[Finished] The First Martian Tripod

Well it's been a long time between updates, pretty inexcusable but a combinations of things has prevented me from having much hobby time. Hopefully this has all changed, I finally managed to find a decent job lately so I should have the funds to start expanding this project into the areas that I want to.

Anyway enough of the excuses, time for some pictures.

First up we have a shot of the first Martian walking machine to emerge from the cylinders on Horsell Common.

The first Martian walking machine emerges from it's cylinder.

The first Martian walking machine passes by on it's way towards London.

The Martian tripod was painted with a combination of Games Workshop and Vallejo Model Colour over a base coat of GW Chaos Black spray. Base courtesy of an old CD, covered with GW sand and static grass with the odd dot of Woodland Scenics clump foliage.

And just because I haven't had any updates posted on the site for over a year some bonus pictures, it's all been covered in previous updates but the landship is a converted Pendraken British WW1 Mark V and the ruins are Games Workshop Epic 40,000 ruins.

HMLS Defence confronts the Martian Tripod.

Baccus 6mm Colonials support the Pendraken 10mm Mark V. The two scales match up quite well here and I'm hoping to plunder the Pendraken range for more Landships in the future.

The 2nd Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment supports HMLS Defence.

[Review] Pendraken Miniatures 10mm Mark V Tank.

 Welcome back,
                                today’s update is another product review, one that I’ve been meaning to post for months now, namely a review of Pendraken Miniatures 10mm Mark V Tank that I used as a base for my British landship.

Pendraken Miniatures only really appeared on my scope a few months ago, just before Christmas when I was looking at various options for some Martians for my current project. Although I didn’t find anything that I thought might be suitable for the Martians I was however intrigued and after a brief look around the site and their massive range of miniatures I decided that there might be other products that I could use.

Pendraken Miniatures 10mm Mark V* Male Tank

First up is the website, the website is really user friendly and all the various ranges are clearly laid out on the left hand side of the page by period, clicking on each range brings up all the various factions or nations for it in the centre of the page. Once you have clicked on the faction you are taken to the miniatures themselves. Here however the experience is a little less smooth, the miniature ranges seem to be arranged by the date that they were released, this is fine but most of the miniatures lack any sort of picture and although all the miniatures are well described it still means searching through a full page of products and with infantry, cavalry, artillery and armour all mixed in together it could be really easy to miss what you were looking for. 

The pictures that Pendraken have added to their webstore are on the whole pretty average but adding a touch of wash would sort most of them out. It is not all bad news however, Pendraken do have a rather active Flickr page with many of their products featured on there, the vast majority of these pictures are far superior to what’s on the webstore but there is a certain amount of trawling involved.

Pendraken Miniatures 10mm Mark V* Male Tank with Baccus 6mm Colonial's for scale.

Once my order was placed I received a confirmation e-mail to let me know what I had ordered and a further e-mail to let me know that my order had been dispatched, it did take about a fortnight from ordering to my product arriving but I did place my order just before the New Year at what I must assume was a very busy time (combine that with all the postal disruption pre-Christmas and I think Pendraken did extremely well).  My products arrived fairly well wrapped and without any serious breakages, though I would have liked a little extra protection for the small and potentially fragile sponsons.

The Mark V* Male tanks that I ordered were priced at £4.00 (this has since risen to £4.25 an unwanted but more than acceptable rise with the rising cost of metal and the increased rate of VAT figured in) which I believe is a very reasonable price once the size and the weight of the vehicles is figured in. The casting on a whole was incredibly good with only a couple of small area’s needing any cleaning work, one area of concern however was the thin guns, one of which inevitably snapped off, not a massive issue and one that was easily rectified. On a whole the models were incredibly easy to clean and work with and once I’d converted them they were really easy to paint.

A converted Pendraken Miniatures 10mm Mark V* Male Tank

In summation I wouldn’t hesitate to order from Pendraken Miniatures again but I would be much more likely to order from them if they added some of their lovely pictures from their Flickr page to their webstore.

Ease of Ordering:  6/10

Quality of Service:  8/10

Quality of Product:   9/10

Packaging & Delivery:  8/10

Value for Money:  9/10

[Finished] 2nd Battalion York & Lanc's & my 1st landship

Welcome back,
                           Well it’s been a long time in the making but I’ve finally got another update ready and this time there are even pictures to prove that there has been progress (I must apologise for all the picture free posts recently but without a reliable computer it has been difficult to get them sorted). 

I’ve made progress on three new units, first of all I began by continuing with the 2^nd Battalion of the Yorkshire and Lancashire regiment, this unit has frustrated me since I started it before Christmas, the Baccus marching strips were a lot more work than I originally thought and left me severely de-motivated, however they are finally finished and are looking decidedly splendid.

The 2nd Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment flank the HMLS Defence

The 2nd Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment flank the HMLS Defence

Four companies from the 2nd Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment escort the HMLS Defence

 

 The second unit that I began was the first of my Landship’s, based upon a Pendraken 10mm Mk V Tank it turned out even better than I imagined, the size of the model fits quite nicely with my Baccus and looks quite convincing (in my eyes at least) as a Landship.  I was in two minds about the colour scheme, I was initially drawn to a predominately white scheme that I’d seen on some 28mm VSF tanks but I’m not really that confident painting white and so I considered painting them in the same scheme as my British aeronef’s but I felt there was too few areas that I’d be able to paint buff, that just left me the scheme that I finally settled upon, not too much white, a little brass and a little colour.

HMLS Defence

HMLS Defence

HMLS Defence

Ad-hoc British Brigade supported by the landship HMLS Defence and naval brigades from HMS Atropos & HMS Panther

The third unit that I have made progress on is the 17^th Lancers, no pictures of these at the moment as all I’ve done is paint the horses, I do hope to have them done within a couple of weeks though.

Haarken

[PROJECT NEWS] Brief Update.

Welcome back,
                                It has been another extended break from the project unfortunately, with life once again intervening, this time in the untimely demise of my girlfriends Mac Book, still it wasn’t all bad, I finally realised I was spending too much time looking at other peoples projects rather than getting on with my own. Without an internet connection I decided it was about time I got something productive done and so hobby work has resumed on the project and hopefully that means I’ll be able to start creating a little momentum.

So what have I been up to? Well I’ve converted one of the Pendraken miniatures 10mm Mark V Tanks into a British Landship, this was subsequently base coated and then painted, just a few finishing details and the basing to do and it will be complete. I also began work on the York and Lancaster Regiment, these were base coated and painting is in progress. I’m hoping to get these finished and based by next week.

Then there is the question of what to do next? With the completion of the York and Lancs I’ll have completed the original three infantry packs from my initial order to Baccus, out of that order there are just the Lancers and the Naval machineguns to complete, so I’m aiming to do those if only for a little variation, that of course means that I have to place an order for some more bases from Renedra, 100x50mm for the Landships, 50x50mm for the Cavalry, 50x25mm for the infantry and 25x25mm for the guns.

Anyway pictures will follow in my next update, hopefully there will be another battalion of infantry and a landship to show off.

Haarken

[Project News] A New Year.

Welcome back,

                            Well it's well into the new year and it's about time that I got this project back into motion and so it's time for a new post. Lots of things have been conspiring to keep this project stalled (time, money, weather) but the chief cause I must admit been a lack of motivation. To combat this I've decided to track exactly what I've bought for this project, what I have started painting and what i've finished painting, hopefully this will this will inspire and motivate me to keep on completing units on a more regular basis.

I've decided on a relatively simple system to track my progress, once an item arrives on to the lead pile it is added to the tracker as a white box, it will be filled in red when it's in the base coating stage, orange when it's in the painting stage, yellow when it's in the basing stage and green when it's completely finished. This will hopefully be updated on  a more regular basis.

Anyway here's a copy of where I stand at the moment, the more eagle eyed reader will spot that there have been some additions over the recent Christmas period, I ordered a pair of 10mm Mark V Tanks from Pendraken Miniatures as the base for two landships and three infantry units and some artillery units from Baccus. Reviews and pictures to follow at some point. Anyway I should get  on and do some actual hobby related work.

Cheers, Haarken.

Project Status as of 19/01/11