Lead Adventure Miniatures - LAF Forum Personalities - Corto Maltese

I've been a long time member of the Lead Adventure Forum, and a recent post there prompted members to paint something up for the 20th anniversary. I decided to dig out a few Lead Adventure personalities I hadn't painted (Hammers and Matakishi), as well as a Corto Maltese miniature that was given as a gift to forum moderators. 

Left to right- Professor Witchheimer, Plynkes, Hammers, Matakishi, Grimm, and Corto Maltese. 

Space Hulk Chapel - Build Something Contest 2022

Every year I look forward to the competitions run on the Lead Adventure Forum. This year the theme of the 'Build Something Contest' was 'Rest', and the terrain build had to relate to the theme. I'd been wanting to return to a Space Hulk tile again, and the theme fit with the chapel I'd been wanting to build for long while anyway. I have had a pile of Armorcast church pews for years!

 

I started off by consulting the book to get the room size correct. I'd later have to make another thin wall piece, as the extended chapel I made would not fit the layout in the scenarios. The base is 'Gatorfoam', a tougher version of foamcore that I like to use for terrain. Other pieces are Hirst Arts casts.

The removable relic case set into the floor is a custom piece I designed a couple years ago. I had it printed at Shapeways, and then I made a silicone mold. That was, of course, before 3D printers became viable to the average consumer! I imagine the skulls to be the craniums of past captains.

 

 I wanted to paint another altarpiece for this, and found an example I liked a lot online. I used Adobe Illustrator to trace the image, which I exported into Tinkercad so that I could make a 3D file.

   

I printed the resulting STL file on my Mars2Pro. I thought it came out great at the time, but I was still playing with settings and it does have some stepping that shows up worse later, despite attempts to fill the lines with paint.

 

 

The altarpiece was entirely freehand, with a fairly traditional monochrome layer first. 

An exploded view of all the parts. The last thing I did was make some candle scatter pieces, both alight and extinguished.

Simple room:

Chapel wall:

Extended room with raised platform:

 

Altar and tile that allows for a hidden compartment:

 

The final Imperial Navy Altarpiece:

 

All in all another successful build (made it to semifinals) and another piece for the now pretty big Hulk I have going. 

 

 

 

Lead Painter's League 2018 - Round 9 - Bring 'em Back Alive

 

The miniature on the top left is from Blind Beggar, I picked her up in a Kickstarter. This group is meant to be a ragtag group of alien creature hunters and I wanted several to have missing limbs, and she has two of them.

The guy with the heavy webber is a conversion, based on a figure from the old Alpha Forge 'Star Moguls' range. I'm not sure who owns the line now. The heavy webber is my own sculpt- I cast a few in resin. I planned to make all the Rogue Trader weapons that were never released as separates (so far I have a webber, heavy webber, and grenade launcher). The head is resin, from Mad Robot. They make a pack of heads that look like the old Van Saar.
https://madrobotminiatures.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=9_10&products_id=186

The woman with the autocannon (looks like a flamethrower to me) is an old GW 40K Rogue Trader era figure- she's stock.
http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/File:IG_Autocannon.jpg

The man with the warpaint and pistol is from the 'Cobalt-1' line- he's stock as well. The corpulent man with the oddball gun is also from Cobalt, I think they might have been from the same pack, some sort of mercenaries or bounty hunters. He has a new bionic leg (resin, from MaxMini) and new hand (also MaxMini). The figure is cast missing a foot and a hand for some odd reason. The problem with Cobalt is that so many things are weird looking, rounded off, and straight up strange that the missing stuff appears to be on purpose, based off of pictures of the greens.
https://maxmini.eu/bionic-bits

The eldar hunter is a fan sculpt from the 'Collecting Citadel Miniatures' Yahoo group and was cast in limited numbers several years ago.

The ambull is an 'Insectoid Crawler' from Knightmare Miniatures. I had another (the old one from GW) primed but I didn't get it done in time. I picked it up in a Kickstarter as well and it's still available.

The large creature container is made from Mantic's plastic Deadzone terrain- I added some bars and made a new door to fit. The smaller cages are made from pieces from a terrain Kickstarter ran by Maki Games a few years ago. The tops of the cages are also from Mantic Deadzone, magnetized to be removable so I can put critters inside. I've been wanting to make the cages for quite a long time and wasn't quite sure how to do it until this entry forced me to think about an Ambull cage and I had all the components laid out.

This was my final entry of the 2018 LPL, and would determine if I placed third or fourth. I decided to go all in on this one, and it took quite a bit of time. I had the figures set aside for quite a while, and I wanted to make cages for quite some time as well so I ended up using this project for the LPL. I think I completed everything within five days. I also photographed the figures more close up, which seems to me to have been the deciding factor on most of the matches this year.

And that's it for the 2018 LPL. Phew!

Lead Painter's League 2018 - Round 8 - Hunters or Hunted?

This is the Round 8 entry for this year's LPL, "Hunters or Hunted?"

 

 The orcs are from the new Northstar Oathmark Goblins plastic box set, one is a metal leader and one has a head from the old Wargames Factory orc box. The spiders are from Reaper. The castle is s little resin sculpture I found in a Dollar General store.

That's shot of my setup, showing how I arranged the scenic elements to get the 'forced perspective' look.

Lead Painter's League 2018 - Round 7 - Meeting the Maasai

This is my LPL round 7 image, "Meeting the Maasai". The figures are all Copplestone Castings- the flag carrier is a conversion based on a standard DOAG askari with a brass rod and freehand painted foil flag.

Lead Painter's League 2018 - Round 6 - Bakemono Banzai

Round 6 of the 2018 LPL was more Bob Olley orcs and goblins with a samurai vibe. I think I've been working on these since my first LPL (roughly 2011).

Lead Painter's League 2018 - Round 1 - Pig Tickler

This is my first entry for the 2018 LPL.

This is a full set of miniatures for the game 'Pig Tickler' produced by Eureka Miniatures, plus two extra stokers from the first variant of the game. The pennons are thin foil from a wine bottle, painted different colors so that players can identify their piece. I stole that idea from Matakishi. I've had these minis for years, and they probably wouldn't have gotten done at all if not for the 'British' theme on round 1.

Haven't played it yet, but it's a game of mayhem as players try to maneuver around scoring points for 'tickling' the steam powered pig, all the while dodging stokers and the pig itself.

Lead Painter's League 11 - Round 7 - Dark Eldar Arena of Blood

Apologies for taking so long to post my LPL 11 Round 7 entry. I was waiting until I had all the figures for the Arena of Blood game painted up (there were still three to complete after the initial photo). Sadly, this entry got absolutely slaughtered in the competition. I had a feeling I would lose anyway but not that badly ;)

 

Arena of Blood is a mini-game found in White Dwarf #229 (1999) which introduced simple rules for Dark Eldar gladiator fights. I was a big fan of the Dark Eldar in 3rd edition and had quite a large army at the time. I have had a desire to build a 3D version ever since. I finally started it around January 2017! I will put the WIP and arena build pictures in another post, as it could get lengthy.

The original game was played on a fold out map (included in the magazine) that had all the stats and specific rules for the characters. GW even included stand up card markers for the Wyches! Players place 'murder stakes' around the arena and then chaos ensues.

I decided to go with the newer Dark Eldar sculpts because they're so much better looking than the 3rd edition versions.

  

 Splinter Pistol and Knife.

Hydra Gauntlets (Hydra Knives in the old days)

  

  The Hellion is a  simple kitbash using a 3rd edition head that I believe is from the old Raider kit.

The Beastmaster is a more involved conversion, because the Beastmaster in Arena of Blood is on foot instead of riding a skyboard. The legs are from a plastic Wych, the torso and upper right arm are from a Warlord Games Zulu, the head is from a metal beastmaster, and the right hand was originally from a Heroclix figure. After I had him painted I realized that in Arena of Blood he has a splinter pistol, so I swapped out the hand. The skin wrap, backpack thing, and tubing are ProCreate (sort of like Greenstuff).

The Khymera is metal and I was not sure how basing him on the clear acrylic would work. I ended up leaving a post on the foot that is inserted into a hole I drilled into the base. Luckily it doesn't stand out.

I need to come up with stats for this guy (armed with dual razorflails) as this weapon combo didn't exist in 1999.

I wanted a shorter sword than the regular DE power sword for the Razorsnare/Falchion Wych- which no longer exists in 40K. I think the sword is from the Frostgrave Cultists set. Tough looking gal, no?

That completes a full set of Wyches for the game. I have more built because I want a male and female for each type, and from different Wych Cults. These ones are in the scheme of the 'Seventh Woe'.

Lead Painter's League 11 - Round 5

My round 5 entry for this year's LPL. The flag is hand painted (and double sided). Sailors by Hinterland Miniatures.

Lead Painter's League 11 - Round 3 - Seeking Sanctuary

Round 3 of the LPL is now over, which means I am allowed to post it here.

The priests are converted Perry Miniatures clergy from the Crusades range. They've been modified with greenstuff to look more like 'Missionaries of Africa', also known as 'White Fathers'.

The warrior women are from Wargames Foundry's 'Darkest Africa' range, and the princess is from Northstar. Good to see Copplestone back on an Africa project :)

Space Hulk - Escape Pods

After a posting hiatus I have a new burst of additions on the way. First off is some new sections for Space Hulk. I took part in the Lead Adventure Forum 'Build Something' contest, and made it to the second round... which meant an extra week of not being able to post pics :)

The official entry pic:

 

Details and WIP images: 

 

  

 

Miniatures are from the Lead Adventure Astropolis range, the poor guy (who is removable) who didn't make it is a Mantic Plague Zombie with some Wargames Factory skeleton parts.