Something completely different - I made a thing!

Last year my good friend Dave Pauwels decided he wanted to put together a project that was an homage to DUNE (the novel celebrated its 50th birthday in 2015). He had a sculptor in the UK sculpt up some 6mm spice smugglers, a mutual friend Rich Erickson is sculpting an appropriately sized desert-wyrm, and he approached me to sculpt an ornithopter. I've been a fan of David Lynch's DUNE movie since its release, and was excited to mess around with this project. Despite being a big fan of most of the designs in the movie, I did not like the look of the ornithopter.  Felt it was very clumsy and could never "really" fly. Fortunately, Dave gave me free rein and I went straight to Google image search.

I was struck immediately by this image, by artist Mark Moinar, of an ornithopter landing in Arrakeen in a world that was aesthetically very different to the Lynchian vision, but just as strong.

As you can see, the image was a great inspiration for me. I loved the idea of massive wings to hold aloft the more upright body. I have two casts here, the first is in flying model with the wings at the top of their upstroke.

And here is the ornithopter in the landed position, feet deployed and the wings providing additional balance.

These casts were done by the incomparable Chris Borer, who has never failed to replicate my sculpting flaws perfectly : )

And here ar the component pieces that I sent to Chris to work his magic with.

I'm not sure exactly what is next for the ornithopter, but I'll let you all know once I do.

Cheers
Dave

Vroom! Vroom! - finally, more cars are rolling!

After my last post (HERE), I was pretty excited about building and painting little cars again. Here's the painted version of my modern day ride, the Flammencruizer!

I painted the whole car in the polished silver first, and then added the rusty patches and rusty flames.

And at the same time I painted up the silver Interceptor, known to the Fury Road production crew as Razor Cola. I think it turned out pretty nicely. Once I've decided how I want to do the spike droppers I'll add those to the rear.

Having a handful of the parts I sculpted for Brigade Games on hand, all I had to do was trawl through my box of loose cars and pick out a few to glue stuff on. As I wanted some quick progress, I chose these two "Jurassic World" vehicles to get the minimal activity treatment. No cutting, drilling, or grinding, just gluing. The one on the left already has a very interesting profile; lots of lumps, bumps, and random stowage. The one on the right felt like a really solid beast, so it got the heavy ramplate, and armor plates all round. Both received machine guns, the one on the left a .50-cal style, the right a mini-gun style.

And I glued a harpoon launcher and a flamer onto my monster truck, my take on Bigfoot.

Until next time!

Cheers
Dave

Vroom! Vroom! - Vehicle Conversion Parts are now available!!!

Shortly after we started messing around with Car Wars (and I went off on my Fury Road tangent), I was contacted by Lon Weiss from Brigade Games. He asked me to sculpt up a bunch of weapon and armor options for folks to add to their Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars. I was quite excited about it all, as you can imagine : )

Well, the first shots of the sprue arrived on my doorstep the other day. I was quite excited to get them out and onto the workbench. Above you can see the weapons (and weapons-related) sprues. I tried to go for a nice mix of weapons based on both the Car Wars options and a few that would allow/encourage an homage to the Mad Max films. I didn't want to go exclusively "Mad Max" in the look of the weapons, but wanted a heavy "Deathrace" vibe too.

From left to right, top to bottom, we have:

• 3 mini-gun style weapons with drum magazines.
• 3 .50 cal style machine guns with belt-feed ammo boxes.
• 4 rockets and 1 paint/oil sprayer.
• 2 flamethrowers and 1 arrow-launcher (based on Mad Max 2/Road Warrior).
• 7 yokes - these can be attached to any part of a car/truck and accept any of the weapons.
• 1 harpoon launcher, 1 laser gun, 1 sonic gun, and 1 mine dropper.
• 1 two-weapon turret and 2 one-weapon turrets - these accept any of the weapons.

And here are the armor and accessory sprues. Again, there's not a complete "Mad Max" feel, but a blend with "Deathrace" and other movies of the genre.

From left to right, top to bottom, we have:

• 4 wheel armor plates and 1 hood/roof plate.
• 6 armor plates plates - 4 designed for the sides and side windows, 2 designed for the windscreen.
• 4 larger armor plates - for where ever you'd like.
• 2 pairs of exhausts and 1 supercharger.
• 2 heavy ramplates.
• 2 light ramplates and 2 pieces of heavy rear armor plating.
• The Interceptor kit: stowage, exhausts, nose cone, supercharger - these can be used to make your very own "last of the V8 Interceptors" (as seen at the start of MM:FR).

You can pick and choose the sprues you want direct from the Brigade Games webstore.

Here are a couple of pursuit cars I made up yesterday from the parts. The first is my conversion of the PT Cruiser sent to me by my friend Nathan. Yes, it used to look just like my real-life car.

Parts used: flamethrower, twin-pipe exhausts, side armor plates, light ramplate, and stowage.

The second car I HAD to make was the re-fitted version of Max's Interceptor ridden by War Boys from MM:FR.

I used the parts from the Interceptor kit (except the stowage), added a second supercharger on top of the first, glued the mine dropper under the rear and puttied it in as a fuel tank, and then added the arrow launcher to the rear. The launcher doesn't look exactly like the one used in Fury Road, but I like the look and the nostalgic connection to MM2. I added a strip of plasticard to the underside of the nose cone, and sculpted a tiny skull atop the superchargers : )

And finally a look back at the MM:FR Interceptor you can make from the Brigade Games kit (plus a Ford XB Falcon from Hot Wheels).

Cheers
Dave

Something to pass the time...

A little while ago I posted this teaser. I wasn't 100% sure that i'd get around to showing him off to you all, but with my studio lights in Chicago (not due back for another 10 days) I figured you might like to see more.

Here's a composite shot of the early stages of the model. I've used a "dolly" from Reaper Miniatures as the skeleton (and a bunch of the flesh) beneath the clothing and equipment for a mini I'm currently (and enigmatically) calling "Bridge Guard". As you can probably guess, I started at the feet and I've built up and out from there.

Here he is at the last photographed stage. He does have a very Vostroyan feel to him, but he's not really Vostroyan. I've also sculpted a pair of hands for him, so once cast up, he and his clones will be able to hold swords, fusils, axes, standards (and the list could go on).

It has certainly been quite interesting doing this, my first fully-sculpted figure. Hopefully in the next year I'll be able to sculpt a couple more ; )

Cheers
Dave

Morr Spearmen!

On Thursday I got the parts back from my friend Thomas, who cast up the arms and shields that I sculpted for the spearmen. I'm also using the shields on the Knights (hence the knightly close up above). I wasted no time in getting some assembled, and even managed to paint up a few. Photos below.

There are four different shield designs (rose, scythe, hourglass, and skull), three left arms, and three right arms. The spears themselves are made from brass rod from the Gale Force 9 Pinning set, at 1.8mm (I think) they are a perfect size. The blades on top are carved from 1mm plasticard into crescent/scythe shapes and are designed to look like "war scythes" that were polearms used in the 17th Century (and probably much earlier and a little bit later). This idea was suggested by a reader back at the start of the project. Although they are a bit of work to make each one individually, I think they look great.

And finally, here are the original sculpts I made a week or so before Adepticon.

Cheers
Dave

Got Morr head?

First of all, the flames have been painted! Check that off the list. 30 models down, only 50 or so to go.

And now, on to the Spearmen. you my remember back in March and early April when I was sculpting heads for my Spearmen and other attendants. Well, at Adepticon I was able to give these heads to my friend Chris Borer. That's right, FOUR-time Slayer Sword winner Chris Borer. I had managed to cajole Chris into doing me the hugest of favors by casting up the heads. You might be asking yourself why I asked Chris to do it? Well, here's why.

Last year Chris helped us raise a ton of money for Doctors Without Borders with our Heroes of Armageddon project. Chris sculpted (from scratch) and painted up a Master of Ordnance for the Steel Legion army. You can see that model here. Chris has since decided to start a little sideline business, selling a few casts of some of his cool minis. This business is Full Borer Miniatures, check it out.
Anyway, last year Chris sent me a copy of his Artillerist, perfectly cast in resin, and by perfectly cast I mean PERFECTLY cast. I just knew I had to have Chris replicate every flaw in my sculpting, and he did just that.

Please note: Chris has pointed out that doing this was a bit of a pain in the butt, so he will NOT be offering a casting service.

Above are the four "Venetian" style masks I sculpted for my Spearmen.

And here are the perfect casts from Chris.

And here are the first five models to have their heads attached. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking "Those heads look a little big". And you'd be right. One of the four I sculpted was about the right size, one is about 5% too large, and the other two are about 15% over-sized. All my fault, I didn't pay close enough attention when sculpting them up. However, once the arms and so on are attached, I'm very confident I can mitigate any concerns with painting.

More photos to come soon of the arms and shields that were cast up for me by another friend. It's good to know a lot of talented people!

And as a final teaser, here are the first five Knights of Morr, just awaiting their shields (and a motto for the flapping banner on the Standard Bearer. Suggestions for this motto are welcome in the comments below.

Cheers
Dave