How It Started
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How It's Going
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| The sad little halberd kind of reminded me of flame. So why not make him a Flame Tube Gunner? |
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| Back pack made from Dollar Tree wood bead, piece of clothes pin, and piece of sprue. |
Cloud Captain had given me some of these blue knights awhile back. I like them as their blue color but I already have Deetail knights and Saracens (who, together, make up Solis Nox).
I recently saw an add for the Ion Age miniatures from Alternative Armies and was immediately hooked by the 80s/early 90s sensibilities. Buying them wasn't likely - they are 28mm for one, but more importantly, I vowed not to buy any minis I have to paint for the rest of the year (skillfully worded so I can continue to buy brick minifigures and even painted figures!).
However, a bell went off in my head and I thought, "maybe I can make my own homage to them".
So, I gave it a try.
The color scheme is sort of inspired by Games Workshop figures I've seen. This poor fellow has been painted in several schemes, one over the other, before I landed on one I liked enough to call done.
Being first is not without its risks!
The red is P3 Khador (I've had this bottle of paint for a LONG time. My friends tried to get me into Warmachine way back when, and I had a Khador army. I was more interested in historicals and VSF. Some things never change.) I wanted something that could play as "good guys" or "bad guys" - and either fight with or against my chibi Space Nuns (which I haven't painted yet).
My plan is to (eventually) paint up a 10-figure red squad and a 10-figure blue squad (I have some nice blues I got for painting my Blitz Bowl humans) for classic red vs blue skirmishes or to serve as two units in the same army (those Space Nuns are tough).
Excellent conversion John! I'm getting a very Star Wars/Ninja vibe from your paint job and it really works well!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Brad! This figure's helmet reminds a LOT of the flame trooper helmet style.
DeleteI love the idea. Armor went out of use and occasionally returns - Kelly gang, WW1 snipers and engineers and, eventually, different kinds of armor = modern combat armor and, eventually power suits, etc.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a lot of those old SF serials, like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon included soldiers in very retro looking space armor.
Thank you, Quantril! I am thinking of adding a second trooper in armor to handle a fuel tank for the "flame tube" and make it more like an early-WW1 model flamethrower. Now that I have the color scheme decided, it shouldn't take much time to knock out a squad of these figures.
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