Light cover (TW)

I'm still on a terrain-making binge at the moment, but I will be getting back to figure painting soon.  Today I finished four pieces of light cover for 15mm-scale Tomorrow's War.  These are mounted on 'organically shaped' ice lolly sticks, & are simply little chunks of polystyrene blended in with paint thickener (essentially ready-mixed all-purpose filler from a tube), with tiny stones for rocks.  Again, I used Gale Force Nine flock & static grass, & bits of plastic aquarium plants for the foliage.

I painted & drybrushed the stones to match the cliffs.  In Tomorrow's War rules terms, I'm thinking these pieces won't actually provide a cover bonus, but nearby figures can avoid the 'Exposed' penalty of being in open areas.  Visually they will be useful for breaking-up the look of empty areas of tabletop.

Jungle hills (TW)

This evening I finished off a second, larger hill for the colony world Gondwana.  Here are some photos of it alongside the smaller hill from my post yesterday, with some (15mm) Combat Androids for scale:

Small hill & jungle bases (TW)

This weekend I've been painting & flocking bases & finishing off a couple of hills for the colony world Gondwana.  Finished so far are a pair of bases for grouping scatter foliage (the idea is that trees/plants can be removed to help with miniature placement, whilst still retaining a defined boundary for the foliage, so it's clear who is in the jungle):

I saved myself a lot of time & effort with these jungle bases by buying ready-made (laser-cut ply) ones from Fenris Games.  All I had to do was clip them off the A4 'sprue'-sheet, & as a personal preference sand down the upper edges to blend them in with 'ground level' a bit.  The circular tree bases are also from Fenris Games, & I've been very impressed with their quality.

Also this weekend I finished detailing a small hill, which has a lot more grass as it's outside the jungle.  The hill is based on a hand-sawn ply shape, & made up of layers of foamboard, bulked & smoothed-out using all-purpose filler.  All the flock I have used is Gale Force Nine product.  I added a few small plastic (aquarium) plants to the hill, to help tie-it in with the vivid look of other terrain pieces:

Pre-fab building 2 (TW)

This week I put together a 2nd 'pre-fab' style colony building for 15mm-scale Tomorrow's War.  The first one had a garage frontage, but this one has a front door alignment that will allow the building to tessellate with others of the same design.  I was thinking this type of modular design would be important for initial colony buildings dropped into the jungle.  It creates options for representing larger structures on the battlefield by joining them together.  As with my first building, I've yet to make the low pitch roof for this.

Water tower (TW)

Following-on from my first colony building for 15mm-scale Tomorrow's War, this week I put together a water tower.  This would be amongst the first structures erected in a fledgling frontier settlement, so I've done a lot of weathering on the teal paint-scheme, which also helps to break-up an otherwise dull piece.

The tank is a cardboard gravy granules pot, the maintenance hatch is the tab off the printer cartridge I used for the building generator in my last post.  The uprights of the ladder are bamboo BBQ skewers, & the horizontal slats are 'matchsticks' from a craft shop.  Unfortunately the scratch-built ladder ended-up too big (it's more like 20mm-scale), but I think it's passable for 15mm.  It's all mounted on another promotional drinks coaster.

Pre-fab building (TW)

Over the past few days I've scratchbuilt my first building for 15mm-scale Tomorrow's War.  This represents a pre-fab structure commonly used on the colony world of Gondwana as the starting point for frontier settlements.  From an initial cluster of structures like this, new buildings utilising local materials would be added as the population of a town grows.  I imagine the initial pre-fab structures such as this would remain as the heart of the community, as administration, comms, power, & water distribution, Directorate police stations etc.  This one is probably the local grav-vehicle repair bay.  I will be making a selection of variations on this design, some suitable for joining into larger building setups.

The base is a promotional drinks coaster I got through the post (I've saved-up quite a few).  I've been wanting to use these as ready-made tesselating bases for a while.  Need to get some old dinner plate mats to use as bases for compounds & larger buildings next.  The walls are 5mm foamboard, with breakfast cereal box card detail, whilst the shelter over the garage door is 3mm foamboard.  The generator is an empty printer cartridge, & the water purification tank is a throat lozenge tube.

Another thing I've been wanting to try is 'actual glass' windows using all the transparent plastic that I've been saving from packaging - I've finally done it here, & I'm very pleased with the results!  The 'glass' sheets are sandwiched between the two halves of the window frames (which I painted prior to adding the 'glass').  I've depicted one window with it's shutters closed.  I need to finish this building off with a removable roof.  I'm thinking maybe a half-cylinder shape, but it'd be nice to fit some solar panels in somehow.  Any suggestions welcome!  Below are some WIP views before I started painting this building:

Separatist Militia (TW)

This weekend I've painted-up my first batch of Separatist Militia for 15mm-scale Tomorrow's War.  My friend Tim & I have been working on a fairly detailed background for the setting - a colony world called Gondwana being contested by increasingly android/drone-based Separatist forces, & a Unified Marine Corps expeditionary force from the Sol System.

First up are some group shots of the militia so far.  Compared to the lime-green of the 'Ashigaru' combat androids & the camo suits of the UMC that I've painted previously, these militia are more time-consuming, as I've gone for a mix of civilian & military clothes, but tried to tie their overall look together with matching camo-hoods, & equipment that matches the colour of the Separatist 'droids.

I've used the excellent & varied Rebel Minis Sahadeen for my Separatist Militia.  Above are some militia leaders.  Irregular Leaders are very important in Tomorrow's War, as without them, Irregulars can struggle to react effectively to the Regular force.

Lastly, two support weapons for the militia - a GPMG belt-fed from a backpack, & an ATGM.  The militia are armed with locally-made weaponry that is less-advanced than those of the combat-experienced Sol forces, but easily manufactured across Gondwana by local workshops using templates.

Inquisitorial Scions (TW / W40K)

I've been temporarily diverted off my Tomorrow's War jungle colony project this week by all the great 15mm-scale Warhammer 40,000 conversions I'm seeing out there - especially Dan's Tau, Orks, & Sisters of Battle on Gunners Wargaming.  So I've been putting together some Inquistorial Scions (Stormtroopers) using Rebel Minis Titan Marines.  I've been thinking for a while that they would look good for this purpose, & after a simple paint-up, I'm pleased with the results.

As my first-ever attempt at converting 15mm infantry, I had a go at Green Stuffing a couple of grenade launcher figures, plus a plasma gunner.  I'm most pleased with the plasma gun.  The grenade launchers came out a little big (although it's 40K, so not really a problem!) & they're not as cylindrical as I'd like.  I may try to smooth out the launchers. 

If I get round to using these for gaming, I'll be using the excellent Tomorrow's War rule system.  Below are some photos of the minis before painting, showing my amateur Green Stuff skills...

Tents (TW)

This weekend I've painted-up six tents for 15mm-scale Tomorrow's War.  These are 'Sahadeen Hab Tents' from Rebel Minis.  They are nice solid resin sculpts, & very straightforward to prepare & paint.  I've painted them up in a generic military green, to be used as either UMC or Colonial Militia tents.  To help tie them in with the jungle bases of my scenery & figures, I drilled a few holes here & there to glue-in the tiny stems of aquarium plant leaves.

Jungle cliff & small foliage scatter (TW)

This week I finished off the cliff with some lichen & small ground plants, & made another dozen small foliage scatter pieces.  In Tomorrow's War rules terms, these small-base jungle pieces will be usedt o designate areas of Light or Average Woods.  I will make irregular-shaped bases for the areas of jungle, so that the footprints are clear.  The scatter foliage will define the type of vegetation, but can be moved as needed to accommodate units moving through the jungle.

Jungle cliff (TW)

This weekend I made my first terrain piece (other than scatter foliage) for my Tomorrow's War jungle colony setting - a cliff.  I'm pleased with how it's turned out, but I don't think it looks finished yet - I'll add some lichen & dark green Gale Force 9 flock for ground plants, & pick out some small loose stones in grey, which should break up the patches of earth & grass a bit.

The cliff / outcrop is built from 2 ragged chunks of polystyrene, glued to an unwanted stand from the back of a picture frame.  I added a few real stones in places as boulders jutting out from the cliff, then textured it thickly with all-purpose filler.  After that it was a case of several coats of drybrushing on the dark blue-grey undercoat, whilst I marked out the areas of grass & earth with paint before flocking using Gale Force 9 flock.  The foliage is snipped from plastic aquarium plants.

Revised colonial militia fighter (TW)

Here is my revised paint scheme for colonial militia in Tomorrow's War.  Based on feedback, I've reduced the diversity of colours (though I have kept the bright orange in the form of the base colour of the spots on the camo hood).  There's still a lot of colour on the figure, which is something I definitely want, but they are now mostly traditional forest tones.  I was a inspired by WWII 'autumn oak-leaf' Wehrmacht paratrooper camouflage for the hood.

I think I'll go with this general scheme for my 'scratch' militia - keeping the hoods the same, but with variations in tops and trouser colour.  This figure is wearing captured UMC gear (trousers and some of his equipment pouches).  One aspect of my militia figures I haven't decided on yet is the goggles that some of them are wearing.  On other test minis, I have painted these in the same green as the gun casing & with red lenses, to match my colonial androids.  This is for a bit of uniformity, & to suggest similar manufacturing source.  However, this looks quite toy-like, so I'm thinking I may go with gunmetal and various coloured lenses.  I think the gun casing and lenses alone should be enough to visually link the militia with the combat droids.

As mentioned before, I am using Rebel Minis Sahadeen for my militia.  These are 15mm scale figures mounted on 1p bases.

Colonial militia fighter (TW)

Here is the 1st of my colour-scheme tests for colonial militia fighters in Tomorrow's War.  The figure is a Rebel Minis Sahadeen fighter.  As with all my 15mm scale minis, these are mounted on 1 pence pieces.  The flock is from Gale Force 9, except the static grass, which is Citadel Glade Grass.  The large leaves are snipped from a plastic aquarium plant.  Before I paint up too many of these, I was wondering what people thought of this as an example.  This will be the general palette of colours, but with variations.  The militia fighters will wear a mix-&-match of captured UMC fatigues, drab/foresty civilian clothes, & vivid camo hoods suited to the colony world's flora.

I decided to go with a bright green rifle casing which matches the colonial combat androids that I've already painted up. This is to help tie the colony forces together visually, but also because the weapons used by the militia will be similarly locally-produced using simple templates (in a '3D-printing' style).  The colonial weapons & droids will generally be lightweight, easy to produce & maintain; but outclassed by the rugged, tried-&-tested military tech of the UMC invaders.  All colour-scheme thoughts, opinions & suggestions welcome.

UMC sniper teams (TW)

Today I finished a pair of Unified Marine Corps sniper teams, for 15mm scale Tomorrow's War.  These neat figures are from the Rebel Minis Earth Force Marines Heavy Weapons pack.