Skip to main content

Sci-fi Kitbash (Inspired by Dune)

I'm so used to working on miniatures in groups of 5, 10, 20, that even when I do kitbashing, it's usually for a whole squad. For this project, I kept it minimal. I did one miniature, a bit of basing, and came up with some very loose narrative themes. Two things came together for this project. The first was going to see Dune in theatres and being blown away by the visual style and design of the film, and the other was wanting to create a non-combat miniature. All of my previous hobby experience was confined to war and wargames, and that is such a narrow slice of existence. I wanted to expand my hobby horizon and explore narrative instead of combat.

This character is some sort of miner/prospector/treasure-hunter from a gritty desert planet. He mixes advanced technology like his respirator and reactor-lantern with a low tech shovel and patched overcoat. He is searching the rubble of some facility or other, where loose wiring, tarps, and metallic grating are being overtaken by the sand thrown around by dust storms.






Here you can see some of the actual kitbashing at work (if you are unfamiliar with the term kitbashing, it just refers to creating a model out of pieces from multiple kits). The torso comes from Maelstrom's Edge, the head and lantern are Frostgrave bits (the lantern is just a regular lantern with a sci-fi looking bit glued on the bottom), the shovel is from some Reaper blister pack, and the ropes and belt accessories just came out of my junk pile, so I don't know where they are from! He is standing on a base which uses some plastic grating, a broken micro SD card, some wiring, and a piece of canvas. There are also several glitter beads for rivets, and some texture past to create sand textures and hold things together.

I did practically no greenstuff sculpting here, except just a little bit to fill a gap around the rope on his hip. I just textured this a bit so it would look like rope.




I'm so happy with the final product, and I think this is one of my best creations to date. It's not a particularly stellar paint job, but the whole process was just so enjoyable. I may try a few more small scale projects to see if I can find the same enjoyment.

As for paint, I did this in my typical style. I blocked out base colours, then I hit it with some oil washes and some rust wash for the metals, then drybrushed/highlighted a tiny bit.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Help! Make Collaborative Art!

Hello friends - I would like your help. I would really like to do a collaborative art project, and that requires collaboration. Recently, I kitbashed a few models and wrote a little blurb to establish a setting, and it's been living rent free in my head. I could easily spend the next few weeks and months daydreaming about this place, and coming up with ideas about it (I'll be doing this anyway), but it sounded more fun to do this with a bit of company. So, this is an open invitation to participate. I'm looking for anything - miniatures, stories, music, art, sculptures, storytelling, historical analysis, interpretive dances, whatever tickles the fancy. I'd like to collect all of this art into a single blog post that can be shared as our collective world building project. Let's put a tentative deadline on this for December 31st - that might help motivate us - but I'll just keep adding any submissions to the blog post after the fact. Down below, I'm going to in...
1 comment
Read more

Lower your standards, have more fun.

  What started as a quick way for me to paint an army, has – I think – turned into my new approach for larger scale army building.   Part of the reason I am writing this is because I have had a lot of conversations lately with people who have had trouble getting a painted army to the table. I wanted to show that there’s a bunch of really easy ways to get an army done quick and make it look decently good. And this isn’t a speedpaint hack or a slap-chop guide – there’s no new fancy technique here. It’s really just about using a few high contrast colours and picking out bold details. It can be done incredibly quickly, even by a beginner, and it has a very strong style of its own. To set the stage a bit, I’ve been working on a massive Dwarf army for Warhammer: The Old World. It’s something like 6000 points before adding magic items – way too many models. Additionally, I made the decision that this army was going to be done using something approximating the 90’s ‘Eavy Metal s...
3 comments
Read more

Miniature Makers: A (not at all) Definitive List

For nearly 20 years, I have been captivated by the miniature hobby. For most of that time, the only company I was truly aware of, was Games Workshop. The giant in the room, GW certainly has an impressive range of sculpts and a strong design vision. In the last few years, I have become aware of a wide range of other companies, brands, and sculptors, who have their own unique visions about what miniatures are. This will be a living list of the miniature manufacturers that have been recommended to me, or that I have purchased from. It is a very diverse list. Some manufacturers focus on their own proprietary games, and some just sell bits. I have not ordered from all of these companies, so your mileage may vary!!! If there is a company that you love, and it is not listed here, drop me a line and I will add it to the list. Pictured above - https://www.blacksunminiatures.co.uk/product/guardian/   * - Companies with a star were suggested by hobbyists on Reddit and throughout the community...
Post a Comment
Read more