Monday 5 March 2012

The Evolution of Big Mike

Hi All!

Big Mike! What a pleasant beast!

Today's modelling silliness is concerned largely with making a cheap plastic dinosaur look like, well... not a cheap plastic dinosaur. Hmmm...

Details are gradually added and the harness is aligned to the gun carriage.

I introduced Big Mike as the sturdy beast responsible for bringing the mighty Faraday Galvanic Field Gun to bear upon fuzzy wuzzies, huns, sneaky cossacks and all who oppose Her Majesty. Since then, he's gained a bit of character.

Machine parts and more straps are added.

The first thing to do was add a harness with which to pull the gun carriage. This was constructed from styrene rod, bits of jewelery chain, wire, and green stuff. Buckles were sculpted into the straps.

Equipped but unpainted, Big Mike is lined up against the gun carriage.

Following the harness, I decided I wanted Big Mike to carry a few spare machine parts too. These were constructed from bits, glued into place and 'strapped' in with greenstuff and wire buckles.

Ink washes go on and machine parts are ready to be painted.

Now came the painting! I approached Big Mike with my favoured inking technique. (See 'Working With Inks... Link )This is fairly quick and very effective - particularly for reptiles!

The finished paint job.

Get on my Groovy Train!

During this session, I also modified the gun carriage slightly. My intention is that a second carriage will be pulled behind the first, bearing a generator for the gun. This is building on a suggestion from Argsilverson, a colleague on the Lead Adventure Forum Link who thought a generator would be needed and offered some good ideas. I decided a train, rather than a separate vehicle, would be fun.

The modified gun carriage. Coupling gear and buffers correspond with those on the front of the new generator carriage - in the workshop as we speak!

For this reason, the back of the gun carriage now bears coupling gear and buffers - but more about that later!

Still need reins and a driver, but not bad so far!

So there you go! I hope you like Big Mike! More later!

All the Best!

14 comments:

  1. Gorgeous redo of a plastic dino. For most of the big dinos, the modern plastics have enough quality that you don't need to do anything beyond a quick dull coat to get them up to table-ready standards.

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    1. Thanks, Corey.

      Would those be the dinos that cost about as much as your average dragon? ;)

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  2. Very fun! Everything is better with dinosaurs!

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    1. So true! The world has been such a dull place for the last 65,000,000 years!

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  3. Good stuff yet again from the Colonel's workshop. Hmm... I have a few plastic dino's bought from dollar stores. They're nice hard plastic, but the colours aren't that good. I shall follow your example and try a bit of ink and whatnot.

    BTW, is anyone else as irritated as I by the new anti-spybot passwords on these comment boxes? They mess with my eyes something rotten.

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    1. Thanks, AJ!

      Get cracking with the dinos, Old Boy!

      And yes - the wotnot thingummies are tremendously irritating!

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  4. Absolutely brilliant Colonel! I've only just got my dinosaurs into the paddock and now having seen this all I want to do is start converting them; will this madness ever stop? ... oh, I do hope not ;)

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    1. Thank you, Michael! I saw your paddock as I was browsing around last night - good stuff!

      I heartily recommend abit of conversion here and there, combined with painting such beasties (no matter how good the manufacturer's colouring) to tone in with your terrain and characters.

      Love the basing on your big fellas!

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  5. Looks wonderful... I had been unsure whether dinosaurs would feature in our proposed campaign,... now clearly they will, which means I have no reason not to do some 'raptor riding prussian lancers! :-)

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    1. How could dinosaurs not feature, My Worthy Adversary?! The blighters are everywhere!

      I'm sure I can rustle-up some suitable raptor deterrents...

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  6. Big Mike looks awesome! And the trained generator sounds great too.

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    1. Thanks, Old Bean!

      I should have the generator finished pretty soon... Then it's on to more Weapons Of Terror! Mwah ha ha!

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  7. Stunning work dear Colonel, Bravo ! I hope he doesn't get too scared and scamper off when Jerry starts banging away!

    Yours in a White Wine Sauce,
    Paul

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    1. Run, Sir? I don't think so!

      Dinosaurs are British!

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