Sunday, January 16, 2011

Miniatures Feature: Prussian Bombers

Here's a look at my newly painted Prussian bombers in Field Grey(Reaper color).
My Prussian ships are a blue-grey(Reaper's Uniform Blue), so I wanted my aircraft to have a bit of a contrast(not being navy-borne)...
As with everything Dystopian Wars, I love the clever sculpting and the little details that Spartan Games puts into these models(pipes, planks, coils- all the steam-punkey goodness)...

I will continue to plug away on my Brits and my Prussians and post when more is done...thanks to all who took a peek, and feel free to click below to see a video overview of this project:

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Miniatures Feature: Prussian Prototypes

Well I finally painted a couple of my Prussian ships.
Nothing ground-breaking, just a good old-fashioned "Uniform Blue"(Blue-Grey) armor scheme(though the light in pics washes them out a bit and they appear a lighter grey, sorry)...
I love the look of the German ships, their sleek and low to the water design speaks to the speed that the game designers worked into the rules system...

For my cruiser there aren't many frills, I wanted this Germanic fleet to be all business, no pleasure, so I kept the scheme simple.  I did, however, add the tricolor flag design to the cruiser's smokestacks...

I chose a darker/"redder" wood than my Britannian vessels to give the ships a different feel...this I washed with black and then went back in and lined in the plans with the original "Ruddy Brown"(Reaper) to make them more visible...

I picked out some of the electrical weapons/generators with a little Exile Blue from the P3 line to simulate electrical-type weaponry.

Again, if you are interested, check out my video of these ships below:

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Minis Feature: Britannian Aircraft

I finally managed to paint the Doncaster Bomber and some Britannian Tiny Flyers.  At first I was intimidated by the diminutive aeroplanes but once brush went to resin/metal, the fun began!

 For my bomber and most of the Flyers I went with a traditional Olive Drab color scheme...R.A.F. style.  
I love the sculpting and design of the Doncaster, especially the planks on the top...too cool.
I've been following many peoples' Tiny Flyers here on the Spartan Games boards for scheme ideas.  I decided not to "mix and match" aircraft from different nations to represent different types of planes as I like the idea of each aircraft being style-matched to its nation.  However, I wanted to be able to look at my planes and pick out "what was what" on a gameboard.  The above pic shows my plan...Olive Drab for land-based planes and sea grey for naval aircraft.  The colors to the side denote type of plane as identified by color on their tails...Red=Fighter, White=Recon, Yellow=Torpedo, Blue=Dive Bombers.
The above pic shows the scheme for land-based vs. sea-based planes.  Painting the wing insignia was challenging but I pulled it off to my satisfaction.
 The above pic shows all four types of land-based planes(note tail color variations) and a squadron of naval fighters(grey with red tails).  Also, note that I painted a small "one man" cockpit on the fighters and an elongated one on all other squadron types to denote the fact they likely have more than one pilot/crewman.

Anyways, obviously I've got more to do but those are my prototypes.
Click on the video link below for a full video description of the project...

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Britannia Miniatures Feature I

Well I finished painting up my first five miniatures for Dystopian Wars...four Frigates and a Cruiser from the Britannia Naval Battle Group. 
I chose a very straightforward paint scheme with a beige(P3 Hammerfall Khaki) for the hull and a dark steel and bronze for the piping and machinery.  I drybrushed the dark steel with a lighter steel to bring out the details and washed the bronze bits with a brown-yellow ink mixture followed by just a wash of brown ink.
 The small sections of wood planking were basecoated with a medium brown(P3 Bootstrap Leather) and given a wash of black ink to bring out the details in the planks.  Window portals were painted black with highlights of dark blue, then light blue, then a speck of white. 
I decided to magnetize the turrets on the cruiser and I like the effect.  The guns can swivel freely without fear of losing them and I will also magnetize the shield generators which are interchangeable with the turrets.
In fact I embedded magnets in the bottom of my whole fleet for easy transport in a metal-bottomed carrying case.  The small 1/8" magnets have quite a hold as shown below...
 Additonally, I printed out labels for the ships for a little "flavor"(or fluff if you will).  I glued these to the bottom of the ships and sealed over them using Mod Podge(a transparent matte craft sealer).
 I am very happy with the way the first few minis turned out.  Like my other favorite minis maker(Privateer Press), Spartan Games' sculptors have made some beautiful models that are a joy to paint.  Great miniatures seem to have a little voice that say "paint me" if you know what I mean.  I look forward to working on more of the fleet and getting cracking on my Prussian fleet as well. 

Thanks for visiting the blog, and for a video version of this Miniatures Feature, click on the video below...

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Dystopian Wars Unboxing

Hi everyone- welcome to the inaugural post of Dystopian Steam.  I am a veteran Warmachine player now dabbling in Spartan Games' great "Dystopian Wars" miniatures game.  I have uploaded a video to my Youtube channel(Dystopian Steam) showing the unboxing of the Britannia Naval Battle Group starter set.  Click on the video below to take a peek...

Thursday, December 30, 2010