Machen's Oldfangled Minis

[Machen]

Hello everyone,

I joined this forum about a year ago or so, and this is my first time posting my work. Last summer I started painting miniatures again after taking a 30-year break, so I'm still finding my feet. My ambition is to become a better painter, have fun, and share my love of the hobby with all of you lovely, like-minded souls.

I intend to limit my contributions here to older, hand-sculpted miniatures and new hand-sculpted miniatures that have an old school aesthetic. Although I have Oldhammer miniatures and do plan to paint them, I'm kicking things off today with some old Warzone figures and one new Oldhammer-style mini from Diehard Miniatures. If that's a problem for this forum, please let me know and I'll keep things strictly to classic GW in the future.

Today I have a small batch of painted, old and new Tim Prow models to show you, from early career Warzone Brotherhood figures to one of his latest, a Diehard Miniatures Eru-kin (think Sci-Fi Slann) Mag Trooper. Prow is one of my favorite traditional sculptors still working in the field.

Chronologically speaking, the Brotherhood Sergeant was the very first mini I finished after not painting anything for 30 years, and the Eru-Kin is my latest. Between the two of them, hopefully I'm showing some improvement as a painter. Comments, critiques, and tips are welcome.

Brotherhood Trooper Sergeant (Warzone)


Brotherhood Trooper (Warzone):


Brotherhood Group Photo:



Eru-Kin Mag Trooper (Diehard Miniatures):

I got the inspiration for his Blue-Orange colors and skin patterning from online photos of Amazonian poison dart frogs. Poison dart frogs come in a wide range of vibrant colorsmy intent is to give every Eru-Kin I paint it's own unique skin coloration and patterns.




Tim Prow's present and past works collide:


Thanks for looking!

Completed 5-man squads:

Sci-Fi Convicts



Oldhammer-style Sci-fi Chaos Mutants



NuWho Flying Cybermen:



Original Battlestar Galactica Cylons (17):



5 person Squads in progress, last updated August 1st, 2024:

Tzeentch Blue Horrors: 4

Unarmed civilians: 7 (Not a fighting squad, and rather than aim for five total, I want to keep a percentage of my ongoing output civilian for flavor and storytelling purposes.)

Warzone Brotherhood: 3

Doctor Who Classic Cybermen: 1

Doctor Who Mandrels: 2

2000 A.D. Dark Judges: 1 (of 4)

Diehard Miniatures Eru-Kin (Space Slann): 1

Greenskins: 1 Ork, 2 "groblin" Gretchen types

Marvel Space heroes: 4

Half-Life Head-crab Zombies: 1

Stegron and dinosaurs: 1

Warmachine Drudges: 1

 

[EricF]

Nothing like starting up painting again. I had what felt like a huge hiatus and then wondered about trying my luck with a brush again and have been trying to keep the momentum going again! Welcome back into the painting fold, I'm certainly glad I started back on the lead pile.

Very much a fan of Prow models myself. I've got some of his Space Skeletons that are sitting primed and waiting for some attention on my shelves right now.

I think you've nailed the lizard chap, orange and blue contrast very nicely and with the highlights and shading on the orange that really elevates the pattern. If I was going to offer any (hopefully) constructive criticism I'd maybe have done the weapon's fore grip in something other than orange so it better contrasted with the skin - perhaps just a leather brown or re-using the purple from the robes?

Good clean paint job on the Warzone model. I'm now wondering if the three random figures I found a while back are Warzone ones - I half remembered buying them, but I can't remember what game they were for. Must dig them out again and see if anyone here can identify.

Clear bases are interesting. I've often wondered about them, but have never actually tried it myself.

 

[ManicMan]

looking nice ^_^

 

[Machen]

Thanks a lot, guys. The lizard chap's actually a frog chap, but I appreciate the feedback EricF, and I think you're right about the foregrip. It's always good to meet another Prow fan; I like his skeletons, too, and have his Space Orc Skeleton primed and ready. For anyone interested, he's planning on doing another Eru-Kin (frogman) kickstarter this coming October.

Good clean paint jobs were about where I left off, 30 some years ago, and it was a relief to find I can still do them. I'm now working on expanding my techniques. There are many great paint jobs on this website to take inspiration from.

If the three figures you have are Warzone, I can probably identify them.

As for clear bases, it's something new I'm trying. I recognize and respect that there's a real art to traditional flock / terrainbasing, where every miniature essentially becomes a small diorama unto itself. But I'm already slow at cleaning, preparing and painting miniatures, so I thought the ease of transparent basing might be a good idea for me right now. I also like the idea that the minis can fit in well anywhere. Particularly in Sci-Fi, you might use the same minis one day on a Space Hulk, and the next on a desolate Martian valley, so the versatility of transparency is nice.

 

[AranaszarSzuur]

There's something about Warzone that is so extremely 90s. Like that game feels like it couldn't have been created in any other time than second half of the 90s.

 

[Machen]

The ridiculously oversized pauldrons are definitely 90's.

 

[ManicMan]

can't really say I know warzone much.. Part of the 80s Mutant RPG series wasn't it? that's... kinda all I know.. if it's correct..

 

[inchmurrin]

I am also a Prow fan and your Space frog is tempting me down that raod. The poison dart frog scheme really works well. Welcome back to the painting.

 

[AranaszarSzuur]

The ridiculously oversized pauldrons are definitely 90's.

I think the pauldrons just emulated 2000AD and Wh40k. So they are rooted in the 80s. It's just that Warzone has a particularly "loud" combination of such elements. It's like someone tried to make not-Wh40k and combined with the general 90s aesthetic stumbled upon particularly awkward look that one could get away with only in the 90s.
There's a reason why outside of video games, 90s is generally absent from retro-revival, except for occasional Windows 95/98 and old internet nostalgia

 

[Machen]

Thanks, inchmurrin; it feels good to be back in the hobby.

There's room for oldschool Warzone minis in my heart, but I can't deny their exaggerated and often absurd aesthetics. To me it looks like the designers at Warzone looked at 40K's large shoulder pads and decided they weren't big enough, almost as if they thought they were in a shoulder pad arms race with GW. It reminds me of what happened to toys during the 90s, like G.I. Joe: EXTREME! A lot of old Warzone stuff looks like 40K: EXTREME! to me.

Which is a long way of saying that I think we agree, Aranaszarszuur. As you said, Warzone's aesthetics were definitely rooted in preceding 80's properties, but they played those aesthetics louder in a very 90's way.

And the Brotherhood's shoulder pads aren't even close to Warzone's biggest. The old Mishima Meka's enormous shoulder pads look like they're about to devour the rest the model.

 

[Machen]

One nice thing about old Warzone models: unlike old GW minis, you can still get a lot of the range inexpensively. For the curious, Prince August has a large stash of the old Target Warzone range available at very reasonable prices. Even if you're in the USA like me (Prince August is in Ireland,) you're almost always better off buying Warzone from Prince August than you are from anywhere in the States or Canada. Old Warzone figures don't (and shouldn't) sell for Rogue Trader prices, but they still cost too much on eBay and places like Nobleknight.

One other thing about Prince August: they periodically go through their stash and put "new" old models on the website, so even if they don't have the figure(s) you're after today, it's worth checking back every 4 months or so to see what's "new." I've seen figures sell out, leave the website for months, and then get put up for sale again (yes, at the same price) when they find more in their stockpile. So while there are no guarantees, if an item you wanted gets sold out and delisted, that doesn't necessarily mean they've sold out of that item forever. That said, I've been following the line at Prince August for about two years now (I'm fairly new to Warzone myself,) and there are some models I've never seen appear there. Some models probably are gone for good.

One last thing about Warzone: the quality and even the scale of figures varies considerably across the range.

 

[ManicMan]

unlike Citadel, they probebly keep some in production. Citadel seams very much like a company that hates it's past when it doesn't take a lot to keep some bits in production

 

[Machen]

I actually emailed Prince August last year to ask them about that. Here's what Michael O'Brien, their Media Manager, wrote back:

"We are resellers only of the Warzone miniatures. We do not hold the license to recast or expand the range. We repackage loose stock from time to time."

 

[ManicMan]

ah well

 

[twisted moon]

nice figures. did they attach to the clear bases easily and securely?

 

[Machen]

Coming from you, twisted moon, I take "nice figures" as a mark of honor. I may be an old-timer, but I'm still very much a beginning painter with a lot to learn.

You ask a good question about transparent basing, and the short answer is yes. Maybe I'll put up a dedicated post about it in the future, but before I authoritatively lead anyone else down my merry garden path to Hell I'd like to "field test" my own minis further. In the meantime, I offer the following observations:

First of all, clear-basing is relatively new to me, too. I've only painted and clear-based 11 PVC and metal miniatures so far, and those minis haven't been "stress tested" on a gaming table yet.

That said, there really hasn't been any trick to it. I've been using clear acrylic bases and loctite superglue, being careful to keep the layer of superglue thin enough that it doesn't spread beyond the feet / attachment points, because it will leave an opaque film on a clear base. I've done this with both PVC plastic minis and metal minis, and adhesion has been about as good as you'd get from glueing either medium to a black plastic base.

The only obviously problematic miniatures are slotta-tabbed minis that have minimal contact with their bases. GW's metal hormagaunts, for example, were sculpted to look like they're leaping and barely touching the ground. Some are only connected to their base by a single claw, relying on slotta-tabs buried in the base to secure and support them. Ideally, there'd be clear acrylic bases with incised slots for minis like that, but I haven't found good ones yet. Wyrd makes transparent plastic bases with slots, some clear and some color tinted, but I wouldn't recommend them. Their clear bases are much more opaque than the ones from Green Stuff World, and they won't blend in nearly as well with their environment. Worse, I believe Wyrd's clear bases conspicuously display their company logo, which is good advertising but kills the central appeal of transparent bases, which is to be as invisible and unobtrusive as possible. But good transparent, slotted bases might be easily available; I confess that I haven't looked too hard for them, because the minis I've wanted to paint haven't required them (yet.)

I respect the dioramic art of basing minis with flock, sand, vegetation, etc., which I've seen many members of this forum do beautifully. I'm trying out clear-basing for aesthetic and practical reasons: 1. clear-based minis blend in well with any ground terrain, 2. The last time I terrain-based minis I was a teenager, and I wasn't particularly good at it then, and 3. I work much too slowly. Until I get more efficient at prepping and painting, the last thing I need is to obsess over terrain-basing. I'd like to finish some of my lead pile before shuffling off my mortal coil.

 

[symphonicpoet]

^I am often tempted to try clear basing. I've been using playground sand and bits of debris and clump folliage forever, and rebasing everything is . . . intimidating. But as I've gotten into more adventure like and less battle oriented gaming the need to have settings on streets or even indoors has increased, and someone in a ballgown walking across desert scrub looks . . . odd, to say the least. So I've started basing civilians with paving stones or even something sort of like asphalt. (Including the occasional road stripe.) I really ought to try a few clear bases and see how I like them. Maybe start with some civilians and adventurers. Anyway, lovely stuff! It's nice to see some of those old Warzone figures on here, and the Eru Kin fellow looks particularly nice. Love the colors.

 

[Machen]

Hi Symphonicpoet,

Thanks for your comments, they are much appreciated. I'm not gaming at the moment, but I'm also trying to mix a number of unarmed civilians into my painting queue along with all the gun-toting warriors. Seems like a good way to inject narrative elements and allow for objectives that involve things other than just shooting everyone in sight.

I got the idea to try clear bases years ago, when battlesystems ran their original sci-fi terrain campaign on kickstarter. That campaign used painted figures from Mantic's Project Pandora on clear bases to show off their terrain, and I thought the miniatures looked great. Perhaps those images will inspire you, too.

Below are some of the shots used in that kickstarter campaign: (Note: These images are the property of Battlesystems, and I didn't paint any of these minis!)

 

[symphonicpoet]

Yeah, I remember the kickstarter well. I thought hard about going in on it at the time and I found myself looking at some of their terrain just the other day. (A local store carries their boxes.) I'm a little too fond of painting my own terrain, so I keep thinking hard and backing away, but that or maybe Pulp Alley Dave's posts were some of the first places I saw the clear bases. They get more tempting every year. (As does the BattleSystems terrain. If I could find that starship corridor set I might just bite the bullet and admit I don't have to paint literally everything I use.)

 

[Machen]

Hi again,

Here's my latest, the "Notbe" or "The Thing that Should Not Be," sculpted by Ral Partha founder Tom Meier and cast in metal by
5th Field Fantasy Miniatures. I love the inventiveness of this Pan's Labyrinth-style grotesque.

I've painted it up blue to be one of Tzeentch's Blue Horrors. (I always figured the god of change should have highly varied demons.)