Dreadful Things: Troll King and the Axe of Dancing Doom

Unlike the guy from my last post, most of my commission customers actually pay for their job when it's done.  For example, I just finished up this conversion and painting job for one of my regulars.

 

 

The mini on the right started life as a Fractured Dimensions "troll deity" from one of their Kickstarters.  The Axe of Dancing Doom is a kitbash that started life as the weapon off one of Privateer Press' Khador shocktroopers, another of which has been swapped on to the troll in place of his original two-handed axe.

 

The task here was to make a troll king armed with a magical weapon for D&D use, specifically an axe of dancing - that is, a weapon that can float in the air and fight on its own for brief periods.

 

After cutting and extending both axe hafts a bit (they're ALMOST a perfect fit, but only almost) I added a pair of tiny craft store gems to the axe heads per request.  Have to admit I was a little disappointed by how soft the facet edges were, but I guess you can't ask too much out of stuff that small from the bead aisle.

 

I then built a coiling web of arcane energy out of wire-core plastruct rod covered with a mix of glue and putty.  The crackling green death magic both hides the joins and the spot where the shocktrooper's hand gripped the shaft, and provides a flight effect so the axe is properly dancing.

 

All in all it came out pretty well, and was an entertaining (albeit time-consuming) conversion project.  The troll figure itself was a very straightforward job aside from the axe swap.  Particularly fond of the fish and leg of...something on his belt.  I guess even troll deities and kings need to carry a snack in case they get peckish.

Down Memory Lane: A Retrospective of Old Glory/Blue Moon 15mm Scifi

Old Glory has a fair-sized range of 15mm scifi figures sold through their Blue Moon line, most of which have been around for almost a decade now.  They're well-made, have  a lot of sculpt variants per pack (generally ten out of ten unique poses, sometimes less), and are remarkably inexpensive if you're an Old Glory Army member.  Despite that, I don't see very many painted images of them online.  So I've gone digging through my old image files and dragged out some examples for a photo gallery post.  You'll have to excuse the wretched quality of some of the images, but they date back to 2011 in some cases and not exactly up to current standards.

 

You can see the Old Glory web store listings here:

 

https://www.oldglory25s.com/index.php?page=1&cat_id=1031

 

Mix of Universalist Command (who are definitely not 15mm Eldar), Robot Legionnaires, Robot Legion Skirmishers, and Robot Legion Striders

 

 

Ten sculpts of Universalists

 

Only one of the Robot Legionnaires

 

And I think three of the Velon Skirmishers

 

Five sculpts of the Nevis

 

Five sculpts of Averums

 

 

Ten sculpts of Betelguesans, who make pretty good pulp Martians in green skin tones, or Star Trek Andorians with blue

 

 

Ten poses of Nova Patrol, who are also rather pulp scifi styled

Another mixed Universalist & Robot lot

 

 

Wraithguard?  What Wraithguard?

 

War Walker or Wraithlord Dreadnought, you decide.

 

Six poses of Zennox - one of the few packs that only has six figures

 

 

The Nevi make nice stablemates for the Zennox when you paint them in a similar color scheme

 

Ten poses of Aquans, who also make good Star Wars Rodians if you paint them green-skinned

 

Six sculpts for the Twanax, which are the other six-figure pack and much bigger than man-sized

 

Back to the Averums again, only five sculpts but you get two of each

 

Orion Republic power armor, ten sculpts that make fine Space Marine proxies

 

 

Ten different Mercantile Bond soldiers

 

Ten sculpts of Vletan Reavers

 

Ten variants of the Post Human Command sculpts, very nice generic scifi troopers

 

Ten Terran Confederation trooper sculpts, who also make decent Eldar aspect warrior types

 

 

What, more Universalists?

 

Fereen with Orbs, I believ there are only five infantry sculpts but the two drones also come in the pack, making a total of twelve figures despite what the store page claims

 

More Fereen, this time two sculpts mounted on huge Goranax, these are single-piece castings on 1" washers in the photo

 

There are a fair number of codes I don't have passable photos for.  Maybe I'll get around to fixing that some day. 

 

 

 

 

Full Thrust ORCDEF Starships from Studio Bergstrom

 

Latest starship painting project is a fleet of ORCDEF ship from Studio Bergstrom's Future Frontier range, originally designed by Rob May.

 

https://studiobergstrom.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=39_40

 

There are suggested Full Thrust stats and write-ups for these minis here:

 

 http://fullthrust.star-ranger.com/BSBS1stats.htm#orcdef

 

If I were going to modify those stats based on gameplay, I'd probably swap out some or all of the graser-1 mounts on the larger ships (battlecruiser and up) in exchange for a single-arc graser-2.  Both the battlecruiser and battleship can easily fit one, with a leftover mass for a little more hull.  The superdredanought can manage a graser 2 and still retain one or two graser-1 mounts, especially if you trade in a hull box or two. 

 

That would give them a bit more reach off the prow, albeit at a cost of some closer ranged punch.

 

I've always liked these sculpts for the feel of sheer blocky power they radiate.  Using the catalog paint scheme they're very easy to paint, mostly just a matter of doing some edge highlighting and picking out details for the guns and engines.

 

Like all Studio Bergstrom minis they're remarkably cleanly cast, and most are single piece metal castings.

 

The battleship and superdreadnought (the catalog calls it a carrier) have resin hulls, with the engine caps cast in metal.  Assembly is very simple, although you may need to drill out the holes for your flight posts to widen them a bit, they're a bit tight as-is.