Meet the Cynocephali!

Hi!

Another group of miniatures finally got the loving they deserved after two years in the "tomorrow, really" drawer.

This time it is a group of Cynocephali, the dog-headed race from the other side of the Rotten sea that is known for their war-like, cruel and human-hating nature in general.

They are generally described as having human bodies and dog heads, but some claim they have goat legs or even one eye at the front and one at the back of their skull!

The eldest will have you know the dreaded soldiers ride in battle on horse-back and howl!

While the idea of Cynocephali is really, really old, the resemblance to Atila and the Huns is evident. Later, the Pasjeglavci/Pesjani/Pasjedlani as they are called in Slovenia, were associated with the Turks, whom in their invasion of the Balkans and push to the Vienna left a lasting impact on the region to a point where everything bad was associated with them for hundreds of years after they were gone.

Among others, there is a tale of Pes Marko ( "Mark the Dog",). Marko was born by a count's daughter that was locked up in a jail (tower) by her father. He gave her a dog to play with, which made her pregnant and thus she born Pes Marko. He eventually became the leader of Venice and pillaged the city in rage.

This tale supposedly originates from middle ages, during the wars between the Holy Roman Empire (that included most of today's Slovenia) and Venice, which is known for Saint Mark and venetian lion - you get the rest!



I imagined these ruthless creatures would be the most common enemies of any heroes wandering in the land of old gods and made four of them. A leader armed with an axe, a bow man for some long-range support and two spear grunts.

For the soldiers, I simply used some of left over GW Ungors I had from the Dunwich project. I have to admit I really like the miniatures. They are plastic and easy to work with, they are on the large side and quite cartoony, which I think fits well with the fantasy. I did, however, cut the axe to something more manageable.  

 Other than that I gave them a quick paint job and that's about it. They were kept very simple and I really have to say the photos don't do them justice. Surely I shouldn't just go with black pelt and the brown is all wrong, but overall I am quite satisfied.

In other news, I am preparing some of my own sculpts/conversions for moderns and fantasy and looking at my Strange Aeons collection, I really think I should start a campaing - which brings me to my Moderns, that I would like to at least remotely finish first. Ah, so many plans!

Modern warfare project update

Hello,

I took a short break from hobby lately and I haven't done much that I could show. I am very slowly converting the rest of my Slovenes, while deciding on what kind of scenario I should play next time. I didn't want to let the blog die completely and showing some work in progress also motivates me further, as I realise how much I have really done.

While I did some work on other projects, my focus is still with the moderns. I still have 12 miniatures to convert and/or paint to finish the Slovenes. Once I am done with this I will probably purchase some more packs in future (namely Special Forces, Anti-Tank/Sniper pack and, naturally, a .50 cal pack!).

As of the latest reorganisation, Slovene squad has 9 members. A squad leader and two teams of four. From those eight, two have grenade launchers, two have SAWs, one has a better scope and three are ordinary riflemen, from which at least one would generally carry a disposable AT launcher. Obviously, depending on the need they could carry more or less than that.

For wargaming purposes, I am after two squads of two teams, one team with an AT launcher and one with a scope. I've finished the latter already and below are WIPs of the former:

The one below is actually finished (built from a "patrol pack"),  and all it needs is a launcher. This sounds easier that in is and I think I am at my 5th+ try now. My expectations have dropped immensely since and I'm just trying to make it look sort of symmetrical now.

 A rifleman with what I hope to look like RGW-90 below. I do like the position of his rifle.

 And the real deal here. The launcher has two modes, if the pointy thing is sticking out it's penetration gets improved and it can be used against armoured vehicles (or really well fortified bunkers) and if the stick is retracted, it's more suitable for making holes in the wall, hitting buildings and so on. This weapon belongs to the same family as infamous Armbrust, a weapon associated with Slovenian war of Independence, that proven much less effective than people hoped it would be.

My fourth team is a conglomerate of several packs, as Empress only produces three teams as such. From left to right there is a miniature from the command pack (will be used as a grenadier), one from EOD pack and two from support weapons pack. One had an AT-4 that I am converting into a RGW-90 and the other one actually had a sniper, but I decided to use it as a SAW gunner instead.

 Two riflemen:

 AT gunner. Note his right hand was chopped off. It was in the same position as that of a gunner on a pic below, so I chopped it off and repositioned it into a proper firing position. I am really fond of this miniature and while it's hard to work on the weapon attached to a body, I hope it will come out nice enough.

Lastly, there is a command pack I barely started working on. From left to right we got a combat medic, a radioman (will be converted into something special!), a guy from an EOD pack (I swapped it for the one used above as it looks more "leader-y" and a leader. The latter two will be used as squad leaders. This means my guys are lacking a platoon commander, but I can always swap some miniatures around, of course.

 Medic and a radioman have their weapons touching their bodies and are a huge pain to clean up, I am still recovering from the radioman, before I will move on to medic.

Lastly, I put together this...something. It started as a bunker/trench/something as I was just reading on WW1 again and had to do something about it. I will use it as a heavy cover for a support weapon of some sort. 

 Unfortunately, as this zombie-converted-to-paramedic proves, two miniatures can't stand in it next to each other. I have no idea what I was thinking when planning, but I did measure the inner space!

This is all for today,  I'll try to post next week, but it will probably be a "less gaming related" post.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Parcels, parcels everywhere!

Hello guys,

as the title suggests, postman sure made my day on Wednesday! I managed to get not one, but two packets. Now, the photos are from that time and in the mean while, I have managed to make some steps forward (and even backwards!) that I didn't took photos of. So, essentially I am bringing you old news.

I've been part of the new S.D.Z.A euphoria on facebook lately. I have to admit game doesn't really fit my ideas of a game, but - as it is so diverse - following stuff that is being posted on facebook offers a nice inspiration. I only really like the dinosaur part of it and I am sorry my Lost lands project from the last year never really took off in a form of a game. Anyways, there was a nice prize draw set up by Wargames terrain workshop. They were looking for ideas of dinosaurs to be made into a miniature and I chipped in with a suggestion. I was quite surprised to win it (yay!) and as a prize I got their first commercially available dinosaur - a styracosaurus. There he is, in all his glory:

He is a large beast and the head is just stunning. It really is. Just look at all the tiny details:

I think the least I can do when given something free is to do something with it right away, so I started assembling it. It has been a while since I was working with resin (limited to assembling FOW vehicles) so I managed to do the following:
- glue the head on the body
- break the spikes trying to get them off the sprue (blunt knives don't work!)
- start drilling holes in the head so I can resculpt the horns
- break the head right off
Now, while this is all my fault, I am trying to look at the bright side - by sculpting the horns at least I'll give my "touch" to the miniature as I had no idea what could I add to it when I first got it. Also, I think that by drilling holes in the head and attaching a wire, horns will be a lot less fiddly. I really hate to see stuff breaking off after a model is painted (FOW vehicles machine guns being a good example!).

It will take me some time, but I'll be adding horns two at a time and I will most certainly play a dino hunt scenario at one point! :D

Another thing I got was Oyumaru from Hong Kong. Or, if you prefer it rebranded, an insta mould. They are available on Ebay in various colours and boring as I am I went with the clear ones. I wish I'd pick up purple!
Oyumaru is a piece of something (this is not a professional term for it) that you put into a hot water and it gets soft. Then you press it on a thing you want to get copies of, wait for it to harden again and you fill it with a putty. It's a press mould so one side is blank, but by giving it some practice, 3D stuff could be cast.

The stuff is easily cut, reusable, put together again....you name it. I am currently using it to cast canteens for my soldiers. One thing I noticed is that Empress Americans either carry a camel back or they run around thirsty.

Talking about Empress Americans, below are some of them that should be ready to be painted soon.
I will talk about them in more detail when they are done, but here is a GPMG team (had barrel reworked). They only need their canteens attached, sand put on their bases and they will be ready for painting. The assistant gunner was originally holding an M4 in his hands, but it got substituted for a link of rounds now. Adding a gun would involve a lot of cutting and as his primary job is to feed the machine gun, it makes more sense for him to be doing something with the ammo.

Lastly, I received my rifles last week. 45 of them, to be exact. There is an ordinary "red dot" version, a scoped version and a version with an UGL.

I started putting a fire team together right away and I can tell you one thing. If it seems simple - it is not. Neither it is any fun. It still is hobby and it brings a warm feeling when I get it done. I am a bit daunted by painting them, but once painted I am sure I'll be satisfied.




First of 4 fire teams below. All those need are canteens and helmet straps on three of them. One thing I dislike about them is the abundant use of helmet cameras. It's a needless clutter to me, but I suppose we live in a digital age now, so I didn't bother cutting them off.

The second team is in the making. This one almost made me cry as the guns kept falling off. I can report their hands are now done and they even got heads attached!

And this is it, more or less. I should streamline my work and REALLY just work on the moderns as I am all over the place and I can't resist the feeling nothing gets done. I am not sure about posting once a week just yet, but it spares me the trouble of finding a filler post every  now and then. Plus, I really don't like putting photos on my computer for some reason :D.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

SAW gunners WIP

Hello guys,

While I am waiting to get my various assault rifles back from Carl, I am spending time converting SAW gunners. I started working on two at a time and I have almost finished the first pair (finished as with swapping weapons, not actually converting a miniature).

Ever since Slovenian army was modernised, our fire teams' SAW gunners use FN Minimi (much like the rest of the world). Our version is a "para" one with a folding stock and a short barrel.

I made mine out of Ebob's version for his Australians, which only needed a cloth instead of box ammo pouch, a different stock and an optical aiming device (ELCAN if anyone cares, the same that Canadians put on their assault rifles).
The thing is, Americans use licenced produced Minimis. The one Empress figures have got a new stock and that usual American barrel guard (perforated cover above the barrel) - so basically what I am doing is cutting up a miniature to swap it's weapon for the same one.
In my defence, Ebob's minimi is a tad slimmer and I think looks more realistic, so that is a plus.

On the photo below you can see (from left to right):
Pilot getting an armoured vehicle helmed (I regret my decision, yes).
A SAW gunner that has new weapon installed already - this one was converted from an actual SAW US infantryman.
An ex-sniper figure that got SAW. This for some reason (must be the pose!) is by FAR my favorite miniature from Empress so far. He just looks plenty cool.
A SAW gunner yet to get his weapon, but mostly prepared (to show you how it looks like before he gets a new one installed!)
A SAW gunner that will need a lot more work and has turned into a nightmare.To answer your question about how I will cut away the weapons that are sticking to the body, Pete - with an iron will :D.

Once I am done with those, this will give me SAW gunners for four fire teams, so I will be able to build two squads. Looking at my tiny 2x3 feet table, that's twice as much as I'll ever need, but then again I also have around 30 insurgents.
 
 There is one thing I have noticed about that sniper crouching miniature, however. While, again, he looks really awesome, his firing position is not correct (according to what we've been taught, at least). If you look at his left arm and left leg (photo below), you will see that his elbow is on his knee. Now, this is wrong, because it's a "bone to bone". What this poor fellow should do is put his elbow either a bit further up front (to rest his upper arm on the knee) or a bit down, to rest his elbow on a tight. Not that he deserves a -1 to hit, but I found it interesting!

Well, that is it for today. I am trying some modern rules out so there is a high possibility of an AAR in the future!

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Crew members

 Hello guys,

To keep the momentum going, I started converting my Empress miniatures to Slovenes as soon as I got the guns. While I am using US infantry as the basis for my conversions of the gurnts, I decided to use British downed pilots for my test piece first. 

I primarily bought this pack for a size reference to help my sculpts fit them size wise, but there is no reason for them not to be "conscripted" in the SAF ranks.
I still haven't decided just what exactly to do with them.
The guy on the left had his carbine substituted for an F2000S rifle and the other one will not see any changes to his weaponry because having one with a pistol seems like a pleasant change. I was thinking about adding him an (empty) rifle, but that would just make him look cluttered as he carries some pouches and a bag as it is.

Here is my patient zero before the surgery.

The thing is we don't have assault helicopters and I am not sure if I would want them to be pilots. Pilots are great for Search and Rescue missions and so on, but I don't think I ever saw our pilots with a combat vest and armed.
Second role I could use them for is as an APC crew members. Those would work much better and I could sculpt helmets on them for a bit of a diversity.
This is generally a no brainer, but the thing is, I could paint the pilots in one colour OD overalls, which would be a nice contrast to the infantry, while APC crew would have to be painted in camouflage uniform as they are part of the infantry, after all.
Brainstorming like this, I suppose I could go away with one colour overalls and still sculpt the crew helmets on them (for the sake of converting the guy with a pistol) and simply call them "tank crew".
While I think I am far from being a rivet counter, certain details bother me so much, I can't just skip them. I have way too much time on my hands!

To prevent yawns from my ideas, here is a step by step of the "surgery". I decided to write this up to show you there is no science behind simple conversions as this one and to help me keep track of what I changed (this will be more important later on, when I will be working on the basic fire teams)

after the mandatory pre-surgery washing, I took a knife and cut our brave man's palms right off. I had some problems cutting around the magazine and stock of a carbine and I couldn't leave it undamaged. I decided to keep the hands for future reference. There was an option of leaving his right hand on the body and "simply" cut the gun "to fit", but I decided not to do it this time.

 Being handless, our guy needed new hands. After I saw Ebob's conversion of Empress US, I noticed his wire for hands was smashed into a "spoon" at the fingers area, which makes perfect sense. I grabbed a wire and started hammering it. I had then had to cut the flatten area to a smaller size and yet it proved too wide. They are so tiny!

 Next, I picked up a rifle and started chopping it to make it sit better on the miniature. At this point, I also decided right hand wire support was not needed as I drilled a hole too close to the body (lesson learned) - so the wire interfered with the placement of a rifle.

I decided this was not a problem and started sculpting hands full of confidence. The lack of armature on the right hand proved problematic, of course. You can (hopefully) see on the photos below that I only managed to sculpt one finger on his right hand. Adding some putty for the rest 3 (not counting thumb) is much easier than trying to sculpt all 4 now with putty swinging around like a monkey on branches. I tried to make it look obvious his index finger is stretched and does not rest on the trigger. It's probably not obvious, but hey - safety first.
Left hand got all fingers done but a thumb (that would be added when it all cures so I don't mess up what I've done so far). I found out that wire support was a tiny tad too broad, so I shifted the grip a little forward (it's not noticable, really). I was (yes, was...keep reading) really happy with how the left hand fingers came out. Fantastic, nicely rounded individual fingers, all more or less of the same size.

You can see thumb missing on left hand.

..BUT! After looking at it for too long, I decided his pinky finger is a tiny tad too large. I suppose nobody would notice, but as it was early in the morning and I wasn't thinking straight, I went to cut it shorter. Then my cheap glue (lesson learned -.-) let go under the pressure of a blunt knife (I used a fresh blade on everything, but this single pinky!) broke the 4 fingers. Not to mention the knife doesn't cut fingers in a natural round matter and the finger was ruined and with it the whole hand either way. So I cut it all off. At this point I might mention that for my first try, the hands were sculpted using a mix of green stuff and milliput - perhaps with a 3:1 ratio (I did it totally by the eye). It means it was still very elastic, but it had a tiny bit of rigidity to it, which allowed for lovely rounded shape that I would have trouble getting with green stuff alone.

After I gave it another try, I used a bit harder Greenstuff instead of mixing milliput in as well. The end result is visible below. I am quite happy with how it turned out, but it's not as good as it was.
Right hand's fingers are horrible because there was not much place to sculpt them (the GS layer is shallow) - I would probably have to file the gun's handle just a bit to be able to sculpt a more natural grip. If I would simply thicken the GS layer, I would end up with his index (done in first run) finger way too thin and it would look odd.

So - that's him finished for now while I ponder the idea of adding helmets to them both or at least the one with a pistol. Any thoughts on that?

Also in today's news, I have finished sculpting a grenade launcher on my F2000 yesterday. You can see it down below (top new, bottom old). It's much smaller with a lot softer detail. I am not too happy with how it came out but I had to shape it all in one go so if I moved putty to point A point B got all messed up.

It is way tinier than what you'd see on other rifles, but I think it fits the size of this gun. The actual launcher has a very small overlap over the gun (like what...less than centimeter on each side?), so anything larger would be wrong. It looks awfully small, even compared to Ebob's M16 and his guns are quite realistically proportioned. Unfortunately I have no Empress miniatures with grenade launchers to compare the size just yet. I think I will just thicken the barrel some more (light green) and it should be just fine.

I will now start cutting up the rest, but they won't be armed until those new versions of the guns get cast, so probably some time in August.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Working on the guns

Hello guys,

Before I start with the main topic of today's post, I would like to thank each and everyone of you who have helped this blog get 50,000 hits. I am trying to make my posts interesting and at least somewhat hobby related even when I don't have much to show you. Your comments are always appreciated as they are an inspiration and a push force for my projects. Thank you!

This Tuesday, a long anticipated mail finally arrived all the way from the remote Scottish highlands!

Mail was from one Hunterpest, an owner and a man behind Project Zeke miniatures (alternatively, click the banner on the left ->).
You should also check his blog, HERE. He very kindly agreed to put my F2000S and minimi (based on AUG and minimi made by and with permission from E-bob) in his mould  while he was casting his own miniatures.

I got to say they look much better in person. I am really happy with the rifles, but they should be a tiny tad higher up front I think. My work on the minimi is limited to a modified ammo pouch, optics and horrible stock.

I will use these "version 1" rifle as a basis for (you guessed it!) "version 2" variants. Those will include the three basic versions used by Slovenian Armed Forces: standard with red dot, standard with UGL and one with magnifying optics.

Below are the greens. In process of mould making, the temperatures and pressures are high, so they come out burnt. This is why plasticard doesn't work with metal castings, unless you'd cast them in resin first. As you can see the gun surivived the trial, but minimi's stock broke (like countless times before I even gave up and called it finished). I have to admit I am disappointed in myself for not persisting as every little mistake is noticeable on the casts.

 I grabbed one of the Empress M4's for a size comparison. Judging by THIS photo, the length seems fine, even if F2000S seems really tiny. It could use a liiiiittle more height, but certainly not over 0.25-0.5 mm, which is just too little to bother.

 I am pretty sure I mentioned this before, but the difference between the standard FN F2000 (the one you see in computer games) and Slovene FN F2000S(lovenia) is in the rail for optics. Original gun has (when you take that oversized box off)  a plastic rail that is fitted straight on the gun, while "our" version has a steel rail that is a bit rised, to allow space for a carrying handle. I have "intended"  this handle on my sculpts, but it is so tiny it's barely noticeable. There are also some inside differences, but those don't really apply to our hobby.

F2000 "tactical" - the purely standard version has mechanical sights on top of the optics housing.

F2000S with an aimpoint red dot - the one with UGL is the same.

F2000S with trijicon "sharpshooter" optics - one per squad.

First thing I did was clean the sculpts in warm soapy water as I mentally prepared for the surgery. Then I cleaned any traces of mould lines and "sprue" on the weapons. I also cut the left over wire, which was left there intentionally so the thing wouldn't break up for the millionth time. While doing all this, I was trying to figure out what bothers me with the general shape of the gun. And I know. It has a tad too low profile. We're talking about less than half a millimeter, but it's there and I am trying not to be bothered by such a minor thing.
I also filled and tried to thin the flash guard a bit...I can't really reproduce the shape of the original, but it doesn't have to that thick, either.

You can see the tiny wire on the back of the optics in this photo. This was made to be cut away.

I found an aimpoint armed US soldier in my EOD disposal team pack from Empress, so I had an idea of what I'd like to make:

 I used the premade "optics buldge" and wrapped some GS around it. At one point I stuck a piece of wire half way in to get that tiny tube where batteries are stored. I also pushed some putty around to make sure the front half of the optics was a bit thicker than the rest. It didn't came out as nice as the Empress one, but I think it gives away the intention.
Trijicon was a bit more complex. The one you see below got scraped and I gave it another try.

 Here you can see the second try. It's not the best representative, but the identifying feature of the optics is it's conical shape and not the adjustment buttons. It's hard to find the balance between the realistic details and an interesting model and it's something I'd need much more practice to find the balance at.

 I made a Trijicon version and three red dot versions. One will be as it is, one will get a grenade launcher attached and the third is for my test miniature I am working on (more on that at a later date!). To avoid sculpting 20 optics, the bulk of my forces will be converted once I get those "updated" versions cast.

It has dawned to me I probably talked more than it was necessary in this post again, so I apologise for another lengthy post, but at least I have included lots of photos!

For a conclusion of today's post, I figured I would show you a size comparison photo. Below is an F2000S, British Sa80 (some 10 cm longer than F2000 IRL), M16 (around 30 cm longer IRL), Ultima ratio commando sniper rifle  I am making (as usual, I hit a brick wall at the scope) and lastly a RGW90 disposable anti tank weapon. This one was finished before but I cut some of it off as it was too long. It should be as long as M16 IRL, so as you can see, I messed it up  a bit.

 And a shot of first try sniper rifle (lower one) and the new one. I am pretty certain starting over was a good idea as that rifle was just too tiny.

I also apologise for shameless advertisement, but I think this is the least I can do for the great guys of afore mentioned sculptors. This project would never come to a stage it is now if it weren't for their help.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Special zombies!

Panic! Panic! Panic!

I have been painting zombies again! Not just that, I have finally decided to paint some more Mantic plastic zombies conversion. Most of them were done back in the early days of this blog, but as I had no real use for them, they were never painted. Until now!

I used NMRIH book for them as it has those profiles available, but I'm not sure if I'll ever play game using those rules again. The rules really got a lot of stuff covered, but they just don't appeal to me for some reason. I might mention I took photos before I remembered they need some TCR, so that's what's missing!

From left to right we got:
Tongue guy, Howler guy, Bloater guy, Batman guy (not a special zombie :D)

 I have decided to go with pale skin with some purple washes. It's more suitable for vampires than zombies, as it's not rotten, but I really like the effect. To be perfectly honest, I did start by painting rotten flesh on them first, but it got all covered up. As mantic zombies are made for fantasy games, they are all in rags. I decided to go with orange for all of them, saves me trouble of deciding which paint to use and as they are clearly mutated they just might be some unfortunate prisoners, victims of some madman's tests?

 The Tongue was pretty straight forward, I stuck a wire in his mouth, coated it and resculpted lower jaw. I am sure I could do something a tad more elaborate if I would do it again. I'd prefer a more dynamic and a longer tongue, but this works fine for a miniature that's not going out of a drawer anytime soon :D.
Howler's abdominal area was cut and reversed to make him stand upright instead of crouching forward. Back then, I figured his hands look like he is struggling and his muscles are tense - his howls must be very loud!

 Bloater is not at all what I was going for, but he is a bit larger than the others, so I suppose it works. I build it from legs up, so for an early effort it might not even be that bad. I was really reluctant to paint it but it came out okay I suppose.
Batman was the latest conversion of the group, and I really like it. Not much else to say, he is clearly not a real Batman, or he has...err...left himself go somewhat.

 See, had a pint or a cracker too many:

I have to say I quite enjoyed painting those after such a long break from them. I'm now painting another batch while I'm waiting for the guns to arrive before I start proper work on the soldiers.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo