28mm MERCs Sci-Fi Miniatures

Here are the first two units we did for a customer for the MERCs Sci-Fi skirmish game. The customer keeps a large supply of miniatures for us to do. I dig into the 50 pound box of metal pretty regularly and paint a batch up and ship them out to him. The American Indians and American Civil War figures in the last posts were part of the last batch sent out. There's a wide variety of stuff in there and it makes it nice to go in and pick something different out to break up the monotony of the endless stream of 15mm Napoleonics that seem to march through here.

The first unit is from the Yellow Jackets faction. I played around with a new wash on the yellow and I like the way it turned out:

The second unit is from the Kemvar faction:

These are multi-part 28mm metal miniatures. The customer had previously assembled and primed them. During shipping to me one guy had lost his arms and another 2 lost one arm. A fourth guy lost his back pack. I re-attached them with JB Kwik so hopefully that will solve the issue. If you plan on trying them out be prepared to spend some time on the assembly. The poses are pretty dramatic and being metal, they take a bit of time to put together in a way that they still look like they are moving naturally and not contorting in a strange ritualistic dance.

There's a whole sub-box of these critters so there will be more later. Time permitting I'll try and do a step-by-step process post.

20mm (1/72) Vietnam Commission

A customer contacted us about a 1/72 scale (about 20mm sized) Vietnam commission. The commission would use figures made by both Italeri and Pegasus. He wanted both sides done at the same time to he could start gaming immediately.

The PAVN (North Vietnamese) were manufactured by Italeri. :

  Close up view of the PAVN:

Next up are the US Marines. These figures were manufactured by Pegasus:

Both kits were made from a softer plastic, with the Pegasus kits the softer of the two. I washed the sprues and then set about finding the right glue. I took a trip to the hardware store and picked up a few packs of glues made for softer plastics. Then I cut off a few pieces of sprue and tested the glues.The best that I found is the one pictured below:

This glue formed a nice solid bond. The packaging is easy to use with a fine dropper hole making it very easy to control the amount of glue placed at the bonding site.

We used our usual cheap Walmart flat black paint for a primer. I did a test spray first to make sure it would bond to the softer plastic and it worked like a charm. Next both sides received an airbrushed base coat is an appropriate color, then the brush painting began. Despite the horror stories one hears of the difficulties of working with soft plastics the job went pretty smoothly. The figures took paint well and I used a bit more of a washing technique on these than normal to pick out the details better. I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out.

15mm American Indians and AmericanCivil War

Here's another commission for a customer. This order included 15mm American Indians for the French and Indian War (FIW) period and 15mm Confederate artillery and crew for the American Civil War (ACW). The Indians were made by Khurasan Miniatures and the ACW figures are Old Glory 15's.

I can't lay entire claim to the skin tones on the Indians. The customer had started these and ran out of steam so the skin was partially completed. I added a touch of shading and highlighting and finished the details. Allison then did the tattoos and warpaint.

The artillery and crews are part of an on-going project. This batch of CSA artillery will complete that portion of the project. Next up is to expand on the previously done infantry, following up with markers, limbers, and so forth. The figures are individually based and the guns are un-based to allow the customer to use them with a variety of rule sets.