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The Protectorate demands mineral resources! We've seen the work their employees do in the asteroid belt before. Welcome to Xipetotec, in the Huitzilopochtli system. It sucks here! A Mole Person could get along here, but humans who get sent here must have gotten in the Protectorate's bad books. Hey, look, it's those two guys again! Survival on such an awful sphere is hard, so the Company pumps its workers full of Brute Juice. ("Brute Juice: You Know It's Healthy 'Cause It Glows!") Crosswire (50018) is a prime example of what Brute Juice does to a body--he's a burly specimen. But Oleg here makes him look positively puny. Oleg is an Ogryn Heavy Trooper from CP's alien line. The mask, armor, and Brute Juice tubes make him fit in perfectly with the other Space Roughnecks. The girder-sized object he totes had a flat end, so I tacked a GW greeble on it to make some sort of futuristic space welder or gauss-field gizmo. Also gave him a GW Ork knife, which would be a machete in a smaller figure's hands. Anyway, for impressionable readers I should mention that Brute Juice is habit-forming, and the Company will deduct it from your paycheck, and no it is not cheap. Anyhow, these shock-troops of labor will work like hell until they have got the mining and smelting processes automated. Once the machinery is set up, it's a few days off-planet R&R and then on to the next site. The pension for this kind of labor is very generous indeed--it's not like most of the workers will collect. But perhaps that's spoilers for another post! The Ore Orb is a 'moon ball' bouncy toy with a touch of paint. The apparatus in the last picture is a partly-finished GW Ferratonic Furnace; more of that to come. Remember, cadets! Brute Juice--Not Even Once!

Yet a third, and thus far final, spacefuture character from Antediluvian Miniatures. He is billed as a bounty hunter and comes with two pauldron-mounted plasma cannons, but I wanted more of a blue-collar look. The industrial armor suit with its huge digging claw is amazing. The Miner is dwarf-sized, likely from a high-gravity world. It's a tough life, prospecting for minerals in the asteroid belt. More turnaround pix: Especially when the ore vats start acting up. BUT! once in a great while you strike paydirt. And with the credits from a haul like that, even after the Protectorate takes its cut, you're set for a Martian year of good times! Oh yeah, it's animal protein and Ganymedean moonwine from here on out! And the FLAVORED nutrient paste, every day! Success breeds envy, though...keep that exosuit on. Featuring guest appearances from Crosswire (50018), the robot from Briony, Cybertechnician (50064), some Mantic mining terrain, the previously posted Buckland Rogers, and some Hydra Galacteers, as well as Reaper's shipping crates, soda machines, and starship generator. The rusty shed is corrugated cardstock; the bar is mostly a repurposed toy-car blister pack with some wire and gewgaws, plus the Starship Door. This guy and Crosswire really would make a good pair of recurring bounty hunters/mercenaries/roughneck profiteers now that I think of it. The physical contrasts really sell them as a classic set of Those Two Guys.

Chronoscope has some splendid figures under the "Superhero"/"Supervillain" tags. How could I resist? 50080, Zenith, is magnificently dynamic and determined. The posture would make an amazing speedster hero, but the ludicrously well-defined muscles and enormous pecs (as well as the name) hinted at something else. Not original of me, but I love the guy. I have been advised to use more washes and shading, and so it has been done! Should I try to paint little scale-armor scales on the torso? I need to find a large round-headed thumbtack for shield purposes... 50107 is pretty obvious. A delightful sculpt! Used GW Screaming Bell, Gehenna Gold; ArtDeco Rich Espresso, AP Rough Iron. I'll put some glowing eyes on there soon and Nuln Oil the armor up. Maybe I should throw some copper or silver in there? 80058, the Wild West Wizard of Oz Lion, does not look remarkably leonine. It DOES look like our favorite Dark Horse hero with the serial numbers filed off though: And then there's the unspeakably jacked Crosswire, 50018. This one doesn't map directly onto any one villain, but a combination of the Wrecking Crew and Bane is gonna be fun to paint. (And he'll also make a great techno-luchador!) Should I make his weird superpower drug pods (and bulging veins) Alien Goo green, or Orc Blood purple? I think I'll also put black diagonal CAUTION stripes on the yellow parts of his armor.

What are heroes without villains to oppose them? Less exciting, that's what! So here is Crosswire, an incredibly jacked brute powered by canisters of some sinister Brute Juice! He doesn't map directly on to any character I know, but combines elements of Bane, Mr. Hyde, some members of the Wrecking Crew, the Rhino, and (due to Drug Powers) maybe the bad robocop from Robocop 2. I tried to get some minor OSL coming off the Brute Juice canisters and drybrush his many bulgy veins Alien Goo green. He's a very big fellow, in the same weight class as the Clay Golem. (see http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/82054-77170-clay-golem-conversion-plus-59009-female-mad-scientist/ ) Lots and lots of muscles to highlight and wash. But what we all came here for is of course some wreckage and mayhem!

This weekend I managed to call my Crosswire conversion complete. For those interested, the WIP is under this forum (but my computer doesn't like the link adding function on the forum). I am happy with how my NMM is coming along. I could have brought this to the next level with more time but as he will be used as a game piece, I am happy to call him done. More pics and rambling on my blog. As a teaser, here is Whiplash vs Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk.

As part of my ongoing super hero project, I have been converting a few minis to represent some of the better known heroes and villains from the pages of comics and movies. I picked up Crosswire as a start for Whiplash, not realizing just how big he is. I ramble on it extensively on my blog, these couple of pics show how he scales with 28mm truescale figs as shown by Deano by Hasslefree Miniatures. In short, he is giant. I started by sculpting the Arc Reactor on his chest yesterday and today I added on the straps and power cables. As I see the bottom wires attached I need to go in and clean up the edge where I have a gap on the Arc Reactor base plate. Comments and advice appreciated.