More 15mm stuff from 1999-2000. Click for full/larger view.
Original caption for the first four images: About the VTOL: This is a kitbashed custom miniature, based on a 1/144th Russian ‘Hokum’ attack helo & a USAF A-10. The body is the Hokum’s, the wings, engine pods and tail are off the A-10. The whole thing took about a week and a half of work, including painting.
In SG2, the stats are roughly as follows: Size 3, Armour 2, GAC/2 TU, 2x MPL, GMS/H. All FireCons SUP, SUP ECM. VTOL mobility. (When these photos where taken, the missle racks hadn’t been fitted under the wings. Call this the Scout version…)
This VTOL is still around, and it’s still one of my favourite projects. It came out damn near perfect from original idea to finish product.
Original caption for the 5th photo onward: The camera was my usual Minolta XE5, second-hand, nearing 15 years old, but I wouldn’t trade it for any other camera going… Film was Kodak’s Royal Gold 400 ASA; because the pictures were shot in daylight no filters or post-scanning processing was needed for colour correction – the sun is already colour-balanced!
I still have this Minolta, although I finally went digital in 2007 and haven’t touched the big old SLR since!
This is the ‘studio’ I used to shoot these pictures. I set up outside on an upstairs balcony to get the late afternoon sun, using a variety of boxes to get everything to the right levels for shooting. The small tripod supports the camera during long exposures, with the shutter release lying across it also helping to keep the camera from shaking during exposures of 1/30th or higher. I’ve also got a set of close-up lenses – in the small white box. The backdrop for these pictures was a propped-up large manila envelope I happened to have on my desk, with a sheet of plain white paper taped to the box on the left bouncing some sunlight back into the picture to soften the shadows. That’s really all there is…
This amphibious armoured truck with it’s remote-operated twin guns is presently the only vehicular support my militia have – it’s done fairly well on the battlefield, despite the odd appearance! I think the truck was made by Martian Metals for their long-out-of-production Traveller stuff. I’ve got another one waiting to be assembled and painted sometime…
A 15mm light tank/armoured recce vehicle. This one is made from an Airfix kit of a British Scorpion tank. I replaced the treads with hoverskirts and added extra stuff to the top of the turret, and it works well as a small 15mm tank.
Irregular PA again. On the left, a Heavy Weapons trooper, right is a regular rifle trooper. The paintjob is simple: black base, grey lines over that, and some grey-green blotches to further disrupt the patterns.
Three Powered Armour troopers in dark urban camo. These are Irregular Miniatures’ 15mm figures. The quality & detail aren’t as high as the GZG figures, but they paint up decently.
Rear view of a different Hunter, showing the engine pack and shoulder rocket/missle launcher. The figure in this picture and the previous one are both GZG 15mm figures. The Hunters have all had their green basecoats and green ink washes done, just like the Mammoth, and will have the rest of their camo finished to match the Mammoth’s.
A front view of a Hunter gear. These miniatures are all ‘homebuilt assault Hunters’ – I had a cadre pack of 5 basic Hunters and several packages of extra weaponry from the old RAFM HG stuff, so I added extra heavy weapons to the Hunter’s non-machinegun arm.
Two of DP9’s new Hunter ‘gear models in their green basecoats, with GZG 15mm troopers in front.
A Mammoth poses with a squad of infantry. The infantry are GZG 15mm troops; the Mammoth looms over them – and it’s nominally designed for a smaller scale! Although they aren’t designed as 15mm vehicles, the new DS9 miniatures match well with them. You can see the big machine’s eyes and mouth quite well in this view.
A good side view of the beast. The paint job is mostly Humbrol enamels; grey spray primer, then green base coat. Once the basecoat was dry, I gave the whole miniature a green ink wash – it’s subtle, but it adds some depth to the base coat. The dark grey, brown and black three-colour camo followed, then I drybrushed the whole vehicle brown, followed by lots of brown and tan pastel chalk dust – I wanted this machine to look like it had been working hard in the field, not mucking about on the parade ground. Silver drybrushing was added to various parts – the fronts of the main weapons and the arm/shoulder joints especially, then the whole vehicle was sprayed with matte varnish.
After the first matte coat, I added the glaring eyes and snarling mouth to the front of the vehicle with a black technical pen, and used dry-transfer decals to add several numbers and call-signs to various parts of the vehicle, then gave it one more coat of matte spray to protect the decals. In this rear view, you can see the ‘2’ on the left shoulder armour, and the ‘A’ callsign on the left rear of the main body, as well as the engine vents and some details of the leg assembly.
The business end of a Mammoth – two big guns and two rotary machine guns, and lots of armour. In Stargrunt II terms, I’m running the Mammoth as Size 3, Walker Mobility, Armour 3, 2xDFFG/3 TU, 2xRAW (Rotary SAW), SUP Firecon, SUP ECM, Smoke, Decoy Launchers.
Close-up picture of Dream Pod 9’s ‘Mammoth Assault Strider’, from their Heavy Gear miniatures line. Very nicely cast miniature, and a pretty cool design. I’m not a huge fan of a lot of the mecha-type things, but the DP9 stuff is good – it looks ‘realistic’, not overly anime (most of the time).
Another rear view – shows the wings and rear engine/ruddervator assembly well.
Incoming! Front on view, showing the nose, the two MPL pods under the wings, and the details of the wing and engine construction.
Top down view of the VTOL, showing the rear engine and the two ruddervators at the rear.
A VTOL gunship skims low to the treetops, engines moving into hover position.
