Beyond the Gates of Antares... It Begins!

[Major_Gilbear]

So after recently acquiring the boxed set Xilos Horizon for Antares, along with some additional Concord forces an Algoryn starter force, I really felt I ought to put some paint on the models and (gasp) try the game out!  

Now, I'm pretty rubbish at both painting logs and at getting stuff finished. This time however, I'm just aiming to get things to a table-worthy standad, and I'm hoping the time off work will let me make good headway.

I will therefore be using this thread to document my progress over the Christmas period, and (rarely for me) I'll be posting up some WIPs as I go. There's not much daylight here right now, and I am using my phone as a camera - so I warn you now that pix may not be all that great...

Anyway, I hope folks will follow along with me, and I appreciate all comments/support/rotten tomatoes.  

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I started by cleaning all the plastic Concord forces from Xilos, and by assembling them into sub-assemblies. Then I primed them this morning:



Next, I cleaned up the bases, glued some lead weights on and smoothed them with putty, added some nice rocky textures, and finally primed them too:



As you can see, I've also got the Xilos starter box hero primed and ready too, and I've also got a big pile of jungle trees ready to paint as well!

The plan is to stick to a fairly "Studio Scheme", but with white rather than ivory. I also want to use a little red as an accent colour to mark out command models - as future space communists, I think white/olive green/red colours should work quite well.

[Ray Earle]

My god! How many scissors have you got? It makes my usual 'put the figures on a bit of board and give them spray' look fairly unprofessional.

I'm going to follow your progress closely, mainly because I'm at exactly the same point. 

[The_Beast]

Actually, those are hemostats, which blows my mind WAY more!  

No comment about the post, though. I'm just plain rubbish.  

Doug

Edit: Went looking, and I guess they aren't as expensive for hobbists as I recalled.

[tomcat51]

The first picture looks kind of like something a world weary police detective would find in a serial killers house. What a hobby we all have.

[The_Beast]

Or, what minds WE have? 

Doug

[Ray Earle]

Actually, another question; are those jungle trees home made?

Thanks Doug. I had no idea what they were actually called. 

[von Lucky]

The hemostats AND THE CLING WRAP have also forced me to comment. Weirdest unindential picture by a wargamer this year.

A nice start, looking forward to it developing.

EDIT - I see it was taken on the cook top, guess you were venting the fumes. Or eating them.

[Gibby]

Looking forward to seeing how you get on. I have this starter set for Christmas, so I will need inspiration!

[Major_Gilbear]

Heh, thanks for all the comments guys.  

I have about forty hemostatic clamps... I picked these up over the last seven or so years, and I put all of my models on pins for priming/painting/fixing to bases. It lets me get to the models easily, and I can prime them all over properly too. Examples here and here. Generally I look for non-sterile medical-grade stainless steel clamps about 5.5" long with curved serrated noses. I think I usually pay around £2 per clamp including shipping, but I tend to buy them online in sets of 5-10 at a time rather than individually.

The cling film on the hob? Well, I sprayed outside, and the nearest surface indoors from the door that leads to the back garden is the hob! As the clamps and models have been sprayed with automotive primer, the cling film protects the surface while they dry (at least for a few hours until I can move them to my work area).

Since I sprayed them this morning (and thank goodness I did; the weather has been terrible for priming virtually all day), they will not be worked upon until tomorrow (Sunday). I find that even if you leave them somewhere warm, the spray takes at least 24 hours to cure enough so that it doesn't rub off or affect your paint. Better safe than sorry I say.

Anyway, I spent a long time dabbing, daubing, drybrushing, washing, and overbrushing this afternoon and evening. I have finished painting all 32 trees! I have also finished the coloured parts of all the plastic Xilos box Concord bases (also 32 bases). The Concord bases just need the rims painting black, but it's late and I don't want to arse them up. Quick progress pic:



These just need varnishing, velour bottoms (so they don't move on the gaming table), and the exotic foliage I have for them sticking into the tops. I should get these finished whilst I wait for the basecoats and glazes to dry on the Concord.

@ Ray Earle:

They are resin tree trunks that I bought from Critical Mass Games at Salute about 3 years ago. They were about £7.50 for 16, and I got two packs. I beleive that the originals were made with a hot glue gun from drinking draws before being cast in resin. There's a good progress log here on their forums for a jungle table they made, and I was lucky enough to speak to its maker at the show. My trees are basically these, although I used slightly bigger 40mm bases and added stainless steel washers and small rocks for weight.

@ Gibby:

Thanks - I will update this plog over the next two weeks whenever I have any progress to show, so it should be fairly regular. I'll keep it going after that too, but it will be slower as I will be back at work then. I was going to do a more original Concord colour scheme, but it turns out that blue+white are very popular colours from what I've seen around the internet, and so the Studio scheme may in fact be rarer that I would have guessed!  

[Major_Gilbear]

Well, against all predictions, it was nice and sunny this morning. So I took advantage and got a few trees done, then I snapped some pix for you.

Fist up a few completed trees...


Next, I added some bushes that I made a few years ago, to enhance the effect:



Then a couple more shots, this time with some models for scale:





Since Xilos is meant to be a jungle world, and I want to actually have something suitable to test-drive the game on, getting these old terrain projects done alongside the models is a good excuse to get other lingering projects completed too. When I have the Xilos Concord done, I'd like to set up the table in full with the models for some more pix.

[Malebolgia]

Really nice!  Also gives me a Mass Effect vibe, which is always good. Can't wait to see the paintjobs on the miniatures

[Major_Gilbear]

Thanks man!

Also gives me a Mass Effect vibe, which is always good.

Yeah, me too. There's definately lots of nods to the ME series, not least in the first iteration of the Hansa model which had carbon-copy of one of the ME3 weapons before they re-modelled it.

It's also why I'd originally planned to do the Concorde in Alliance blue, the Algoryn in Turian red/black, and was even considering Boromites as Krogan briefly...

[Gibby]

That'll be why the Algoryn remind me of the Taurians then! Which is no bad thing I will add!

[Ray Earle]

Love the crazy looking jungle, going to have to see if I can pick some of them up. 

Thanks for the tip.

[The_Beast]

Definitely 'not of this earth.' 

More more more!

Doug