"Men of the North" scene complete!

Hi all!

Well... my gift for my father in law is complete!

So, my father in law is a big lover of all things frontier... mountain men and Lewis and Clark and all the rest.  I've done one other scene for him, a Revolutionary War scene (another of his favorite periods) but I knew that he really wanted something from the era of the frontier... so!  This was born!

The idea was that I'd have a camp on a ledge with a few mountain men looking out to the mountains at night.  I knew I wanted to do a lighting element, and in this case did two... one for the fire, and one for the blue LED at the top of the whole scene that would make it feel more night-like.

Here is a shot of the main character of the scene, on the precipice, looking around the mountains.  I built the little lean-to at the back, and the fireplace and rocks, and all of that.  The guy in the background is actually a figure from Wargames Illustrated that I cut in half, and then I make a greenstuff blanket around him.  The guy at the foreground I did need to do a little converting with... namely, carving away his pistol and making it a rifle.

Here is the whole thing with the lights on.  It is remarkably difficult to get good shots of the light... there is, as mentioned, a blue LED in the top that sheds a blue light over the entire scene.  There is also an LED buried in the foamcore of the cliff.  The flickering looks incredible, actually... I build the back of the fireplace open so that you get a lot of firelight playing on the trees and the camp.

Here it is all closed up.  Overall I'm very happy with how it turned out!  Below I included a video of the lighting... it REALLY doesn't do it justice, but what can you do:)

Thanks for coming by and looking!

The Rockies at Night, WIP

So!  Just thought I would post, as I've gotten back to this Christmas gift project... right now it is unassembled (just propped up) and the wiring isn't done, but this is, ideally, what it should look like when it is done.  Still a lot left to do... plus, I am thoroughly baffled about the last few steps of assembly... there needs to be a piece at the top to hold the blue light, but at the same time the entire thing needs to be removed at will to change the battery... it will take some thinking to get it right.

Whoops!  I just figured out a MAJOR PORTION of this whole thing... I had been SO confused by the rigging of the lighting, and couldn't figure out WHY... I had done a million like this... and it JUST OCCURRED to me, after MONTHS of staring at this thing, that I had simply ordered the wrong switch/battery combo.  I am a certifiable idiot.

15mm Technicals finished

Hi all!

Well, I did buy a few figures at Fall In, and thought I'd get them painted up!

These are a trio of 15mm technicals from Old Glory miniatures.  The crew is also from Old Glory, although I had to do some head swaps and green stuff work, as they only had the African heads, and not the Middle Eastern heads in stock.  I did put a passenger in the red one (you can see his AK sticking out the side) and added a guy with an AK and a guy with an RPG to the beds of two of the trucks... I just think these look better with a lot of dudes on them!

I tried to make them look really ragged and dirty, and overall I think they turned out okay.  I went with a white truck, a blue truck, and a red truck... those Toyotas you see are always those colors.  Unfortunately in the photos you really can't see all of the work that went into them... the colors are REALLY varied, and the trucks have dents and the like.

Unfortunately there is an issue... what I *THOUGHT* was some sort of line in the truck itself (along the side) is clearly, upon painting, a mold line.  A really, really REALLY bad mold line.

Like... bad.

So... I think I am going to have to do some scrapping and repainting, because honestly those lines are all I can damn see now.

So, got some work ahead of me, matching paints and colors.

BTW, below is a shot so you can see them in scale with a few of my American pieces of armor!