Small Cuts - Photo View

Slideshow view

	Cobalt-1 I got these from a clearance sale rather cheap. They are actually really nice and I love the retro helmets. Shame that the metal is some bitchy hard and brittle non-lead alloy.
	Cobalt-1 These were rather fun to do (apart from the cleaning). I remembered when I was doing the original beaky marines some 15 years ago. I think it's nice that these are not too cluttered.
	Cobalt-1 The helmet is a bit tricky to cut out without leaving a white edge. It's also irritatingly easy to get fingerprints on the domes.
	Cobalt-1 Most of these guys are bald. Maybe it's the cosmic rays...
	Cobalt-1 Where would a marine go without his trusty sword? Them gun-thingies, they're not dependable, no sirree.
	Cobalt-1 And the obligatory overhead view.
	Cobalt mercs I usually base everything on 1 inch round bases (washers mostly), but in this case I decided to stick with the hex-bases supplied.
	Cobalt mercs And the overhead view again. Note the neat formation.
	Cobalt mercs Missile launcher and grenade launcher from one of the command packs.
	Cobalt mercs A bit closer view of the group. I really like those bubble helmets.
	Cobalt mercs Trooper and guy with cannon. In every command pack, you get the same cannon and missile launcher guys, plus one varying leader type. A bit boring in the long run...
	Cobalt mercs Closer view of the missile launcher and another trooper.
	Cobalt mercs Grenade launcher and trooper. I thought about making the GL guy a sergeant, but there was no glaringly obvious place for the rank insignia, so I forgot about it.
	Cobalt mercs To avoid monotone black, I painted the ammo case gray. As real military has a habit of painting everything green, I figured gray would be a good universal color for these space troopers.
	Cobalt mercs Two troopers. There are only actually five poses of trooper and even those are a bit samey. Multipart plastics do have their advantages.
	Cobalt mercs Note the side-mounted clips? Unlike certain others, these guys didn't forget to get ammo for their Sterlings...
	Cobalt mercs Trooper and cannon guy. I painted the inner barrel thingy in light blue without really thinking about it. Pink/red or green might have given better contrast.
	Cobalt mercs Another view of the cannon guy. I guess it must be an energy weapon of some sort.
	Cobalt mercs Lone trooper.
	Cobalt mercs I put a dash of red in the swordbelt for a bit of contrast.
	Cobalt mercs This side view shows the pistol holster.
	Cobalt mercs Top view for baldy.
	Cobalt mercs Closeup of the missile launcher. I did it rather plain, could have added more colored widgets but I wanted to get the squad done without getting stuck on any one figure. Getting the helmet on this guy was a bit tricky since the missile sight comes too close.
	Palansi These are Palansi from Cobalt-1. I rather like them and I had great fun painting these guys. The only downside is the hard alloy West Wind uses for them.
	Palansi Another view of the first group of Palansi warriors.
	Palansi Commander, two warriors and close combat support. As I don't have the actual Cobalt-1 books (I just like the miniatures), I don't know what that's supposed to be called... but I sure wouldn't want to meet one in a dark alley!
	Palansi Warriors and the launcher guy. They have a neat bio-look all over, but the heavy weapon guys really take the cake.
	Palansi Warrior There are two packs of three warriors in the line, but only five different sculpts. This is the pose that's duplicated and appears in both Palansi Trooper packs.
	Palansi Launcher I guess it also could be a sonic weapon of some sort...
	Palansi Launcher I think I should have gone for a brighter paint scheme with the launcher.
	Palansi Warrior Being essentially naked, the Palansi offer great opportunity to patterns and color switches. I'd say they'd look really great with blending, if I only could do that.
	Palansi Warrior I tried for a blend effect on the claws, but it didn't quite work out so well...
	Palansi Warrior At first I thought of painting the weapon in flesh tones, but it didn't have enough contrast with the pink, so I made it blue instead.
	Palansi Warrior I have no idea what the spinal column hanging from the gun is supposed to be - ammo? But it looks cool. That's worth a +1 at least :)
	Palansi Warrior And here's the rear view. I could have tried to pick out different areas in different colors, like the backpack bulge, but in the end I thought they'd look more biological if everything was sort of fused together in the same color scheme without clear boundaries.
	Palansi Warrior And here's the duplicate warrior. The position of the claw arm is slightly different, but that's just a little bending.
	Palansi Leader I tried for a bamboo-like effect on the haft, but it didn't quite work out. I opted against metallic blades and instead highlighted the thing in green.
	Palansi Leader Closeup. This claw was semi-successful. Note the symbiotic badge on the chest.
	Palansi Leader Another view of the leader.
	Palansi Tentacles Coming at you. This was a real fun model to paint.
	Palansi Tentacles The downside is that the thing is very front-heavy. To balance it, I sawed a bullet in half and glued it to the base as a counterweight.
	Palansi Tentacles From the back. As you can see, the tentacle thing switches from dark red on the back to light orange at the tentacle tips. This is probably closest I've come to pulling off a blending effect.
	Palansi Tentacles Top view.
	Palansi Tentacles Closeup on the trooper, showing the control handle.
	Palansi And the top view again.
	Palansi in alien landscape I plonked down some of the alien landscape items to show them with the Palansi.
	Palansi in alien landscape I've always thought that SciFi terrain rarely is alien enough, and then I decided to do these pieces.
	Palansi The Green One. I'm not entirely happy with the shading, but it's ok.
	Palansi A closer view of The Green One. All of the Palansi are done starting with an inkwash over a white basecoat.
	Palansi And The Green One from behind.
	Palansi Launcher Another launcher model. I tried a completely different color for the launcher thing.
	Palansi Launcher And the launcher from front.
	Palansi This is the last batch of my palansi. One of the few forces I've actually finished painting.
	Palansi Tentacles This guy is better balanced than the other tentacle thing, but I stuck the other half of the bullet on the base anyway.
	Palansi Tentacles I chose this blue scheme for the tentacles to test fading from dark blue to pale bluish white. Worked reasonably well, IMHO.
	Palansi Tentacles This time, I didn't forget to paint the ribs.
	Palansi Tentacles Top view showing the tentacles in all their glory.
	Palansi Missile I'm not fully satisfied with how this guy turned out.
	Palansi Missile The orange is too close to the pink of the body, and the light green does not have enough contrast.
	Palansi Missile I also intended to put a fade effect on the tube itself, but in the end I didn't...
	Palansi Missile Back shot showing the launcher symbiote (or whatever it's supposed to be). The green pustules are individually highlighted, but the color choice is not a good one.
	Palansi Launcher As this guy comes in both of the command blisters, I have three of him. They all have different color launcher thingy to make them a bit different.
	Palansi Launcher Closeup of the launcher thingy. Again, more contrast would have been nice. One of these days I'm going to paint up something with just black and white...
	Palansi Leader Another of these scythe-wielding leaders. This one I painted bluish, again with an ink wash over white base.
	Palansi Leader Leader from behind.
	Palansi Leader Closeup This time I didn't try the bamboo effect. Instead, I wrote morse code on the haft.
	Palansi Army Well, if you can call 24 figures an army... maybe I should buy some Aruks after all, I can see the pink'n'blue force in my mind's eye...
	Palansi Army As I've mentioned previously, I actually completed all the palansi I bought. Given that I bought all remaining stock from a clearance sale, I doubt I'll ever get any more.
	Palansi Army I'll have to think about scratch-building a vehicle or two for these guys, as West Wind never made any.
	Palansi Army And the famous overhead view. These models are actually surprisingly unstable, because of their dynamic poses, spindly physique and the lightweight pewter-crap construction some of them were hard to stand on even this lightly crumpled bedsheet.
	Palansi Army Right wing of the army. You'll note how the blue leader matches the blue tentacle symbiote. This was quite unintentional, I only noticed it after I had painted everyone.
	Palansi Army Army center, featuring the launcher trio, missile guy and the dreaded Green One.
	Palansi Army And the left wing, with the orange leader and orange tentacle guy.
	Palansi Army Top view again, this time in more orderly ranks. Totals 15 troopers, 3 launchers, 2 leaders with scythe, 2 tentacle guys, 1 missile launcher and The Green One.
	Palansi Army More overhead view madness.
	Palansi Army Coming straight at you! Hmmm... Should I call it the Pink Brigade?
	Cobalt Squad The organisation is based entirely on figure availability and resulted in these 6-man squads (5 troopers + missile launcher).
	Cobalt Squad Here's another view of a standard squad. Maybe one of these days I'll learn to work with the macro autofocus...
	Cobalt Squad This batch finishes my Cobalts. Now I only have the Ygrainne to paint...
	Cobalt Squad Even though the blue and white color scheme sort of screams COPS, I deliberately avoided actually putting the word anywhere.
	Cobalt HQ I think the guy on the right is actually a gal, though it's hard to tell with the baldies.
	Cobalt Assault Contents of two Cobalt assault blisters randomly mixed. These figures come with separate arms, but the poses are a bit limited as you really can't place the arms anywhere near each other. They'll rotate like windmills, yes, but can you have an empty hand support a gun? Oh, no...
	Cobalt Anti-Tank Complete with color-coded lascannons, though the green and yellow are a bit too close to each other. Should have made one of them red.
	Cobalt Assault Two guys from Cobalt assault teams. The guy on the right has an underwrist computer, complete with keyboard. Exactly what I would carry into a close quarters boarding action...
	Cobalt Assault Two more assault troopers, this time with more sensible weaponry.
	Cobalt Assault The final pair of assault troopers. They seem to have a heavier version of the standard Cobalt blaster, which is perfect reason for shooting it one-handed.
	Cobalt Forces Grand view of the Cobalt forces, complete with some token opposition to make a more dramatic setting ;)
	Cobalt Grav Cars Actually, these are not Cobalt miniatures from West Wind at all. I think they are from Grenadier's Future Wars line, but I'm not really sure. I just happened to paint them in the Cobalt color scheme, so they got included here.
	Cobalt Grav Car Resin body, white metal wings and engines. Pretty standard construction. Due to resing casting process, the bottom is utterly featureless.
	Cobalt Grav Car The batch of Cobalts and Stealers was really too large, 40 figures total. By the time I got to these puppies, I just wanted to get them off my painting desk, which explains the rather light detailing. You shouldn't paint when tired, bored and fed up with it - but if you don't, you never finish anything.
	Cobalt Grav Car Rear view. The lack of detailing is painfully evident here.
	Cobalt Grav Cars Top view. Should have put in more red visible from this angle.
	Cobalt HQ There are actually three different leader types in the range, but the third was too heavily armed in my opinion to really fit in with the HQ, so he got posted with the lascannon fellows.
	Cobalt Forces And here's the obligatory overhead view. Actually the inclusion of the genestealers relates only to the fact that these two sets of figures were finished at the same time.
	Cobalt Forces A total of 30 brave Cobalt mercs, arrayed in three squads, assault section, support section and HQ. Oh, and the air support ofcourse.
	Cobalt Forces Cobalts head on.