[Project News] Back on Track...

Well it's been a few weeks since my last update here, but things have been ticking away in the background at Martians & Machine Guns since the last time I posted.

First of all I've started painting two battalions of highland infantry, these will end up as the 1st Battalion The Gordon Highlanders and the 1st Battalion Seaforth Highlanders (Ross-shire Buffs), with ten men per company (and per stand) and eight companies per battalion that ends up as 160 tiny little men to paint. That'll only need another 80 infantry to complete the British infantry contingent. Progress is a little slow as 160 jackets, helmets, packs and kit all takes it's time but they're slowly starting to come together.

I've also started painting 2 batteries of 12pdrs for the Royal Artillery, these will be 16th Battery, 2nd Brigade Royal Artillery and 33rd Battery, 2nd Brigade Royal Artillery. These were created using the Baccus Artillery creator, this allows you to mix and match crews with artillery pieces from different ranges, for these I used the Royal Artillery crew from the Colonial range and the Prussian 12pdrs from the Franco-Prussian War range. It's probably completely inaccurate but good enough to my eyes.

Finally I've been working on four more landships for the British, three old Epic scale hellhound models  and a custom made artillery tractor. Once these are finished it'll be a case of looking on to the next army, I'm undecided who will be next, the Prussians, the French or a contingent headed by Captain Nemo. 

[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.

[W.I.P] Martian Tripods.

Welcome back,
                                well after a long absence they are finally back. After a long delay, a lot of pondering and much worrying I finally plucked up the courage to do something with my three Martian tripods, I wasn’t that keen on the idea of drilling into these fragile resin models but I decided that the only way that I could reasonably support them was to drill some holes and mount them on brass rod.So on my way back home the other day I popped into Model Active at Durham and bought a couple of lengths of brass rod. Cue more worrying and thinking and well mainly procrastination if I’m completely honest and it’s taken me a further week to get to this stage.

I began by using my pin vice drill to drill some little holes in the underside of the tripods, a brief test fit and it was obvious 

that the hole was about 0.5mm too small, fortunately I had a larger drill bit that unfortunately wouldn’t fit in my drill, so I had to gently turn it in my hands. I was kind of glad about this as the soft resin was easily drilled and I felt that I had much more control this way. I made the hole in the bottom of the tripod quite shallow and added a blob of greenstuff to the top of the brass rod to secure it in the hole. The brass rod was attached to the base (an old unwanted CD) with more greenstuff, as were the legs. The base was covered with sand and pieces of cork to break up the flat surface. 

Since I'd feared moving on from the previous stage for so long I decided that whilst I had the opportunity I would basecoat them straight away, once that was done I couldn't resist splashing a little paint around (no pictures of them at the moment but an update soon hopefully.

Haarken

[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

[NEWS] 15mm.co.uk release 6mm Martians.

More exciting news, 
                                   15mm specialists 15mm.co.uk have released two 6mm Martians sculpted by Nick Kondratov, they are described as one piece miniatures and 4mm tall, there are currently two individual miniatures, a Martian and a Martian with a heat ray. At £0.20 each they seemed a little expensive but they are only a fraction more expensive per miniature than Baccus infantry (which come in at £0.17 each) and with so few suitable miniatures in this scale they look to be a real bargain.

I'm definitely looking at a few of these as pilots for my Martian tripods.

 

Both miniatures are available HERE.

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

[PROJECT NEWS] A Bit Stalled.

Welcome back,

                                   a bit of a general update on progress today. As things have been so hectic of late, I haven't had time to take any pictures (not that there is much to take pictures of to be honest). So what have I been up to?

Well I built another two of my Martian tripods and came to the conclusion that they definitely need some sort of support if I want to use them for gaming. I'm thinking that I'll drill small holes underneath the body and mount them on brass rod for support (now I just need some brass rod to get on with that), secondly I'm going to mount them on CD's as bases, after a quick test I realised how difficult they can be to pick up so, I'm thinking either a double layer of CD's to help with that or a solid terrain piece that I can grab a hold instead of the models. So basically I'm waiting on materials and a bit of experimentation to proceed with this part of the project.

I've also been preparing the next Infantry Battalion of my British Army for painting, normally this would be an hour or so's work for the entire battalion (to snip each stand of four in two and then glue them to wooden spatula's for painting) but it took me that long to do two company's worth. The problem being that I bought a battalion of Baccus infantry in marching pose which come on a much narrower sprue and which has to be cut three times instead of just once (and I can't quite get my cutters in between the individual models so it's more like 6 cuts). Suffice to say I was a little frustrated, I'll get back to them soon though for once they are finished I can move on to my Lancers and my Machine Guns.

Finally there has been more work on a small terrain project, inspired by Christian's entry in the Build Something Contest on Lead Adventure I'm attempting to make a 6mm version. Progress is a bit slow but I'm getting there, pictures will be forth coming as soon as it looks like something.

And that's about it for the moment, a bit of a rubbish update but an update no less.

Haarken

[W.I.P] Martian Tripods.

Welcome back,

                                   well it was almost inevitable that I would post another tripod related update today and well here I am (So much for slow and steady). I just couldn't resist having a crack at putting one together if I only so I could get a better impression of their size. I have to say that after one false start where I'd picked up two right legs rather than a left and a right, it went together really easily, I used a combination of green stuff and super glue to hold the legs in place . I'm still mulling mounting it on a metal rod to attach it to it's base as it's rather delicate, I figure I can probably disguise it as a tree or piece of terrain but I think it would lose the effect of the open space under the legs. Much pondering will commence shortly. Anyway more pictures.

Martian Tripod & Baccus 6mm Colonials

Martian Tripod & Baccus 6mm Colonials

Martian Tripod & Baccus 6mm Colonials

 

Size Shot

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Haarken

[PROJECT NEWS] Martians On The Way!

“As Mars approached opposition, Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred towards midnight of the twelfth; and the spectroscope, to which he had at once resorted, indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an enormous velocity towards this earth. This jet of fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, "as flaming gases rushed out of a gun." 

 

A singularly appropriate phrase it proved. Yet the next day there was nothing of this in the papers except a little note in the Daily Telegraph, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of the eruption at all had I not met Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer, at Ottershaw. He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a scrutiny of the red planet.” - H.G. Wells

Welcome back,

                                   Just a short update with some news and a particularily pertinent quote from as I'm sure you'll all recognise H.G. Well's “War of the Worlds”. The update is due to the fact that my Martian tripods are almost here (the post man left a note to say they wouldnt fit through the letter box. Unfortunately my next day off is Friday so won't be able to collect it and take pictures of them until Friday. Understandably I'm excited and couldn't wait until Friday to post an update.

Haarken

[Finished] The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

Welcome back,

           Well the votes for the first round of the 2nd Lead Adventure "Build Something" Contest are in and tallied and I placed a distant third behind Malamute and Axelgrunt. The final voting figures for Group B ended up being:

Axelgrunt         - 96 (44.2%)

Malamute        - 81 (37.3%)

Haarken           - 36 (16.6%)

TimHerr1847  - 04 (01.8%)

Congratulations and all the best of luck to Axelgrunt and Malamute who go through to the next round of voting and thank you to everyone that voted for me, I really appreciate the support.

In retrospect I wish I had been a little more adventurous with my entry, it wasn't the most technically impressive build nor did I really push myself to the boundaries of my skills, next time round I'll be aiming for a much more complicated and impressive build. Anyway on to some pictures: -

Up first we have a couple of work in progress pictures that were a little too finished to show at the time, having base coated and dry brushed the whole piece I then decided I needed to add some more interest, cut the green stuff and some Z Scale model tree's off ebay.

Work In Progress: The Floating Islands base coated and dry-brushed.

Work In Progress: The Floating Islands base coated and dry-brushed.

Finally we have the finished piece, I took a fair few pictures for the competition so rather than waste them i'll post them all up here.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

And a final picture for a sense of scale.

The Floating Islands of Atlantis.

Naval Brigade of HMS Atropos skirt the edge of the Floating Islands of Atlantis.

Hope you've enjoyed, I know I certainly did.

Haarken