Martian Tripod

My first full sized Tripod is done for All Quiet on the Martian Front. I think the colors actually work better on the bigger version than they did with the drone.

The kit went together very easily once I managed to track down some instructions for assembly. And painting was pretty quick for such a large model. I really like the size of the model compared to the 15mm infantry. He really towers over the human figures and gives a nice sense of implacable evil.



The Brits I painted earlier look like they are in a difficult situation standing alone against the tripod.

After posting him up for the Challenge earlier this week Curt raised an interesting criticism. He was of the opinion that the face has a sort of goofy look to them, even likening the noble Martian war machine to a clown's face with the eye as a big red nose. I have to say he has a point, and it comes across especially in pictures. Since I have two more to build I might try to recess the eye into the face plate instead.



Malevolent eye or clown nose? You decide!

It got me to think about other Martian designs I've seen before and I have to admit I like other more sinister versions much better than this one. One of my favorites is actually from the JLA cartoon and had a much more organic and asymmetrical look to the tripod. They even gave Superman a hard time for a while up until the end of the episode when they were destroyed by the handful.

The other picture was pulled off of Wikipedia and I think this is more in the theme I wish they had gone for in All Quiet. Its much more menacing looking with a more organic styling to the machinery. Its not that I don't like the tripod as is, I do think it has a nice retro-futuristic style to it, but now all I can see is that damn clown nose.

 

 

Armored British Infantry

I managed to finish up my squad of BEF infantry from All Quiet on the Martian Front. I had started three of them back in the fall but sidelined them to work on Painting Challenge entries. Now they and the other seven got their time on the painting table.

I had a debate with myself on how to paint them but finally went with basically the same as my regular infantry with the addition of grey/white for the helmets and breastplate. That way they will fit in in with the rest of my British ( all 6 of them HaHa) but still stand out on the battlefield from them.

My favorite out of this group is the Coil Gunner. I wish all of them had the same look. There is just something about the heavy armor, and the massive gun and backpack that just really speaks to me. I might try to make more of my own version of these troops based on his design.

For my purposes they are guys are going to be the specialist troops for the British Empire tasked to fight the various weird occurrences happening both at home and around the globe.

The squad getting down to work!

The Martians are Coming!

After having received the goods from the Kickstarter almost 6 months ago I'm now starting on working on the Martians from All Quiet on the Martian Front. I've previously painted up a handful of the human infantry and have some more on the worktable but I've avoided the Martians as I hadn't really figured out a scheme for them yet. Since I have 6 of the metal drones I thought I'd try out a paint scheme on one first.

I debated between doing a glossy black or an all chrome effect but wasn't really sure if I could reliably pull either one off. I expect I would get really bored or frustrated doing either one. I decided to try out a scheme with  a little more Victorian/ Steampunk flavor and opted for a metallic blue-green and brass.



With my recently painted villagers.

The metallic is pretty straight forward as I painted a base coat of Vallejo Gunmetal mixed with a bit GW Coelia Greenshade ink. (As an aside I've had good luck with the new GW inks but not really as inkwashes. They don't have as much coverage or sink into the crevices as much as the old line but they work really well as glazes or filters and also as color mediums to add to paints. The new names are terrible and impossible to remember. I had to check the pot several times to make sure I wasn't misspelling it. For normal ink washes I've found Army painter's tones to be really nice.)
After that was dry I gave it a wash of the same ink. I drybrushed it up with Vallejos natural steel next and then another ink wash of the blue green. Finally a drybrush of Vallejo silver on the edges to bring back the metallic glint.


The drone with an actual All Quiet infantry figure. The All Quiet range is really closer to 20mm than 15mm.

The brass followed my usual pattern of Vallejo Bronze, Strong tone wash, and highlight with Vallejo Brass. On bigger surfaces it will get a Vallejo Old Gold final highlight. I went with an orange for the eye and after some debate the tentacle arm was painted up in grey since it doesn't really look like its made out of metal.

If you look closely you can see that this drone has run afoul of a dastardly stray hair attack.

 

I like the look so next up I'll have to try out one of the larger walkers and finish up the rest of the drones.

Bonus Round Entry 2: Mount and Riders

 

It took me quite some time to figure out what I wanted to do with this one. I trolled through my lead pile but came up with a disappointing selection of cavalry models. None of which sparked much interest in me. As much fun as the diversion of the first round was I wanted to get back to my main projects as well.

Union Land Ironclads are marked by both a production number and bear the Union shield.

Inspiration struck while going through my 15mm stuff as I had socked away a few models to form the core of my steampunk Union army. So I ended up working on a unit of dismounting Horseless Cavalry.

 

C Troop of the 9th Cavalry dismount on the edge of the poisoned zone.

The vehicle is actually a steam-tankette for 28mm from RAFM. When I first saw it I though it would scale much better as 15mm vehicle. I ended up extending the under chassis with some plasticard as it looked a little sliced off and awkward. I also added some extra bits to it including a new hatch on top and some towing attachments to the rear. Thus was born the Adams class stern-wheeler land ironclad.

As a frontier unit the 9th still hasn't received its full supply of new Prussian Green uniforms. Some still wear the older Calvary Blues.

I'm guessing that this is an older 3D printer model. It has some heavy layers from print layers on them. I kinda wished I filled them in a little better as the contrast between it and the flat plasticard on the bottom is rather stark. I did put some Mr. Surfacer on it in an attempt to blend it together but I guess I needed a couple more coats.

 

In progress shot to better see the extended chassis. I thought it gave it a bit more bulk for the scale. Would of liked to put all of those little rivets on it though ...

The Adams class Land Ironclad has become the workhorse of the plains fleet and central to the development of horseless cavalry units. This unarmed version is usually referred to the John Adams while the turreted one is the Sam Adams.

For the riders I'm using some of the US armored infantry from All Quiet on the Martian front. I figured these guys wouldn't want to walk around in all that heavy armor and might want to ride in on a vehicle like the Russian tankodesantniki from WW2.

The newly issued "Stevenson's Iron Lung" breathing equipment is vital for operation in the poisoned air of the Disputed Territories.

I converted a couple of the models so they could still be riding on top and one hanging on to the side as he is dismounting. Most were painted up in the Union's new Prussian Green uniform* but I also painted a few up in the older blues of the army.

* I just made that one up, but since my version of the Union is hostile to the British Empire I figured closer ties to Prussia might occur and the adoption of British styled khaki would be frowned upon. Plus I want my Confederates in khaki if I ever get to doing some.

Current Army doctrine is for Horseless Cavalry to dismount from towed carriages and advance into battle on foot, in practice most troopers have taken to riding directly on the ironclads.   

Don't forget to check out all of the great entries for the second round over at the Painting Challenge Blog.



Will the troopers discover the reason this homestead was abandoned?

Rumblings on the Martian Front

I was more than slightly surprised to come home yesterday and find a package containing the first part of my All Quite on the Martian Front rewards from the Kickstarter. I'm particularly excited because of the four Kickstarters that I've pledged for over the past 2 years this is the first one I actually got something from.

 

Box stuffed with plastic sprues, and this only about half of what I should get.

 After a quick search through the box I pulled out some of the metal miniatures first to clean up. They all looked like rather nice sculpts and although there was some flash on them they were pretty clean. I pulled three of the fleeing civilians to be first into the paint queue.



3 of the 6 or so poses of civilians. Is it wrong that these are the figures that I was most looking forward to?

The plastic sprues also look really good but I'm going to put them aside for the moment in order to get to work on the guys I can use immediately in my own project. The digest sized rulebook also looked nice and I'll have to spend some time reading it over. I'd like to use everything that I can interchangeably between my own Steamworks and the official system. I'll have to figure out a good basing system, especially on the infantry, to do so.

Steam tank sprue on the left and top half of a Martian tripod on the right.