Infinity Family Photo: March

Since posting to this blog seems to be motivating me to paint and produce more, I figured I'd start putting progress shots as well as finished figures up here. This is the sum total of my collection, less one Medchanoid bot that's still in his blister, awaiting a fancy resin base. But not for long... April will see me swamped with new figures!

 

I never should have bought those Hellcats - there aren't enough figs in the Nomad range that I really love enough to make a viable team out of, even taking all the Tomcats as well. I'll figure something out though, they're too pretty not to own. 

Hellcat Search and Rescue

Now that I'm bored with my Shasvastii paint job (only 2/3 of the way through, aaargh!) I've started thinking about my Nomad unit. I love everything about the Hellcat figures, from their high-tech armor equipment to the dynamic poses to their airmobile capabilities, but I also really like the Tomcat Emergency and Rescue Special Team. I thought it would be cool to envision a SAR squad that had Hellcat capabilities as well - kind of a Military Search and Rescue team rather than a militarized one. 

I won't have time to work on the figs for a while, but I had to get one idea out of my system. Here's the result: 

This lettering is at the limit of my vision and steadiness, but I'm still not happy with the way it looks in macro, and will probably redo it when I start the project in earnest. But as a proof of concept I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out - and damn, it's small! 

Shasvastii Tuesday Twofer

Another couple of Seed-Spawn in the can: A Shasvastii Seed-Soldier with a light grenade launcher, and a few more shots of my Shrouded, now that the base is finished. In my haste to finish, I've clearly cut corners, but I like the way they've turned out and the team is starting to come together quite nicely! I should put up a family photo a little later.

A is for Aswang

That's good enough for me...

It turns out that the Aswang is a nasty little monster, only instead of eating cookies he eats people! And he's got a glue gun to stick people down first, kind of like the Velvet Worm...

This fella is a minor conversion, with a quick arm swap from a Cadmus so I can use him as my Lt, and some green stuff to create the bloody mess trailing behind his current meal.

I ended up getting bored so rushed through some of the stages, and the shortcuts are of course excruciatingly visible in digital close-up. Serves me right though!

Here's the color palette I'm using for my Shasvastii (all colors from Vallejo)


Dorsal Armor - Reflective Green + Prussian Blue/Field blue/Dark Blue Grey/Pale Grey-Blue
Carapace - Khaki Grey/Yellow Ochre/Sand Yellow
Ventral Flesh - Orange Brown/Salmon Rose/+Light Flesh
Weapon - German Fieldgrey/Green-Grey/Pastel Green
Freckles - Chocol. Brown/Orange Brown/Salmon Rose

Shasvastii Chop Shop

 

I wasn't able to get a ton of painting done in the past week, but I did manage to do a little converting that I wanted to show off. It turns out that Cadmus and Aswang Shasvastii are similarly equipped and proportioned, so an arm-swap was a simple matter; now my Aswang can be used as a Lt and my Cadmus is even more dangerous close-in! I also wasn't a fan of the straight-on-scream look of the Combi Rifle Cadmus so I filed his neck a little and filled the gap with some Green Stuff. It looks passable I think. 

Also included in this update is a nearly-done Shrouded, altered just slightly to be stepping up on a vent while leveling his Combi Rifle at an unseen target. That black gun tube is the last thing many humans will see! I kinda like his guy's no-pants look, and his textured flesh was a lot of fun to paint, contrasting nicely with the smooth curves of his carapace armor. 

Meet the Celebrity!

Oh, you were maybe expecting somebody else? No, Colette is the Host, MC and owner of the Show, but even she realizes who people really come to see - the lovely Cassandra! Cassandra, whose flashing smile is a sharp as a blade, and vice versa.

I'm not as pleased with Cassie as I've been with the Performers I did over the last couple of weeks. I was pushing for something a little more dramatic, as befitting her power and status, but I'm not sure it paid off. The brocade on the dress was a lot of work, and took more than one attempt, but it's still lacking - a little messy, and perhaps too strongly contrasted with the yellow of her dress to achieve the tone-on-tone effect I was going for. Dotting the interstices with a darker ochre color did help pull the design together though. Similarly, the stocking effect, achieved by layers of purple-infused flesh tones, was a little less than I had hoped for.

She's done, though, and that's the most important thing. Overall, I give myself a 'not bad'.

Blast from the Past: First in a Series

I've been clearing out the basement lately, looking for good stuff to pawn on Bartertown, when I stumbled across my old 40k armies. Some of this stuff is pretty good!

 

I remember this guy well. He had random powers and a random weapon, that worked perfectly in his case: Sustained Assault and the Executioner. The latter was like a close-combat antitank gun, while the former let him charge a new opponent every time he defeated his current target in close combat, as long as he wasn't himself hurt. One time he killed an entire army in a single turn. He wasn't very well-liked in our gaming group. 

The Swooping Hawk wings allowed him to Leap 18" (into close combat if he desired), or 'fly high' out of weapon range in one turn, and land anywhere on the board in a subsequent turn. Talk about Death From Above! 

Now who said Eldar were cheesy? 

BTW the date on the bottom says October 1, 1991 - almost 20 years ago! Has my painting gotten better, or has it regressed? You be the judge! 

Girls and their Dolls

Here are the Malifaux Performers with their Mannequins, complete with Wyrd 30mm Victorian base inserts.

When painting these ladies I tried to stick to a fairly limited palette, and carry colors through from one figure to the next, so there would be a certain consistency among the Crew without making it look like a uniform. I also paired up colors so that the Mannequins matched their owners.

Next up, the Celebrity herself!

Invasion of the Seed People

Obsession is a dark and dangerous thing!

Here's my first crack at Corvus Belli's lovely Combined Army figures from their Infinity science-fiction skirmish game. This guy is a Shasvasti Seed-Soldier, an expert in infiltrating target planets ahead of the EI's shock forces and sowing confusion and mayhem. They start the game in a cute little seed pod, oh what is that cute little thing over there! It looks like a pumpkin, aw, is that a puppy hatching? NO IT'S AN ALIEN AND IT'S GOT A KNIFE!

The color scheme is far from the boxed set photos but I wanted to emphasize the alien and crustacean look of the creature, and went for a tasty crab-meat effect on its underbelly. I was tempted to do the armored exoskeleton in German field-greys, but decided to stick to blue-greys as well, as I felt it suited the composition better. What do you think?

Photographing this little devil with my little Canon P&S was quite a challenge, given it's Z-axis depth. As a result I had to resort to post-processing sharpening way more than usual.

The New Thing

Right next to the Malifaux stuff at the local gaming Mecca are five trays of a sci-fi game called Infinity. My resolve already softened by Malifaux, I was utterly charmed by the strong aesthetics of this Spanish game.

I lasted two weeks.

Pictured is a 200-point Combined Army force of Shasvastii infiltrators, alien troops intent on conquering mankind and incorporating them as an arm of the Evolved Intelligence. I have no idea what any of that stuff means, but it sure sounds cool!

Trixie Complete!

Yay, one down, five to go!

My FLGS had some 30mm Victorian bases, so I was able to start finishing my Showgirls last night. In the end I decided to go with base inserts rather than a scratch-built theater floor because I want to strike while the iron is hot, and get these figures done before I lose momentum. I also think they look pretty great!

Trixie might need an accessory on her base, but I don't want to pull visual impact away too much from the figure itself. I might add the Cat from the Victorian Accessories pack after I'm done the rest of the crew though.