From DallasE: Roadkill Garage BBQuda for Gaslands (Babylon 5)(37 points)

Presenting... the BBQuda!

There's a bit of a story behind this... one of my other enthusiasms is old cars, and TV shows about them. One of my favourites is "Roadkill Garage", broadcast on the Discovery Velocity channel. Roadkill Garage follows the misadventures of its hosts David Freiburger and Steve Dulcich as they play around fixing up old cars on the cheap, and as they put it, "doing the wrong things the right way."

They give their project cars fun names too - "Stubby Bob" the cut-down wheel-standing pickup; "General Mayhem" the clapped out big-block Dodge Charger; "Crop Duster" the beaten-up old Dodge Duster; "Vanishing Paint" the rusty Dodge Challenger (inspired by classic '70s car movie Vanishing Point); and the subject of this post: a 1968 Plymouth Barracuda called "BBQuda".

The story of BBQuda is rather sad - apparently it was a decent car owned by host Dulcich, who loaned it to a friend who intended to use it to design an engine-swap kit for the car. Unfortunately the friend lived in the way of the California wildfires... and the car burned to the ground. So in true Roadkill fashion, Freiburger and Dulcich decided to fix it back up on the cheap - low-budget fun for sure. 

The project started with trying to find a suitable donor car for the BBQuda. Fortunately Hot Wheels made a "1968 Plymouth Barracuda Formula S" in metallic green and one was duly ordered from an ebay vendor in Saskatchewan.

The car arrived two days ago and I wasted no time in getting to work. First thing was to take the body off the chassis by Dremeling through the melted plastic "rivets" in time-honoured fashion.

Once the body was off I took out the glass, as the BBQuda ran without it.

I also removed the wheels and replaced them with resin "mag wheels" which look so much better.

A driver figure was placed in the car to represent Steve Dulcich, of course wearing a scary skull mask. He doesn't usually do that on the show but... artistic license was exercised. I stuck on a gas can from my spares box - it's from battlefront's 15mm Team Yankee range but I think it looks OK.

At that point the weathering really began. I painted the car body flat black with Krylon spray, followed by a coat of watered-down craft black as the finish was a bit sticky (!) - that solved it.

At that point I stippled soft Mechanicus Standard Grey in various places, and added the lighter parts in light grey. I also traced the panel lines in Nuln Oil. Lots of surface rust was also added with GW Doombull Brown and watered down Rust Effects wash.

To make the car suitable for Gaslands, I added a minigun from the excellent North Star "Implements of Carnage" sprue. Since the car body is non-magnetic, I superglued a magnet to the underside of the hood and that allowed be to magnetize the minigun for the hood top.

Here's what we started with...

Now for some gratuitous burnout pics...

I love the burnout pics... basically half of every show is just the guys doing burnout and donuts... their tire bill must be extravagant.

HOWEVER, I'm submitting this one for Babylon 5 as the Roadkill ethos is really "doing things on the cheap", as any viewer will testify. Hence using used parts, cars from junkyards, and a gas can for a fuel tank.

Points:

20mm vehicle: 15 points

20mm 1/2 figure (driver): 2 points

Planet bonus: 20 points

Total: 37 points

Thanks and have a great week everyone!

That's superb work, Dallas- worth the wait! I really like your rusty burned out weathering, and the comparison shots with the real thing demonstrate how well you have achieved this. There is, however, a noticeable lack of weaponry for survival and victory in Gaslands...

Barks

From Nick: 20mm PaK38 & leIG18 [64 points]

I‘m currently stuck in a lack of mojo, and also I‘m working on several units at once. Thus it’s taken me a while to get todays submission done. 

The PaK38 is a rather nice kit by PSC, but a far cry from Zvezdas offerings. As ever the crew are all AB figures. Frankly the PSC ones, that come with the gun, are utter tosh.

Whenever possible I try to stick with Zvezda with my guns, as they‘re so much nicer than most of what the competitors have on offer. So this leIG 18, leichtes Infanteriegeschütz 18, is no exception. The two figures actually manning the gun are als Zvezda figures while the rest, well yes, you guessed it, are AB. Unfortunately AB don’t do a dedicated set of leIG 18 crew, so I had to source these from several different sets. Yet, that’s all part of the fun, isn’t it?

 Points:

2x 20mm gun = 16

12x 20mm figure = 48

Total: 64

Thanks for treating us to another gorgeous set of WW2 goodness, Nick. The smaller guns were more common than the sexier 88s, but tend to get short shrift from gamers and sculptors. It's a shame the PSC figures are lacking, and I'm surprised AB don't have a dedicated leIG18 set.

Barks

NB: labels, man!

From GeoffreyT: Star Trekking and High Fantasy (45 points)

Hello again.

In a quite uncharacteristic manner, I am making a post devoid of bonus points.

A friend of mine gave me 6 of these Star Trek marines to help replace my failed Stargrave warband with.  Hopefully they will be more successful.

There was only two variants, so I varied the outfit, hair and skin colours to mix it up a bit, all the whilst keeping them in Star Trek theme.  These minis were formerly from Harlequin miniatures, but are not manufactured by their successor Black Tree, probably due to licensing issues, as they have the Star Trek logo on them.

I am very pleased to have gotten these 6 miniatures, I really like them.

The next three pieces are from Iron Wind Metals, they are contemporary casts of old Ral Partha models.  I was planned on using them for the Good v Evil theme, but ended up using Imperial theme on the said planet instead.

This is what was planned.  Goodly Centaurs v Evil manticore.

Here we have the ferocious Manticore.  The face is characterful, humanoid and monstrous at the same time.  Could do with being painted better tho.

The wings I am pleased with,  I copied the colour scheme from the Iron Wind metals website.

The goodly centaurs of the forest come in both armoured and archer form.

The female centaur has modestly covered her breasts, yet leaves her rear end exposed.

This then creates all sorts of quandaries as to why?

Does the centaur lady feel less modest about her animal parts?  Is it hard to get pants that fit her horses arse?  Or simply are her arms too short to put pants onto her rear legs ?

I discussed this matter with a friend, who then produced this fine work of philosophical art, making the centaur pants question no clearer.

***

So we have 9 x 28mm miniatures for 45 points,

a squirrel for Star Trek marines,

and an unresolved quandary,

Until next week

Geoff

Dual-wielding in Star Trek? Why have I not seen more of this! They should be great for Stargrave. Your colour schemes hide the lack of sculpting variety. Good work on your monsters as well. The pants quandary is one of life's great questions. Centaurs in general have a lot of anatomical issues, as far as I am concerned.

Barks

From HowardT: Later Achaemenid Persian 1/72 20mm (163 points)

Submission for the second half of the Later Achaemenid Persian army.    This submission includes Kardaka, Horde, Cavalry and Chariot.  Will now be moving on to some terrain.

Scale 1 /72 (20 mm). All HAT plastic figures except the Chariot which are Zvezda.

For DBA purposes this army is now complete.

 Points breakdown:

Kardakes,  four stands of 4 figures each.           Points = 4 x 16 = 64.

Horde,   1 stand of 7 figures.             Points = 4 x   7 = 28.

Heavy Cavalry, two stands  of 3 figures each.    Points = 8 x  6  = 48.

Chariot   one stand  with 2 figures.                    Points =  1 x 15 = 15.

Total of points is  (64+28+48+15) = 155 points.

Based for DBA, 8 Stands of Achaemenid Persians of Darius III, 330BC ish. Kardaka to the front Horde to the left, followed by the scythed chariot and heavy cavalry.

Based for DBA, 8 Stands of Achaemenid Persians of Darius III, 330BC ish.
 Kardaka to the front, Horde to the rear left, followed by the scythed chariot and heavy cavalry.

Left side profile.

The Scythed Chariot

Cheers

Howard  2lk

Nice work, Howard. You've pulled out some fine patterns on the shields and armour. Well done on finishing a DBA army! I've added some well-earned points for the chariot crew.

Barks

From GeoffreyT: Mystery miniatures for identification (Altair IV)(50 points)

Hello again fellow painters,  

This weeks painting effort includes this bunch of mystery miniatures I would like identified.  Hopefully there are some folks of knowledge out there that can help.  Now they are painted and based that will not be quite so easy.  

They came as a group in a bulk lot, identified by a number of possible manufacturers, but I have not been able to get a positive ID on any of them.  All are in white metal, and don't look all that weathered, but are all true 28mm scale and probably recent castings of old miniature lines.  No base markings on any of these unfortunately. 

This is the heinous half dozen of them.

The first two are practicing the forbidden arts of voodoo (Forbidden, the theme for Altair IV!). 

These are really nice sculpts, quite lightly built and good detail. Superfine detail on snake tongue and needle in voodoo doll, initially I thought it was flash.

Of course, no self respecting voodoo practitioner would leave home without a zombi.  And as we all know Z is for Zombi.  That indeed is not only the last letter of the alphabet, but completion of the alphabet soup challenge.  A list of the claimed words is attached below.

This looks like different sculptor, an older simpler sculpt and quite 2D. 

These two crackers look like another sculptor again.  The "Warren Zevon" werewolf in 70's attire is great.  Check out the big lapels and flares. 

Sculpts pretty simple, look like early 80's lack of smoothness that was evident in old lead-pewter ranges.  Humongous hairy wolf hands.

Side on view to show warewolf flares

Last in this set is a lion, licking its lips at some tasty mortal.  I have based in on Arena sand, for you know what comes next.

The base here was a relatively thick oblong without sharp edges.

***

6 x 28mm miniatures = 30 points

planet bonus +20 for Altair IV

Z is for Zombi

The completed Alphabet soup side-challenge.

So, thats it for this post.

If your recognise any of these miniatures can you please drop a note in the comments, I would be quite interested to know their origin.

Cheers

GT

I do like a good mystery figure. The wisdom of the crowds should be able to help you out- I think they're from the Dracula's America range. Those voodoo practitioners are great, and I like the tones on your lion. Congratulations on completing your alphabet!

Barks

Thursday follies

As Ukraine experiences a 'special military operation', the Challenge continues.

• Nick has some light artillery
• Dallas burns rubber
• Chris expands his French vehicle park
• Howard shows his Persians
• Samuli uses MLRS to play football
• Simon tests out Warlord's epic scale
• Jez has AVBCW post
• Geoff needs your help!

Barks