Ghorgons and Giants and Bloodthirsters... oh my!

This month has been quite a hectic one, and has included painting up these three monsters for Turbo Tape Games, a Norwegian computer game company that is working with a Warhammer license.

I know that the Ghorgon is being used as a prize in a promotional launch competition for Turbo Tape Games' iOS game Warhammer: Arcane Magic. Here's the promotional text from the Arcane Magic site:

Turbo Tape Games is pleased to announce a contest for an exclusive Ghorgon miniature hand-painted by Dave Taylor! The Ghorgon is a many-limbed, ox-headed slaughterer, possessed of an urgent need to devour and destroy anything it can catch -- and there are more than 60 individual skulls making up this Ghorgon model that had to be painted separately. Painter Dave Taylor has been working in the wargaming industry since 1994. Through his production studio, Dave Taylor Miniatures, Dave has built, converted and painted thousands of miniatures for a variety of games. To participate in the contest, please visit arcanemagicgame.com

Head to the site, click on the widget in the right and follow the instructions. This competition is open to most folks around the globe, and it would be super cool if the winner was also a regular reader of this blog : )

I leave you with a few shots of the Gorgon you could win : )

Cheers
Dave

Vroom! Vroom! - Nux car under construction.

Obviously, one of the coolest Fury Road cars is the Nux car. It is generally noted as being a '32 five-window Ford coupe, but it turns out that it's actually a '33 or '34 Chevy. Anyway, tracking down something suitable in 1:64 scale is a pain in the butt.

I was incredibly lucky to stumble upon this beauty while I was away in Europe (in a cool toy shop in Florence). It's not the same (the roof has been lowered for a start) but it's the closest I've come to the original, so it's the one I'm going with : )

I've just started messing around with the thundersticks, so they are currently blu-tacked in. I'll adjust their lengths to match the top picture and glue them in once the car is painted.

The fleet continues to grow!

Cheers
Dave

Why so quiet?

Well, I've been hard at work wrapping up the display/demo table for Relic Knights that will make its debut at GenCon next week. I talked a lot with John Cadice (Creative Director at Ninja Division) and we decided on a lovely mix of bubblegum pop and edgy grunge - imagine a Cerci hab-district assembled from pre-fab components fifty years ago, and then left to decay, with inhabitants that don't really give a damn about upkeep. Unsavory characters have moved in and the area has drawn some Star Nebula Corsairs, ready to plunder.

I then went to work with Alex Landing from Ironheart Artisans, designing the pre-fab parts that would make up the district, and generally looking for ways to add layers of detail and character to the board. It's taken a while to get it to this point, including quite a few late nights (cutting into my regular hobby time).

I hope you like these pics. I'll post a few more teasers on the Dave Taylor Miniatures FB page over the next week, but if you'd like to see it in person be sure to head to Booth 1943 at GenCon to check it (and the game of Relic Knights) out.

Cheers
Dave

Vroom! Vroom! - finally, more cars are rolling!

After my last post (HERE), I was pretty excited about building and painting little cars again. Here's the painted version of my modern day ride, the Flammencruizer!

I painted the whole car in the polished silver first, and then added the rusty patches and rusty flames.

And at the same time I painted up the silver Interceptor, known to the Fury Road production crew as Razor Cola. I think it turned out pretty nicely. Once I've decided how I want to do the spike droppers I'll add those to the rear.

Having a handful of the parts I sculpted for Brigade Games on hand, all I had to do was trawl through my box of loose cars and pick out a few to glue stuff on. As I wanted some quick progress, I chose these two "Jurassic World" vehicles to get the minimal activity treatment. No cutting, drilling, or grinding, just gluing. The one on the left already has a very interesting profile; lots of lumps, bumps, and random stowage. The one on the right felt like a really solid beast, so it got the heavy ramplate, and armor plates all round. Both received machine guns, the one on the left a .50-cal style, the right a mini-gun style.

And I glued a harpoon launcher and a flamer onto my monster truck, my take on Bigfoot.

Until next time!

Cheers
Dave

Vroom! Vroom! - Vehicle Conversion Parts are now available!!!

Shortly after we started messing around with Car Wars (and I went off on my Fury Road tangent), I was contacted by Lon Weiss from Brigade Games. He asked me to sculpt up a bunch of weapon and armor options for folks to add to their Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars. I was quite excited about it all, as you can imagine : )

Well, the first shots of the sprue arrived on my doorstep the other day. I was quite excited to get them out and onto the workbench. Above you can see the weapons (and weapons-related) sprues. I tried to go for a nice mix of weapons based on both the Car Wars options and a few that would allow/encourage an homage to the Mad Max films. I didn't want to go exclusively "Mad Max" in the look of the weapons, but wanted a heavy "Deathrace" vibe too.

From left to right, top to bottom, we have:

• 3 mini-gun style weapons with drum magazines.
• 3 .50 cal style machine guns with belt-feed ammo boxes.
• 4 rockets and 1 paint/oil sprayer.
• 2 flamethrowers and 1 arrow-launcher (based on Mad Max 2/Road Warrior).
• 7 yokes - these can be attached to any part of a car/truck and accept any of the weapons.
• 1 harpoon launcher, 1 laser gun, 1 sonic gun, and 1 mine dropper.
• 1 two-weapon turret and 2 one-weapon turrets - these accept any of the weapons.

And here are the armor and accessory sprues. Again, there's not a complete "Mad Max" feel, but a blend with "Deathrace" and other movies of the genre.

From left to right, top to bottom, we have:

• 4 wheel armor plates and 1 hood/roof plate.
• 6 armor plates plates - 4 designed for the sides and side windows, 2 designed for the windscreen.
• 4 larger armor plates - for where ever you'd like.
• 2 pairs of exhausts and 1 supercharger.
• 2 heavy ramplates.
• 2 light ramplates and 2 pieces of heavy rear armor plating.
• The Interceptor kit: stowage, exhausts, nose cone, supercharger - these can be used to make your very own "last of the V8 Interceptors" (as seen at the start of MM:FR).

You can pick and choose the sprues you want direct from the Brigade Games webstore.

Here are a couple of pursuit cars I made up yesterday from the parts. The first is my conversion of the PT Cruiser sent to me by my friend Nathan. Yes, it used to look just like my real-life car.

Parts used: flamethrower, twin-pipe exhausts, side armor plates, light ramplate, and stowage.

The second car I HAD to make was the re-fitted version of Max's Interceptor ridden by War Boys from MM:FR.

I used the parts from the Interceptor kit (except the stowage), added a second supercharger on top of the first, glued the mine dropper under the rear and puttied it in as a fuel tank, and then added the arrow launcher to the rear. The launcher doesn't look exactly like the one used in Fury Road, but I like the look and the nostalgic connection to MM2. I added a strip of plasticard to the underside of the nose cone, and sculpted a tiny skull atop the superchargers : )

And finally a look back at the MM:FR Interceptor you can make from the Brigade Games kit (plus a Ford XB Falcon from Hot Wheels).

Cheers
Dave

Do you remember when...

...I was working on my Imperial Knights?

I worked on some "custom decals" for my 30K version of the House Taranis iconography. These were pretty darn cool. A huge thank you to my friend Chris for tackling the printing of these for me.

There was only one real let down with the decals I had made. They didn't have white areas on them. Basically, if I wanted white, I'd have to paint over the decals once they were applied (or very carefully paint the white on the surface and apply the decals over it).

Well, those days are no more, because a long-time friend of the blog - Ron Gamble/Eye of Error - has launched a Kickstarter to create a business that can provide YOU (and me) with custom decals that INCLUDE WHITE!!!

I invite you all to head on over to his Kickstarter (HERE) that is almost funded, and get in early on the action!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1388656630/fallout-hobbies-custom-decal-shop?ref=nav_search

Cheers

Dave