Starfleet Conversions - Part II

I finished up the collection of Marines that I've had in storage for some time now. I've accumulated them a long time ago. They're official Starfleet Marines from Task Force games, I assume to support the original Prime Directive RPG. They were made by Harlequin Miniatures and sculpted by Kev White.

When I first got them, I never really considered them much for Star Trek as the weapons looked a bit too contemporary and not too keen on some of the poster'ish SMG in each hand poses. However the rest of them started to really grow on me and I dove into the Starfleet lore in some Captain's Log magazines. Some of the most exciting parts I like to read about are the marine actions that occur in the game.  Generally the entire action is resolved in a single die roll, but the fluff makes it so much more exciting and I've always wanted to do a skirmish game that really details these actions. 

So I pulled them out of storage and painted them along with my Victory Force Miniatures stuff. To try to keep some sort of cohesion, I painted the clothing under the armor plates the same as the standard red shirts (black pants and red shirt). The dark blue grey armor was picked as it reminded me of the wartime uniforms during DS9 and TNG era and the colors just seemed to work.


These are the finished Starfleet Marines in Light Environment Suits. These are from Victory Force Miniatures Spacefarers line.

Trying to keep a connection to the classic Star Trek I used colors from the old classic Starfleet space suits (as seen in The Tholian Web). Also sort of combining that with the TNG ear suits seen in First Contact. I even used some metallic red and blue for the details on the hard spots on the suit. The soft part of the suit was done in Reaper Misty Grey with Vallejo Metallic Medium over it as I didn't want the suit to look too silvery.  I also painted an Enterprise Arrow (the Starfleet insignia in the Starfleet Universe) on the left shoulder of each mini.

However keeping with the department colors I painted the upper parts of the suit to match the department.

The visors were done with Reaper Gunmetal Blue Metallic over black with several coats of black glaze over that. They look pretty dark except under bright light.






These are the finished MegaMinis Starship Crew. Since they come with integral bases I had to cover them up with turf. Not really impressed with the turf I used, looks sort of cheap (like it came off of an old Star Trek set I guess).

These are the MegaMinis Starship Crew that come seated. They make a great Bridge Crew.  Sticking with the Starfleet theme, I painted some of the crew in races seen in the Prime Directive RPG such as Rigellians and Cygnians.

And of course I had to finish this off with my distraught Starfleet Admiral from Victory Force Miniatures. He's part of their humorous Red Shirt Follies line.  His uniform matches much closer to the canon Star Trek movie era uniforms and not the Starfleet Universe ones, but what the hell.  Clearly things did not go as well as planned. I guess he hasn't figured out how to beat the no-win scenario yet.

Khaaaaannnnnn!!!!!!

What's next? I got an Orion Slave Girl and a bunch of Kzinti Marines on my workbench right now.

Weird War II - Pacific Theater, Part I

Finally, I've completed my IJA Detachment. These are from the Bolt Action Miniatures set by Warlord Games as well as the Darkson Designs Hive Soldiers and Bulletman.

The Kempei-Tai figure is from the Bolt Action set, I painted the armband on him to indicate he's Kempei-Tai. Unfortunately I couldn't find any photos that showed the entire armband so I and drew the characters on the front based on what I could see.

The Bakuhatsujin (Exploding Man) is infested with such virulent diseases. He's released at the beginning of a battle and charges towards the enemy infecting all in his path. At the end of his short life, which only lasts several turns, he explodes.

He was painted using pale flesh colors then added some Gryphon Sepia and a little bit of Thraka Green Glaze around the wound areas to give him a sickly look. The open wounds were done with thinned Red Ink with a little bit of Black Ink. The wafting clouds were drybrushed white over the flesh and then added lots more of the glazes to give it a cloudy effect. 

The Subakojin (Hive Men) are soldiers that have developed a symbiotic relationship with disease carrying insects. They have formed a hive within the body of the soldier. The soldier can summon clouds of these insects to attack and harrass enemy troops. Should the Hive Soldiers loose their cool (Drive reaches 0), they loose control of the hive and the insects consume the soldiers from inside out.

They were painted up along with the rest of the infantry. Then I painted around the swarm some of the Red/Black ink mix to show open wounds. The swarm was painted black with lots of various colors, including some metallics for the various bugs and lots of white dots to represent maggots.

The BA boxed set comes with 3 different standards (IJA, IJN, and the Japanese Flag) as well as some devotional flags to hang off the rifles. The flags were cut out and I used ample clear scrap booking glue betweent them. While it was still wet, I then bent and twisted the flags. I bought another box to make an IJN detachment now.

The IJA uniforms were done using Reaper Terran Khaki and Khaki Highlight and them I made a glaze using Vallejo Japanese Uniform (a color I forgot I had in my drawer).  I used Vallejo Brown Violet for the Helmets.  Reaper Oiled Leather with a Delvan Mud glaze for the combat webbing.

Starfleet Conversions - Part I

May latest project I've been working on…..Star Trek….old school Classic Star Trek.

I've made most of these from Victory Force's Spacefarer line. There's also some Mega Minis Starship Crew in there. I also have a few of the official FASA movie era figures (true 25mm and not very good sculpts, I've only got them here because I'm just doing all my Trek stuff at once) and some of the Last Unicorn Games (all TNG era) and there's some Not-Star Trek figures from Matakishi's Tea House. The minis are intended for use with Amarillo Design Bureau's Prime Directive RPG (based on the Starfleet Universe of Starfleet Battles and not the canon Star Trek Universe) and I'm trying to maintain the classic uniform look. However some of the sculpts have some variations on the uniform that range from pre-TOS (like seen on the pilot The Cage) and some that lean more towards TNG era. The artwork in the Prime Directive RPG shows variations in the uniforms that range from straight out Classic Star Trek to a sort of blend of Classic and TNG. So that's what I did with the VFM figures, and I'm really liking the Classic/TNG blend to the uniforms. Pretty much a Classic era uniform however the shoulders are black like the TNG. The insignia and rank stripes remain more like the classic style.

 

I've tried to paint a few of the crew to resemble some of the races found in the Starfleet version of The Federation, namely Cygnians and Rigellians. The Cygnians have a pastey white skin with white hair and big solid black eyes. The Rigellians have dark purplish skin with red and black markings on their skin (I still need to work on that) and white hair.

VFM also makes an Alternate Universe version of the same Spacefarer sculpts. These have daggers, sashes, extra medals and of course the evil goatees on them. I took those figures and painted them up to look like the classic era Klingons instead.

Basically the same figures as the VFM Spacefarers. However, not only did I use different colors but tried to replicate the vests that the Klingons had. Any figure that didn't have a goatee, got a skinny manchu moustache instead (done with a fine felt pen). The skin colors were basically Reaper Olive Skin shades but I went heavy with the black around the eyes.

I've got some of the VFM Marines and Space Suited Spacefarers which I intend to paint up as Starfleet Marines. I also dug up some of the old Harlequin Starfleet Battles 28mm figures out of my collection too.