On the Workbench - January 2018

This blog has gone silent again, hasn´t it?
Well, as usual when this happens, things have been going on behind the scenes but I didn´t feel much of an urge to take pictures, process them and put them online.

Still not feeling much like it, but at least I managed to take some shots of the various projects I have been or am working on right now.

Last week I finished these river pieces. I´ve long wanted to add some rivers to my terrain selection and finally pushed the project through after gathering some motivation and inspiration over the christmas holidays

I also worked quite a bit on Code Red (my Modern Warfare Ruleset) in the first two weeks of January. One addition to the Rules was stats for MRAPs for the Americans and Brits. 

During the work on the rules I felt the urge to add an MRAP to my collection.  There are some kits out there, and I might get one at some point, but I didn´t feel like spending money.  In the spur of the moment I remembered how other people achieve great results by scratchbuilding and started chipping away at some foam and plasticard.

  

After a few days, here we are with the scratchbuilt MRAP chassis. The CROWs is magnetized and can rotate. Right now I´m working on the wheels which are a bit of a challenge - too big, too small or too irregular and they start looking ugly.

 

On the sculpting front, I started another set of Special Forces -  these will be a Team in CQB-poses, one Pointman with a pistol (or out of ammo switching to his sidearm - you decide), a breacher with a Shotgun - and not yet started, an operator preparing a grenade or flashbang before the assault.

 

 Hope you enjoyed the small insight into my WIP stuff. 

I finished a lot more stuff in December that I did not take pictures of.  When my blogging motivation returns, I shall take some photos and put them up here. 

Until then, happy wargaming!

New SpecOps available

Today I put the new Special Forces sets online at Enfilade Figures.

Two new sets have entered the shop:  Another group of Special Forces in Light Gear in skirmishing poses and a pair of Snipers. 

Klick on the banner to go to the shop if you want to get them :)

You think you´re Special...

After a lot of Fantasy and painting in 28mm, it´s time to turn back to Sculpting and Modern in 20mm. Progress has been slow on the latest set of miniatures, but I´m finally coming close to sending a new batch into production.

Here´s the first pack of the Summer 2017 releases coming up in the next weeks I hope:

With this set I want to provide an addition to the already existing set of Special Operatives in Light Gear.

Eye on Terror - The Marksman

On to the last figures of the Special Forces Set - the Marksman!
Actually, I´m not sure what to say about him apart from the usual stuff.

So let me share some trivia about the set. My original intention was to put a SAW-Gunner into the group, but the sculpt turned out so horrible that I had to scrap him. If I´m not mistaken, he´s found his resting place in the box of failures where all the bad or unfinished stuff is collected. 

I don´t remember which figures finally replaced him, but I believe it was this marksman?

Keep Moving!

This guy was a bit unlucky during the photo session - he got into positions that make it hard to see the full extend of the paintjob. I messed up the angle a bit with the pic on the left, so you can´t see that much (though it makes for a cool effect)

That´s not a Chainsaw...

This guy again represents what I was going for with the set. Take away his weapon and attitude and he´ll look like a local woodcutter. Except he doesn´t carry a chainsaw

He got a brand new paintjob and I think the difference to the older models is visible.

Fight Fire with Fire!

This is the second figure from the SF-set that has an older paintjob.
I still like him better than the Grenadier, who´s had a rather plain color scheme with little variation. This operator at least got some interesting camo on the trousers, which unfortunately is hard to see on the photo.

 

The set of figures was created especially with this interesting mix in mind - Special Forces in Light gear, i.e. with a mix of military garb and hardware + local garment to conceil their true nature. 

Codename UGLy

I prepared the next set of pictures to keep this rolling for a few more days.
After taking a good look at the new Insurgents, we´re moving on the Special Forces - an older set that - again - was unpainted for quite a while.


Well, unpainted is not true. Two minis had been painted more than a year ago, but I never got the remaining three figures coated in color.  We´re starting off with the least impressive, the Grenadier who was one of the long-painted figures that is barely good enough to still be acceptable without a repainting session.

But I promise the next few figures are going to be better painting-wise.

A quick glimpse onto my desk...

Hey folks,

I´ve been silent again for a while, mainly due to holidays. There´s a lot going on both in my regular job, on the figure front and I´ve recently spent some more hours playing PC than I did throughout most of the last months.

Figure wise, I´m preparing to release the new batch of miniatures that I´ve presented recently. I´m also trying to push ahead on the painting front, getting some more figures painted up for the shop.

During October I tried to mix in some Renaissance Warfare stuff again - this Blog is called Rifles and Muskets after all, as it was always my intention to dig into this era as well. I somehow never managed. Still, my very long term project of building as Muscotive Army for the 17th century has come ahead somwhat - I´ve produced a few custom 15mm models for that purpose, but I´m planning to purchase a sizeable force at Totentanz Miniatures sometime in the future. They´ve recently released very nice Cossacks both foot and mounted that are fabulous for my purposes.

 You can see my current progress if you look closely, the infantry bases will finish my first regiment (yay) and the cavalry is the first step towards a mounted unit.

In the foreground, my figures being painted up for the shop.
As you can see, I´ve made good progress throughout the last week. As soon as I have a large enough batch prepared, I´ll start a photo session.  You´ll get to see each of these miniatures in detail, I plan to take pictures of every one of them, maybe even reviving the idea of a mini-related christmas calendar?

We´ll see how my productivity keeps up and if I´ll be able to pull that off!
Stay tuned for more. :)

Private Protection Detail - Military Contractor Preview

As announced, the resculpting of old sets continues. After almost finishing the new Africans with Battle Rifles (photo turned out crappy so I didn´t upload it) I have reworked the Set containing the African Dictator / General and his protection detail.

Actually, the name is not really that fitting - you might call it VIP with Personal Protection as well.
So, here is the first foreign mercenary hired to protect my VIP:

As you can see, he is also suitable for other theatres and might even be doubling for a CIA operator or SpecOp Operator in light gear.

Very versatile figure, and I hope the set will be more sought after when the rework is done.

Special Forces

Hey folks,

it´s been silent for a long time, I know. Now that I´m working full-time there´s a lot of stuff going on and even if I feel like painting and actually finish something I am rarely in the mood to take pictures and post it up.  Same goes for sculpting,

However, having a sunday with not much else to do enabled me not only to finish some models but take some pics of the results.

So here they are:  Some Elhiem Australian SAS painted up in a deserty-fantasy-camouflage posing as generic SpecOps in Light gear for my collection.

These guys were actually quite hard to paint because I went for a monochromatic scheme with a sandy base color all over the figures. Only the weapons and shadows would provide some contrast here. For this reason, I had to revert to a trick and create contrast by giving the bases a darker color and adding some subtle colorations (which you probably can´t pick up with the naked eye on these pics, but they do their job) to make the figures pop.

It actually worked out better than expected, for some time I was worried that I might have ruined these figures, but the result is satisfactory.

I also funneled some of my newly earned money into another order at Elhiem to continue the buildup for my Cold War Soviet force. 

And I dispatched a shipment of new masters to my caster, hoping to release some new figures just in time for christmas. Fingers crossed and no promises, he is very busy at the moment.