Another Aliens thread

[Rob_Jedi]

I think everyone has to do either zombies or aliens or both at some point

I'll warn you now I have no idea how fast I'll get around to painting but I've commited pretty hard to this project over the last couple months so hopefully there will be some good progress.

I know I collected a pile of Grenadier not colonial marines many many many years ago, then EM4 when they rereleased them and more from Copplestone Castings later still but never really did anything with them until recently when Hasslefree had a May the 4th sale on their sci fi troopers and Khurasan 28mm APC came out about the same time which I'd been waiting to order since last year when the prototype got painted and shown off.



So here is some rambling reposts from my blog:

"All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? Another glorious day in the Corps! A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade! I LOVE the Corps!"

Oh man awesome new goodies. When I 1st saw the Caimen on Dwartist's blog I was so damn excited to get one. Kinda annoying it took like another 8 months before I'd get to throw them some money and another month to get my hands on my own.



























You can kinda see I was excited to finally add an APC to my collection of old Grenadier, EM4, Copplestone and recent Hasslefree marines so I bought 2 instead of 1 and an extra one still in the box for my friend Andrew.  The likeness to the movie APC is great, not 100% of course but instantly recognizable.

Giving the kits the good once over and dry fit assembly they go together very well, except the front mini turrets (they're upside down in the photos) I'm going to either have to drill out the socket to make it bigger or file down the pegs on the turrets a fair bit to make them fit. Everything else slotted in fine. The casting was very good with not too much flash or bubbles. I was surprised to note a few of the bubbles on the underside had already been filled with putty and sanded back already.

I was a bit surprised the entire main body of the APC was one big cast. It's about the same width as a Space Marine Rhino but much longer. In scale it's much more Main Battle Tank sized than APC sized but it has no problems giving the impression that a whole squad would fit inside. The rest of the kit is the the 4 wheels with big solid pegs that just slot in easy, you would have to do a lot of converting if you want to pose the vehicle turning but it looks good with the wheels straight. I guess you could try and drill in axels but I'm not going to have them spinning. The Top turret slots into a socket up top at the front of the rail. You could probably convert it with a bunch of dremmelling to be in the stowed position on the back but it would not be easy. The side door slots onto a pair of rail grooves and can be put on open or closed. There is a bit of an inset doorway but no internal detail. Lastly the mini turret which as I said doesn't actually fit yet. Maybe magnets is the answer. [Edit: Turns out getting the front mini turrets to fit was quite easy when I started cleaning the model, I just had to use a knife to trim the lip of the socket and it was fixed in just a minute.]

Hopefully the cleanup will be quick and painless so I can get to painting them.







I also grabbed the much smaller Polecat Armoured Command/Utility vehicle. It looks like a futuristic armoured Humvee but with only 2 doors instead of 4. I think it goes well with the APCs. Similar to the APC it was one big cast for the body of the vehicle with 4 seperate wheels and a choice of 2 turrets, the pictured sensor array with minigun or an anti air missile launcher with 8 missiles. I like the look of the little boxy turret I have on now but I'll paint both and maybe put in magnets. Again the casting is quite good apart from a big bubble in the right hand rear tail light.

[Rob_Jedi]

While going over my kits sanding here and there getting them ready for paint I noticed something odd. The large turret on the Caimen is probably the biggest diversion from the look of the Aliens APC appearing to be quite a different shape and covered in gribblies on top compared to the very simple movie version. What I noticed though was that most of those gribblies were actually the runners that should be on the rails running along the back of the APC.





They had flipped the turret UPSIDE DOWN! I have no idea why they did this.







So what I did was cut off the tubes then sand the runner flat. Then use a razor saw to cut the peg off the other side then glue it to the runner.









Here is the comparison of the 2 turrets before and after the mod.













After this I converted the 2nd turret and sanded off that circle bit and also put magnets into the pegs to make them stay on and rotate.

[Rob_Jedi]

Welcome to the Corp - Making better Colonial Marines from EM4 and Copplestone Castings Troopers



"I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle.
Ten millimeter, with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher."
―Cpl. Hicks (from Aliens)

It's hard not to think back to the awesome action movies from the 80s especially being a wargamer / board game player wanting to recreate so many of them as games, especially ALIENS, which GW must have thought too when they created Space Hulk. But like quite a few other gamers out there I always had in the back of my mind the idea to swap out the genestealers for proper xenomorphs (or leave off two of the arms) and to ditch the terminators for Colonial Marines. I know that was my idea when I bought the Grenadier Future Warriors range of troopers by Mark Copplestone many many years ago. Unfortunately I only ever painted a couple of them and didn't use proper reference so my momentum stopped as I was unhappy with the results. Though I did add to the horde over the years when EM4 brought the molds out again and then Copplestone Castings did new varients. One problem was the guns always annoyed me with their inacuracy. Sure they immediately evoked the movie guns but they weren't right. This was very obvious when I recently bought the troopers available from Hasslefree miniatures. Though the armour is even less accurate to the movies than the old Copplestone sculpts the use of 3D printed movie accurate guns just made you excited to paint them up. I then got it in my head to update the old models. Hasslefree sold sprues of Pulse Rilfles. I didn' t quite anticipate how many hours of clipping and cutting and hacking would be involved to convert these one part metal models but damn it over a week I did it.







Before and after hacking the old gun out. To get rid of the old gun I used a pair of side cutters which was easy to snip off the top section of the gun and then it gets tricky getting rid of the magazine and the grip in the forward hand. Cleanup was done with a heavy hobby blade.



progress continues...



All Done



Damn missed one in the 2nd bottom row that was hiding out with the missile launchers and Hasslefree minis. I fixed him after I took the photos. Though the fully painted guy up top will stay as he is, I think the partially painted ones will get stripped and painted with the rest.

Now of course after giving all the troopers movie accurate guns I feel I need to improve my Smart Gun heavy weapon troopers.





The movie guns most iconic things were the way they were held with the steady cam arms and those triangular motorbike part frames on the sides of the barrel. The EM4 marines have the pose and the support arms but lack the detail on the barrels. So after tracing the frames from a dismantled photo of a replica I printed out several sizes on a sheet of paper to compare with the miniature for the right look. Then cut thin plastic card and used plastic rod to make the frames. After making one set I made a press mold and cast some more from green stuff. I also added the large cocking handles on the sides of the receivers, the wire underneath the gun and new muzzle breaks. I cut a slot across the front of a bit of aluminum tubing and scored some lines around it and glued it over the tip of the guns.





My line up of smart gunners from EM4, Copplestone and Hasslefree. I may cut the hands holding up the front of the Hasslefree ones so they are holding the gun on the side instead.

[Rob_Jedi]

In the back of my mind for years now was some cool bases I always thought would go well with my Colonial Marines I'd seen a review from Dr Faust's Painting Clinic (remember him?) Of course my marines were in the back of the cupboard at the time...

With the revival of my project with all the new vehicles and lovely Hasslefree guns got me thinking about how to base all the models. I was considering the rather nice Sulaco bases by Fenris Games but being resin it gets rather pricey. But I remembered to look up Champ Industries again and see what they had on offer. After a simple paypal transaction my order was off and a week and a bit later they arrived in Oz.



I ordered a big bag of 150 industrial bases which will see out all my marines, aliens, and probably any Infinity stuff I do in the near future. I also grabbed 30 of the urban bases for zombie survivors and stuff, though I think it would fit 40K stuff pretty well or Infinity.



Here are the 4 different Industrial designs. I flipped a row to let you see how the facing changes the look.



Here are the 3 different Urban designs.



And with some minis blutacked on to see how they look, I think I invested pretty well in these. It's kind of surprising but apart from the occasional pre detailed base by GW no one else out there has made plastic pre done bases. The detail is very crisp and unlike resin bases you still have the void at the bottom of the base so they sit on the table really easily you can also use plastic glue to stick down plastic minis instead of pinning down with super glue. Dr Faust seemed to think you can get away with just super glueing down metal minis without pinning as well, I'll give it a try.

[Sgt. Scream]

Welcome aboard the Colonial Marines dropship, mate. Fantastic work so far...  Now I have one more thread to shamelessly copy from.

[Commander Vyper]

You're in the pipe, five by five!

 

[AKULA]

Nice job on the weapons Rob - the Hasslefree ones are by far the best, and really put the others to shame.

 

[Michka]

This is some really impressive stuff. The conversions of the guns on the old Grenadier troops must have taken half of forever. I've done three gun swaps and it seemed like I'd never get done.

Those Caimans look great. The conversion on the turret works surprising well. Has a comparison shot of the 28mm Caiman next to a Galoob APC?

[Sangennaru]

an impressive start! Actually, that's much more forwarded that the 99% of my projects!

I'm curious about the bases, i tried to google them, but no results...

[Predatorpt]

an impressive start! Actually, that's much more forwarded that the 99% of my projects!

I'm curious about the bases, i tried to google them, but no results...

Here you go: http://www.champindustries.net/bases.html

I've always wanted to buy some, and after seeing them in this thread, I really have to buy them 

[Sangennaru]

Here you go: http://www.champindustries.net/bases.html

I've always wanted to buy some, and after seeing them in this thread, I really have to buy them 

thanks! they're actually really really good, yeah! Only four "poses" are a little few for me, since i'm used to build my own bases, but... those are VERY sweet and cheap!

[Rob_Jedi]

Those Caimans look great. The conversion on the turret works surprising well. Has a comparison shot of the 28mm Caiman next to a Galoob APC?

Wouldn't happen to have a spare you don't need do you? I've been chasing the tail of trying to get a Galoob APC for years unsucessfully   The Caimens meant I could finally just buy some damn APCs from a shop and not have to try and fight a bidding war at 3am

Speaking of the Caimens what do people think of the guns at the moment? Thinking of cutting them off and flipping them back pointy end up.

Has anyone done up a suitable looking tank for the USCM? I ordered a 1/48 MerkavaII from ebay since the ones in the Colonial Marines Technical Manual look like they are based on the Merkava II and IV. Has anyone used the Secret Weapon Miniatures 6X6 tank. I'd buy the Khurasan tanks if only they made them in 28mm.

Oh and thanks everyone, all of your projects have been huge inspiration on trying to get this going. I'm super jelous of the mass piles of horrrclix aliens but very happy LAF came through on getting some Aliens 

[Elk101]

Thid looks great. I have many of the same figures and the Hasslefree pulse rifles but have shied away from changing the guns. The APCs look good. I have the Scotia Grendel one but yous look way better. Nice work!

[Dentatus]

Outstanding work and dedication to the Corps! Take Ten - you earned it. 

[Braz]

Great start!

Love the conversions and like Elk101 have also shied away from changing the pulse rifles but will copy the changes you made to the smartguns.
I prefer your converted turret for the APCs. Looks sharp.

Looking forward to your next update.