Kill Team Charlie: Old School C100 marines and custom deep bases

[Delaney]

So I am turning some of my old Rogue Trader era figures into usable gaming squads.  Its been a slow burn project for the last few months.  I dont like 40k gameplay itself, but love the figures, so have just had them gathering dust.  It seemed a same.

I finally have the last few figures coming in the post, and was enjoying all the salvage crew pics with lipped bases everyone has been posting here, so decided to fix the problems I have with lipped bases and cast my own.  Here is a pic of the first figures and the base master.



The custom base is raised and bevelled under, allowing fingers to purchase on the base easily and nails to curl under as you lift.  The dish is hollowed out really deep and widened so it can take a 10c coin.  I also made some 10c sized caps that I can pop in, rather than making a one piece cast.  I polished the master so its shiny, rather than matte.  Finally I cast it with a vent, rather than just top poured, so I would get a perfect lip without having to grind it flat.  Mmm. Resin dust.

The figures are all based on 1970 and 80s sci fi, when the future was clearly white, beige and orange.  (See space 1999, Starwars, Battlestar, Buck rogers, etc etc).  The c100 are all very scifi, with ray gun like nozzles, wires but with no medieval decorations.  They pre-date bolters, and all seem to jump straight from the pages of a 2000ad future shock issue!

I am really happy with the result, and looking forward to finishing the team and getting some gaming done.
Hope you like.

[Mister Rab]

I love that beaky marine! How apt to use the Buck Rogers/BSG colours. Good work.

And I wouldn't know where to start with casting my own anything 

[Ironblood]

The figures and bases look great.  I absolutely adore the old pre '94 space marine models back when they had a lot of character. before they turned into cookie cutter space knights.

i'm looking forward to seeing the next batch of marines you post.

[Mancha]

Good idea to make the base bevelled under.

[Delaney]

Thanks all- really excited by this project in particular for some reason- kinda clawing back some of the nice rich sci-fi feel rogue trader had before it got dragged into a more grim vanilla world.  Got some Reaper droids to go with the team, and will be putting some Hasslefree conversions and scratch builds in with it too.

I am also thinking it would be fun to cast up a resin spacehulk like board for them to play in.

Re: casting - Turns out casting is pretty easy (after a bit of trial and error).  I learned everything I needed to know off youtube and the resin kit instructions.  Shields, Bases and tokens are the easiest thing to start with to because its a one peice mould- so no messing around with lego bricks, mould release and plasticine.  Does make you feel like a proper hardcore hobby guy when you make your own plastic stuff!

[rob_the_robgoblin]

I'm going to follow this with anticipation.

I love the Rogue trader miniatures, and I wish they were easier to get hold of. I look through the Rogue Trader book regularly, I just love the artwork and humour used within it. Brilliant stuff. I also love how open ended it is to ideas and stuff for vehicles. I do still like some of the 'guide line' armies, but I like how you could always adapt and change them...

[Commander Vyper]

I have to agree about the DS bases, really frustrating to pick em up before you've got minis on.

Are you doing a range of inserts? Be nice to see what you do.

The commander

[Ramshackle_Curtis]

I have a squad in my army of these old models:

[Thantsants]

These are great old minis - just like the illustrations in Rogue Trader where they mostly seem to be bashing orks/hive scum over the head with their bayonets (if you can call those huge blades bayonets), rather than shooting them!
 
Got a few myself and this might tempt me into fleshing out the squad in a similar manner...

Nice colour scheme by the way Dave - any plans on multi-wheeled 70s scifi style transportation for them?

Or maybe something like this little beauty from Terrahawks?



Linky for the how to on scratchbuilding it -

http://homepages.tesco.net/d.sisson/battletank.htm

[Delaney]

Nice squad!  I love terrahawks!  Made the mistake of watching it again, baaaaaaaad!

Maybe I will make some ball droids too!

I am planning on making me some heads that fit modern Orc bodies that turn then into tallarn dog soldiers (see monsters image in 40k 1st ed), but I have a lot of projects between then and now!

No vehicles just yet, but I'd probably make the deodorant bottle grAv tank from white dwarf (you know the one!)

[Thantsants]

Certainly do and nearly mentioned it!

Dog soldiers sound neat.

[steders]

Love them! Made me dig out my lot (painted blood angels red), I might strip them down and paint them like yours.
Give me your recipe please!!!

[Delaney]

Okay, here it is...

KILL TEAM CHARLIE RECIPE

Tamiya grey primer.  Badab black thinned so it runs into just the deep recesses.  This black lines the model.  A couple of coats of that.

Beige:  Base coat of VMC green-grey.  VMC medium grey (beige) mixed 1:1 with matte medium, then thinned so it is brushable (add a touch of dish soap to the water to act as flow improver).  This layer is built up all over the model, leaving the green grey peeking from underneath in the shadows.  Reaper snow shadow was added to the highlight mix and applied only to the upper parts (reflected sky).  The rest got bleached bone added.  Ogryn flesh was was thinned a little with matte medium (I use VMC, but liquitex is a cheap bulk buy option) and applied to superficial shadow areas.  This suggests light entering the plastic and bouncing around, warming up the shadows- (in computer graphics its called sub surface scattering).  You can see this on the studded pads on the laser guy- its not very clear in the photo.  Badab black was then used to pop out the darkest shadows and edge stuff to make it a little more cartoony, as this was for gaming it needed to work at a few feet, so I was not very subtle.

Greys:
Base coat of VMC german field grey, washed with thinned badab black using several coats to make different parts shadowy.  Then worked up with a mix of VMC field grey and reaper snow shadow on tops.
Orange:  Starting with EE dark flesh blended up with blazing orange softened with a little VMC Ocre in a 1:1 matte medium glaze.

Others:  I used hawk turquoise and VMC gunmetal blue to contrast with the beige and orange and make the eyes and gun tips pop.  I drank coffee whilst doing all this.  Some of the coffee may be on the figures too.

The skin starts with EE dwarf flesh, then mixed and blended with VMC rose flesh, dark flesh base, green-grey (stubble) and ogryn flesh wash around the eyes.  Highlights got bleached bone added.  Badab black used to pop the eye and frame hair.

One tip- I found if you go heavy contrast on the guys face, it look rubbish- the sculpt is very whacky as it is, so by toning down the shading it softens the face off.




So I added more to my crew last night -

Hasslefree's power armour libby is currently getting herself a scratch built C100 backpack and breather unit.  She is now packing the chainsaw from the Death watch and a sculpted fist gun like the captain.  Plus lots of wires like the dropship trooper LE figure.

A damaged Rogue Trader era female assassin (someone converted her into a superhero before I grabbed her on ebay)  is getting a second lease on life some plasti-steel shoulders, mini-backpack and a fist gun.  She is now a light operations officer.

The death watch mini that donated its hand to Libby is getting a scratch built rocket launcher modelled off a rogue trader plastic space marine rocket launcher.  The original is a bigger scale, so unfortunately did not fit.  Making about an 8/10ths scale one for him plus added wires.  His other hand is tossing up the peace sign like all my female Japanese friends ALWAYS do in photos (what is with that?). 

Finally the team has bunch of service droids from reaper.

Exciting stuff!  I cannot wait to get this lot done and gaming!

Shame its my birthday and I have to rush off to get drunk with mates!

[Comsquare]

Gratulerer med dagen!!

So, stop converting and get drunk!!

[steders]

Thanks Daveness!
Brilliantly detailed, I will have to think how to modify it for 20 of them, but I'm sure I can get something to work.
Cheers