Funny idea of Peace - Malifaux Guild Peace Keeper

Not sure what got me started on doing up my Hoffman crew, it might have just been wanting to see if I could put cool flared smokestacks on the Peace Keeper like I made for my Robogear Spider or just wanting to rush through a crew simpler to paint than McMourning's.

In any case yes I totally can fit on two badass smoke stacks on the Peace Keeper in place of the stubby ones it comes with.





I made the smoke stacks from Evergreen plastic tubes. I measured some marks on the top and snipped with side cutters to get the crown top then filed to clean it up before heating it a bit and mushing it with pliers to flare it out before more sanding to clean it up again. Then a strip of plastic sheet was wrapped around it under the crown and rivets added with plastic rod. Making it all from styrene made life easier to glue it all together with plastic cement. So much less hassle than super gluing on rivets on a metal figure. Which is why I glued down a strip of plastic sheet along the center of his carapace and added more rivets to that. After assembling the stacks I super glued them in place and added a spacer between them to make them a bit more solid.







The next big conversion on this guy is that the stock legs are just tiny and in an extreme lunging crouch. I guess it gives it a low center of gravity but it seemed to me to have one too few joints for a working set of legs. So I decided to copy the top segment from an AT-ST leg and made some from lasercut MDF leftovers from a building kit (think these were the bits inside the window frames). I rounded the ends, drilled holes to take pins from the hip and the legs and added heaps of bits of plastic card to detail them up.



Plus I added some hex bolts from a Kotobukiya options sprue. These can be bought from online or if you're lucky your local hobby store around the Gundam kits.



Also digging through the off cuts bag I found some broken wagon wheels so thought I'd put one to good use on the base to let him stand on something and have a touch more height. The cactus is from Pegasus Hobbies.

Next on the converting list was getting the spear gun into a more sensible position than sticking out wide horizontally from the body in front of the close combat claw arm behind it. So I put the support arm vertically on the back socket and did some pinning to get the gun into position. Maybe it needs some extra hydraulics to make it look like can tilt a bit  more I think it's much better where I put it.

The other arms I posed in forward and back to counter the stride of the legs so it looks like there is some more movement to the mech. I had to cut back the wrist sockets so I could get the hands to co-operate with the new arm positions.

Now for a little turn on the catwalk:





















Bit like a big robot genestealer isn't it?





From the front on shots you can really see how much difference my leg mods made to the height and stance of the robot, he'd be dragging with claws along the ground otherwise.

I'm working on cleaning up the rest of the crew now, will put them in the next post then on to paint.

Riveting.... Robogear Spider

Here is another one of those Russian Robogear kits I've been curious about for years but never saw anyone do anything hugely impressive with. I always wondered what it would look like reversed  having it treat the over sized cockpit at the back as the abdomen of the spider instead of the front. So after seeing how cheap it was on ebay from Russia direct I finally ordered one.





as you can see it arrived a bit squished but the kit inside was fine.





It easily snapped together. Leaving off the big spring loaded cannons on the back I saw definite potential.






I decided to turn the cockpit interior into an engine bay rather than just cover it up. I cut up the window frame to keep the outer edge of it and the top bit. I added a bulkhead to cover the open area above the seat.




















As you can see I went a bit nuts adding slices of plastic rod rivets all over the place, plus the odd bit of plastic card to make the joins neater and look a bit more reinforced plus the addition of a steam pipe and small hatch at the back. The weapon mount for the original cannons became the engine inside the body capped off by the to of the cockpit canopy. The exhausts looking part (which looks incredibly like the exhausts from a Sentinel) became the machine guns armament at the front. It's odd how well it fits.

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If you were wondering about some sensors or eyes on the contraption I bought these to put on after I paint it.

Surely you've been painting something?

Well yes I have but also been very distracted by Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider and etc. Also I got a bunch of X-Wing. Figured I should get around to taking some photos and putting up some sort of update.



my main efforts lately has been to finish up the Invaders from Outer Space miniatures. I've gotten through half of the heroes so far.







Not a bad strong man once you get him painted. He was well deserving some paint after his hammer kill the Zard Beast 3 times in one game :)







The trick shooter got her dress redone completely, I think the brighter colour is much better than the heap of brown from before.







I quite enjoyed painting the red coat on the ring master. He still needs a touch of highlights on the black areas and the base needs a lick of paint.



I've also been trying to get a few of my McMourning crew done for Malifaux. The Bete Noir started off as a bit of an experiment in trying out the Army Painter washes to see how they compared to the older GW ones. I ended up really liking the look of the aged white look on her dress that makes her look like the ghost of a jilted bride. After a clean paint job I splashed a bit of Tamiya clear red for the bloody hands and knives. I need to do up the base a bit with a grave stone and some groundwork.