Jordan Peacock

Nice, but WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT?!? O_O (P.S., I love that they're "Death Marbles. 😄 )

Yeah, Chronoscope is a mini line that initially kind of threw me off because the branding made me think, "What, is there a Chronoscope setting?" and then I puzzled over what sort of dimension-hopping/time-traveling storyline might possibly tie together all the oddball minis that were originally in the Chronoscope line (and then it just kept getting weirder ;D ). Even if it's just a fancy way to say "anything that's not fantasy" and not indicative of any particular genre, sometimes it's fun to look at different scattered models in the line and think how they might fit together one way or another. As for the paint -- well, as noted, it was my first experiment with "contrast paint." It's pricey, so I don't think it's going to be a regular part of my painting arsenal, but it still has some interesting dynamics to it. It seems to have some aspects of a wash, but also regular paint. It's semi-translucent, as with most of my brightly colored paints, so it's very important what you put UNDER the paint. I was told that it works equally well over a black or grey primed figure, but even if someone can get decent results that way, it certainly doesn't behave the same way. Basically, I'd brush the paint over a light area (primed grey, heavy-highlighted white), and it would immediately "stain" the area blue. It visibly flows a bit, yet it still has a certain amount of surface tension, so it's easier to control than a wash. It doesn't show my "brush strokes" quite the way a conventional paint would, but I definitely had to work the paint a bit, careful not to over-apply to certain areas. Apply it thinly, and you'll get a vibrant, bright blue (assuming a white or light under-paint). Allow it to pool, and it will form a gradient to a deeper blue (and you also get a deeper blue where it gathers up in recessed details). I also got some olive-ish green, figuring it might be useful for painting up some power-armored troopers and the like. Accordingly, it's not as "vibrant," and I'm not quite sure what to think about the gradient/pooling dynamic in that case. I'll have to try some more experimentation (since I have the paints and all). I could see this working very well for painting faces. Right now, I usually just paint a mid-tone "flesh" color (I have various Reaper "flesh triads" to pick from), and then apply a P3 "flesh wash" ... then after it dries, go back in and clean up with the Reaper mid-tone, shadow, and highlight. I don't really know what I'm doing, or have the skill to manage a face that holds up for closeups, but that's how I go at it for now. I'm supposing that applying a "flesh" contrast paint might give me the effect of the original mid-tone flesh layer *and* the darkening-in-recesses of the wash, but perhaps with a little less clean-up afterwards. I might try it out sometime, but probably not until I use up most of my Reaper paints. (I don't go through all that much "flesh tone" compared to the other paints, and I don't do a lot of high-volume painting, so I wouldn't want to accumulate too many expensive paints that run the risk of drying out on me before I use them all.) The main body and the wing/jetpack are separate pieces. I could envision another possible use for this set: Have "Sophie" as a standalone figure -- a sci-fi armored pilot type, sans wings -- and then take the "backpack" and have it represent a starfighter (at a different scale, for vehicular combat). Either that, or I could imagine it at some sort of anti-grav drone. The way "Sophie" is sculpted, the figure wouldn't look off minus the wings; this isn't one of those models where there's some sort of bizarre connection point that breaks up the figure. In any case, I just happened to luck out and discovered this figure in my local game store (Sci-Fi City) when I was shopping for other minis for a campaign and decided ... hey, this looks cool enough, I need to paint it up and find an *excuse* to use it some day. 😄

This particular Sophie has the benefit of having mechanical wings, so really ... she COULD just be an ordinary person who happens to be suited up for space combat. As such, I think I'll be adding her to my collection of IMEF troopers. Alas, I'm not skilled enough to paint an IMEF logo, but I had a sheet of transfers from some Robotech miniatures, and put a skull-and-crossbones logo on her shoulder pauldron. (Not quite the right symbol, but it's at least in the neighborhood at a glance.) Incidentally, I LOVE the styling of the armor. The blister pack indicates this was the 03997 Jet Pack Sophie from ReaperCon 2015, sculped by Kev White. This is my first model painted up using Citadel contrast paint (Talassar Blue). I started by priming the figure grey, then dry-brushing white, before adding the Talassar Blue over most of the model. It gave a pretty decent starting point, but it's difficult to do "back-and-forth" touch-up with the paint. This mini was apparently missing a piece on the head -- a hair section to represent the "bangs" -- as I found Sophie had an oddly receding hairline. I ended up using some epoxy putty to sculpt her some big goggles to cover up the problem. Really, if she's going to be zipping around, at the very least she needs some goggles -- possibly even an entire helmet, though the IMEF seems to shun such things. The base is a laser-cut Warsenal acrylic 25mm round base. I used some paperclip wire to support the model to "hover." The background is made from Hirst Arts Castlemolds sci-fi theme building blocks.

Oh wow! The flowers and myriad candles make me look at the potential for this model very differently now. 🙂

Wonderful! What are the models/manufacturers/etc.?

I tried using their Search feature, and there's something GOOFY going on there. It doesn't behave like I'd expect a search engine to. (Or, if it's searching, it's going by something other than the listed name of the model.) The title on their site is (in full) "White Fruehauf Gas Truck Sinclair US Army NEW GLASS Plastic Model kit 1/48" However, if I search for "White Fruehauf" I get no hits on the front page (and a while lot of things that say nothing about "White" or Fruehauf"). If, instead, I type in "gas truck" -- it's the LAST option that shows up on the first page of results. I haven't yet figured out the keyword combo that will bring it up right to the top. Including more keyword match words seems to WORSEN the result. Searching by SKU (H1402) doesn't work at all.

At Hobby Lobby, I took advantage of one of their 40%-off sales to pick up this kit from Atlantis Models - "White-Fruehauf Gas Truck." While hunting around for references, I've found that this same model has been released by Revell in different color schemes -- red plastic with "MOBILGAS" livery, and white with "Shell" livery ... but also back circa 1957 it looks like it was released as a military fuel truck by Aurora. Some kits include clear plastic pieces for the windshield, but not this particular box. I wanted to fix this up as an abandoned vehicle in the retro-futuristic post-apocalyptic setting of Fallout (or something heavily inspired by it), and in Fallout tradition, one tends to steer away from actually recognizable company brands (though there are odd exceptions), and if at all possible (for bonus points?), put in some weird references/puns to refer to atomic power, bombs, the apocalypse, etc. I waffled between several possible schemes to go with. Here's a link to a sheet I came up with, for some different livery to try out. https://www.deviantart.com/jordangreywolf/art/Tanker-Truck-Model-Labels-300-dpi-896347664 In the end, I decided to go with ... CRY-O-FLO: I made up some sort of "thermal conversion fluid" that through unknown processes (and a generous dose of SCIENCE!) converts heat into light, but it degrades in the process, so of course you're going to need MORE Cry-O-Flo to keep your microfusion devices running cool. I figured this would be an opportunity for having a Cry-O-Flo spill terrain detail/hazard, painted "glowing" neon blue, perhaps with some "ice crystals" to emphasize that this isn't something you want to come into contact with. Another contender: Here, I was trying for one of those dumb "pun" names, but also I imagined that this could be some sort of wonder-fertilizer that, after 200+ years of sitting in a tanker truck and exposure to radiation, of COURSE if it leaks out, the stuff is going to spawn mutant carnivorous plant-monsters by the score! (And, thankfully, Reaper Bones has provided me with a bunch of plant mutant monsters I can use for just such a purpose.) I also did a mock-up of the original Sinclair livery included with the kit, changing "SINCLAIR" to "DINOGAS" and putting a T-Rex in place of Dino the Dinosaur. And, I changed references to Fruehauf (manufacturer of the trailer) to "HAUFLIFE" in another Fallout-style pun attempt. And here's the truck! The model is 1:48 scale, so it looks pretty good next to the 32-34mm scale minis from Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, etc. (and I imagine the same for Chronoscope as well). The model cab can flip forward to reveal the engine (though for this setting I need to replace the engine with something higher-tech that could pass for a microfusion device), and the side panels can pop open to reveal access ports to the pipes leading to the gas tank sub-sections in the trailer. The plastic has a bit of dimpling in the main tank and wheels and a few other spots, requiring a bit of putty and smoothing to cover up. Also, the side mirrors for the rig are very flimsy, so I replaced them with wire and putty to hold up better to storage and handling. I used paper labels for the "Cry-O-Flo" livery, the "HAUFLIFE" signage, and the license plates.

Awesome! 😄 Also, it's nice to know that he still uses the crosswalk.

Brilliant idea and execution! I hope you post pictures of the painted final versions -- I'm curious to see how they turn out. 🙂

Does anybody remember the old, old Kenner Girder & Panel toy sets? I had a couple of such sets as a little kid, and it seems that they first came out in the 1950s, and since then occasionally they've been revived by some company or another -- same exact product, only re-branded different ways, cast in different colors of plastic, with different accessories from time to time. I lucked out in finding a couple of boxes of one such "revival" in the form of "Power City Construction Extension Pack" boxes -- a couple of baggies of the basic "I-beam" vertical column and horizontal support pieces, with a few of those little terminator pegs, a plastic base to plug the bottom supports in, and a few panels (the panels being rather thicker plastic than I remember in my old kits). The weird little pegs sticking out from every connector piece are there even though there's (near as I can tell) nothing included in the set to justify their existence: it used to be that the pegs served as connector points for such accessories as diagonal braces (for making bridges and such), and plastic highway signage (for the bridge sets). Now they're just kind of a nuisance that I trim off so the I-beams look a little more like just I-beams and not quite so obviously from some sort of construction set. Where I'm going with this is that while I can't speak to the scale per se (these things were originally meant for playing around with Hot Wheels / Matchbox scale cars, and the "Power City" sets go with closer-to-N-scale toy trains), I figure it's "scale-squishy" enough that I used these packs as a cheap source of plastic I-beams to decorate ruins and give some sort of hint of an underlying support structure. I ALSO have a few assorted Bachmann Plasticville O-scale railroad building kits. In particular, I had a few pieces from the old Hospital kit. If complete, it would look something like this: I had a "grab bag" assortment of mixed Plasticville parts I got off eBay on the cheap -- broken, caked glue, missing parts, with hot-light-bulb-melt damage here and there -- and included were parts of the hospital -- the roof (missing a greeble, with a broken corner), front facade (missing the steps), and rear wall ("clinic" entrance with some more breakage to the windows). I love the vaguely Deco-ish styling of the front facade of the hospital. I think it fits the "retro-futuristic" vibe of Fallout nicely: this is a kit made in the 1950s, but the rounded corners and toy-like simplifications I think have the side-effect of making it look faintly "futuristic" rather than merely "retro." (Plus, wow, that's an awfully COMPACT hospital!) My idea to deal with the missing parts: make it a RUINED building. I only had two walls, and I COULD just use some foam board to make the sides (for some reason missing windows), but instead I thought I'd try taking the back and front pieces and putting them adjacent to each other in an "L" formation, have some hint at ruined floors joining them, and leave the back exposed. I've seen plenty of wargame tables with ruins along those lines: two walls street-side, forming something of a facade, but with no roof, and just enough floor to position some troops at the empty glass-less windows to snipe the street below (but still conveniently accessible by players' hands to move around the minis). Trouble was ... I've got a ROOF, and the "skylight" frame made it moderately interesting enough that I still wanted to use it. So ... I went partway, with the "L" arrangement, the roof, and some foam core and bits to make up the difference. But to hold it all together, I used the Power City girder & panel knockoff set to make an interior support structure. I figured that I could simply LEAVE OFF the back wall. I didn't make nearly enough debris to account for the collapsed wall, but that's a common shortcut when it comes to tabletop minis terrain. (Realistic heaps of rubble wouldn't give us much of a level surface to put the mini bases on.) I trimmed the little "tabs" off the I-beam connectors when they weren't needed, and shaved the ends off the midpoint pegs. Foam-core served for a midpoint floor, and a few haphazard attempts at representing interior wall dividers. I didn't go all-out on a detailed interior, however; as built, it wouldn't be practical to try to squeeze minis deep in there anyway; it's just not practically "playable." I still decided to put in some bits of rubble/debris so that at least at a glance it looks like a ruin inside and not pristinely clean and empty inside. For wargame purposes, I've got a bunch of "non-enterable" buildings anyway -- if necessary, I can have some map tiles over to the side to represent building interiors. Here, it's just sufficient to place a few minis at the edge of the interior and declare, "These models are inside the building." They get cover against attacks from outside, and if enemies get inside, then the interior combat is semi-abstracted (unless, again, I go with some separate map tiles). For the exterior, I covered up the "PLASTICVILLE" branding on the front facade with a coffee stirrer stick, and made my own "MED-TEK" logo (as it appears in the Fallout series) with the idea that this micro-"hospital" is basically an auto-doc clinic staffed by robots. For a Fallout campaign, this is likely to be a recurring site, where the Wastelanders can occasionally go in search of Stimpaks (or, if they're desperate, medical attention from unmaintained old auto-doc units), but at the risk of having to deal with berserk robot staff, the occasional feral ghoul, biohazards, etc. -- in other words, the usual. The front and back walls didn't join perfectly at the corners. I just made up for the gaps with some craft wood, foam-core illustration board scraps, and putty. Ditto for the replacement front steps. I used a 3D mistprint piece I got from a friend to replace the missing rooftop greeble. What is it exactly? Something retro-futuristic high-tech. Details aren't terribly important. 😉 The skylight is empty, and I just put a bit of clutter inside so that it's not a boring bare floor visible inside. I may go back and add some chopped-up fragments of blister plastic to represent "shattered glass." For the sidewalk and street, I'm using the (sadly discontinued) Secret Weapon Miniatures Tablescapes tiles ("Urban City - Damaged" theme).

Awesome! I've gotta get these guys sometime. They look like they'd make some great "space goblin" proxies for Starfinder (only of course they'd be space ... robo ... KOBOLDS). Robolds?

Nice! I'll have to look into these. Woodland Scenics bendy trees with flocking are cute and all, but they tend to "shed" over time and with use. These look like they'd work nicely to get the idea across of LARGE "fantasy trees" without messing up the table so much with little bits of flaked-off flocking.

I'm floored by all the wonderful details here. After seeing this, I REALLY want to see this "Post Apocalyptic Suburbia" you speak of. 😄

Zowie! I mean, if I was tasked with painting a shadow dragon, my default mode would be, "Well, I guess prime it black and do some highlights on it or something to bring the details out," but this one is so *vibrant* -- and still reads visually as "shadow" thanks to the dominant and (mostly) cool palette. Beautiful work!

'Tis brillig, and these slithy toves are gyring and gimbling something FIERCE! Reaper #77198 ("Barrow Rats" -- the big ones), and #77016 ("Rats" -- the small ones), with some epoxy putty to give them corkscrew noses and some base texture for the big ones. (Shown on Secret Weapon Miniatures "Tablescapes" terrain -- "Rolling Fields" theme.) In the center of this wabe (around a sundial, the grassy plot that goes a way before it, and a way behind it) is the requisite sundial -- in this case, an oddball piece I got from Miniature Market's "Tiny Terrain" line, modified by adding a gnomon with cardboard and more putty. Kitbashed for a scenario for "Wonderland No More" (Savage Worlds RPG) for Necronomicon 2021 in Tampa, Florida. Now I just need to do some reconstructive surgery on my Bones Jabberwock, so he'll stand up straight. Mome raths should be fairly easy to make just by painting some pigs green.