Step-by-Step: Painting Sci-Fi Stealth Camouflage

On the continuing journey to build up a couple of 10-12mm sci-fi armies, the time has come to add some air power. I have some Dropzone Commander aircraft on order, but while I'm waiting for them to come in, I went out and bought a 1/144 scale Chinese stealth jet, the J-20. This stealth fighter is due to enter service at the end of this decade. So, seeing as it's not in service yet, it looks high tech, and is generally unrecognizable to North American eyes, I figured this model makes a good sci-fi jet.

Not a complex model...particularly since I was going to paint over the canopy and build it with the landing gear retracted.

Here the model is built and is ready to take it's primer coat.

The base color was black. Over top of that I sprayed dark grey to give it that matte look. Next I started planning out a muted camouflage pattern. The Chinese jet, like some of the American stealth aircraft, is a matte black. However, as a sci-fi piece, I have the luxury of just making something up. So. I decided to do a patchy black/dark brown/dark green camo pattern.

So, the first order of business was to mask off the black patches. I used some tacky putty.

Next, I over-sprayed a dark brown and then highlighted that with a medium brown.

I peeled off the putty, which left a very cool looking dark camo scheme. To add the green, I marked off the patches with more tacky putty...

...and then filled in the spaces between the patches with tape.

After spraying with a dark green and highlighting with a pale green, I removed all the masking material. I was super happy with the result. The scheme feels familiar, but has a good military sci-fi aesthetic. Familiar and not at the same time.

All that was left to do was hand-paint the engine nacelles, canopy and running lights. The model got an over-spray of floor wax and a few decals were applied. The final dullcoat spray sealed everything up, and the model was done.

I'll mount it on a flight stand later.

Hopefully, I'll get those next Dropzone Commander models in this week and have them on the table for next weekend.

'Til next time.

Heavy Gear Southern Infantry Stands

Having finished off a platoon of infantry for the Heavy Gear Northern faction last week, I couldn't resist doing the same for the Southern faction as soon as I could get around to them.

Each platoon pack contains 40 miniatures and 12 stands. There aren't a lot of different poses, but the figures are so incredibly small, pose diversity isn't very important...everything looks the same from table-distance!

Anyway, I painted these guys up to mix with the Heavy Gears I'd painted for the Southern Faction last month...I think they make a pretty good match. Here are the infantry stands along with some Southern Gears.

OK, time to get back to some Warmachine stuff, I think...so...

'Til next time.

Heavy Gear Northern Infantry Stands

I enjoyed painted those Heavy Gear mechs a few weeks back, so I decided to get a couple of packs of infantry to go along with them. I bought a platoon of Northern and Southern infantry.

I started with the Northern platoon.

Now, these are 12mm models, so they are quite small. While the sculpts are quite good, it's hard to see the detail. Given that, I did not concentrate on picking out all the belts, boots, gizmos and so on. I just highlighted the helmet and picked out the shoulder pads with the Northern green accent color.

Here are the infantry stands with a few of the mech models to show relative size. A good project for the week that Titanfall was released!

I may do the Southern infantry next, or may go back to some Warmachine...we'll see.

'Til next time!

Heavy Gear...Northern Forces: Step-by-Step

Going through the Heavy Gear model lot I purchased from Jarrett a few weeks back, I counted 15 Northern forces gears. Well, no time like the present to build and paint these. First came construction. As I mentioned in my last post, these little models have a lot of parts, but once they're together, they're pretty cool. After cleaning the mould lines and flow gates, and assembling these guys...here are the 15 models. They represent 3 Headhunters, 10 Hunters and 2 Grizzlies. 

I like to base models before priming.

Primed black.

The first spray layer was German Dark Yellow. It was a fairly heavy overspray, but bits of black can still be found in the deep recesses.

The next paint layer was a down-spray of Sand.

As I did with the Southern Gears last week, I laid down a fairly heavy wash at this point. I used Vallejo Sepia.

Next came the highlighting pass, which was done with a mix of Sand and White.

The next step was once again quite time-intensive. I did a specular highlight pass with a small brush, and then added in the green accent pass. Guns and engines also got a coat of Reaper Blackened Steel. Then I applied a heavy spray of floor wax, followed by decal application.

Finally, the models got a sealing spray of Testors Dullcoat, the metal was highlighted with GW Chainmail and the bases were finished off. 15 new Gears! Yay! Now to come up with a rule set for these models that's worth a damn.

Another event this week was a session of Elliot's Iron Kingdoms Role Playing Game. Playing were Lee, Casper and myself. It was an interesting session...we found a mechanism that allowed Casper to transfer is Ogryn's soul and mind into a Warjack. Seeing as Casper's character is a 'jack marshal, we're looking forward to seeing a 'jack marshalling another 'jack!

'Til next time!

Heavy Gear...Southern Forces: Step-by-Step

Heavy Gear?!? Yup. I've liked the aesthetics of these models for a long time, but have never taken the plunge...until now.

Local (awesome) hobbyist and painter, Jarrett Lee, has recently been selling off his backlogged inventory of un-started and partially-started projects. I bought his collection of Heavy Gear miniatures, a couple of which were already painted.

There were over 25 models in the collection; a mix of Northern and Southern Heavy Gears. Jarrett had painted four of the Southern Forces Gears. And here they are...

I separated out all of the remaining Southern Gears and got to work building them. They are sweet little models (1/144 scale). For reference, the bases on these figures are 1" across. The models are about the size of 40K Space Marines.

Each model consists of 8 to 10 parts, and honestly...each part requires mould line cleaning.

So...I had an interesting challenge in front of me. I wanted to match Jarrett's painting style on these new Gears, but I didn't have Jarrett's paint list. He was also using an exaggerated highlighting style, which really works well on these small models. Going through the process of matching Jarrett's style was a good exercise for me. I'm very timid when it comes to exaggerating color modulation. Being forced to paint super-strong highlights turned out to be a worthwhile experience.

Anyway, I started with a black undercoat. As I planned out the layers of color I'd use on the models, I realized I was over-thinking the problem...but better to have too many layers of color than too few.

Next was an over-spray of Vallejo Model Air Intermediate Blue.

Then a downspray of US Intermediate Blue.

Next came another down-spray...this time with US Blue Grey.

As I looked at the models at this point, I realized Jarrett's had a much starker shift from dark to light colors on his models. So, I went in and deepened the shadows on mine with a blue-black wash.

I then sprayed on the highlights, which started with Pale Grey Blue. I then mixed in some White for the final highlight pass.

The next step was time-consuming. I went in with a brush and added all the specular highlights with the Pale Grey Blue/White mix. I also base coated the guns with Reaper Blackened Metal, and added the red accents with GW's Scab Red and Blood Red.

In this photo, you can see one of Jarrett's models in the middle, and then my models. I didn't achieve quite the stark modulation that Jarrett did, but I'm happy with how close I got in the attempt.

After applying a protective coat of Future Floor Wax, adding the decals, sealing with Testor's Dullcoat, applying highlights to the weapons and finishing off the bases...my seven new Gears (and two robot drones) were complete.

Here are Jarrett's original models mixed in with my copies. I re-did Jarrett's bases to blend in with mine. A close enough match all around...and now I have the core of a Southern Gear force!

Back sides of the models.

This was a fun project, and actually didn't take too long. Next up, I have a stack of unbuilt Northern Gears. Time to get to work!

'Til next time.

MayDay 2010

MayDay is our local Edmonton annual wargames convention. Originally organized by EWG guru, Bob Barnetson about 5 years ago, this year's game day was put together by Craig Blackmore. There were several well-attended games running throughout the day.

I ran two games. The first was the Carentan scenario I've been working on for the last couple of months. Here, American player Terry (left) and German players Jonathan and son Matthew pose for a shot over the game table.

The Americans made it to the German main line of resistance quite handily, however, at that point things started to go very poorly for the Screaming Eagles. Against pinned Germans in the rubble across the street, the Americans launched three assaults into close combat. Remarkably, they were unable to win a single engagement. The American strength was pretty much sapped at that point and the Terry was unable to get into the town. A convincing German win.

I also ran a game of Warbirds in Miniature, a WWII air game in 1/144 scale. Six players participated. This was an American B-17 bomber raid on Berlin. As referee, I ran the bomber stream, while three German players flew FW-190s and three American players engaged with P-51s.

In this shot, you can see the tiny fighters darting over the bomber formation.

The well-organized German team bypassed the American fighters, flew over top of the bombers and dove in on the rear of the formation.

The results were spectacular. While the Focke-Wulfs took devastating defensive fire from the bombers, the American formation was ravaged. Seven of fifteen bombers that hit the table were shot down before reaching their target.

Thanks to Criag for running a fun convention day here in Edmonton!

Next up...a fair bit of WarMachine. 'Til next time.

In The Beginning...

Hello Cyberspace.

Never thought I'd do a blog, but several guys associated with my game club have started up blogs, so I thought I'd jump in.

I'm pretty passionate about my miniatures gaming hobby, and I'm always looking for info on what other miniatures enthusiasts are up to. Hopefully, you are like-minded and will find interesting material here.

Starting a blog after being involved in miniatures gaming for 20 years feels a little weird. I could just go straight to what's on my workbench today, but I think it would be better to do a light survey of stuff I've worked on over the past few years (or decades...I suppose).

I've been a game designer since 1985, and fell into miniatures gaming as a result of that career choice. I designed my first set of miniature game rules back in 1990 with Silent Death, which was a set of space fighter rules inspired by Star Wars and set in my Spacemaster game universe.

I have plenty of painted miniatures for SD, but no pics of my own stuff...so here is a pic of someone else's figs.

Back then I was playing a lot of Advanced Squad Leader as well. I got into DASL, which was a micro armor version of the game. 6mm is a pretty small scale, but that just means you can collect a lot more of it! Here are some of my micro armor pieces, painted between 1989 and 2006.

Sherman V and Priest.

T34/85.

Ram Kangaroo with Infantry.

25 Pounder Battery.

Around 1999, I was contacted by my old friend from FASA, Jordan Weisman (who was responsible for games like BattleTech, Mech Warrior, Earth Dawn, Crimson Skies, etc.). He had an idea for a new miniatures-based game that would do away with the monster rule books which pervaded the industry at that point. Together, we came up with Mage Knight, the first collectible miniatures game. Our company was called WizKids, and it went on to produce lots of different miniatures games based on cool properties like DC and Marvel superheroes, Mech Warrior and Major League Baseball.


Here is a pic of some of the figures from that game system.

I moved to Edmonton in 2005 and hooked up with Bob Barnetson's excellent Edmonton Wargame Group. Miniatures gaming really took off for me at that point and I started collecting lots of armies, gaming models and terrain sets.

Here is a sample of some of the figs I've collected and painted for our games over the past few years.

15mm German PaK and Infantry for Disposable Heroes.

15mm German Motorcycle Troops & Panzers.


25mm British Paratroopers.

15mm Ancient Greek Hoplites.

1/72 scale Pfalz D.XII for Canvas Eagles.

25mm Troll Chieftain for War of the Ring.

25mm Wild West Gunfighters.

1/144 scale diecasts for Warbirds in Miniature.

30mm Warmachine miniatures.

25mm Romano-British Calvary

Well, there's a sampling of what has occured in miniatures gaming for me over the past while. Next, I'll move on to current projects. Thanks for taking the time to look through this blog...hope you liked it. I'll try to update regularly.