with the result, I think its interesting to look at  and with lots of tiny details... I think I managed to find a good balance between 15mm contrasting colors and a a bit of the unsaturated weathering common on real life vehicles.

Above all was enjoyable and easy to paint... Loving 15mm!

Now I need to paint up the two ranger Platoons that will go on these APC's... going to be fun.

New Alien Bases for Secret Weapon Miniatures

For the past year I have been sculpting bases for Secret Weapon Miniatures and these are the new ones that I just finished and that I will ship to Justin this week since he approved them.

The theme this time was 100% Alien bases and before these I have done 2 sets that are already for sale at Secret weapon Online store... later this month I will post them also here on my blog under flashback projects and things I have developed before I opened the blog.

With a theme so fun like this I had a blast filling these bases with crazy alien / gigerish things and never forgetting these bases should be flat so that people have zero hassle when basing their miniatures, so even if super detailed these bases are mostly flat or have big flat areas.
Hope you like them.

10x 25mm bases

5x 40mm bases

2x 60mm bases

1x Big Oval 120x90mm base

And the base set group picture

The one I enjoyed sculpting the most was the big oval since it looks like a huge swirl of deadly tentacled chitin and with a big queen alien egg, hope to paint some for my collections as soon as Justin casts some.

If you don't know Secret weapon site here's the link

http://www.secretweaponminiatures.com/

You can also follow their official Blog on the my blog list menu.

If you liked my previous alien bases and these you will be glad to know that more alien things are planned for me to sculpt for Secret Weapon Miniatures.

Necromunda sculpting

One thing about sculpting is that there's always something freaky and cool for you to sculpt, and if you have friends like me your assistance as a sculptor will be needed more than a few times. Bring it on!

Long time friend nicknamed Demi morgana aka Zombie man has always had some really crazy old school projects on his belt... If you are looking into rusty gritty painting style, old school miniatures and some kick ass basing tutorials he's the zombie to look for... Head over to Chest of colors forums and check his galleries.

Since he is to lazy to try to sculpt he asked me if I could fix one of his Necromunda miniatures... since I'm on summer vacations atm I fixed it really fast. The problem was that his necro mini was missing one arm so my mission was to sculpt it.

Easy, quicky and added a little bug on the base because everyone need bugs on their war games!



So here you have it, a small conversion on a damned nice old school miniature, they don't do it like these anymore.

Now that its finished I will ship it to zombie land and hope to post it here in the future painted by Demi Morgana with his very unique painting...

Sculpted RPG for rangers 2nd Platoon

While I'm still painting the first platoon with the converted sniper Rifle I managed to work on the 2nd platoon. This time instead I converted a normal rifle ranger to a RPG ranger.
Plasticard and greenstuf were used to create this little 15mm scifi RPG.

So my UNSC from Ground zero games are growing stronger and this second platoon should pretty much cover most of what I wanted, core wise, to add to my army... I'm still thinking on getting a Command blister and a little jeep for a pack of 5 recon guys, but for now I have lots to paint.

I never imagined that 15mm today are so detailed and its a pleasure to work on this diferent scale.