Not “Dune 1984”

The mat is from Deep-Cut Studio is named Dunes.

Now i’m more mobile with this, than with my build board.

A big thanks from me for the votes and all nice words. And the community spotlight.

I was in vacation when this came and all to busy since them.

Be sure, i will return to the desert planet. The Landsraad has some troops too.

On the last weeks before the Tactica i wanted to do my sand-worm, shai-hulud. When i bought the revell ornithopter i also was lucky to get the sand-worm. At first i wanted to do it myself modelling the sand-worm by hand (could not be so hard). Well it was harder than i thought. So i stopped that. And then i wanted 2 sandworms: one emerging from the sand and attacking and one to ride by the fremen (this one still waits to be done).

So i returned to the revell sand-worm (i love that it is so nice in scale for what i was needed):

What i disliked, was that the model has a opening for the throat, but it was very bad executed. So i did it myself like in the first pic above:

And then i thought it missed the teeths, from which the fremen do crys-knifes (how do they get them?).  So i took tooth picks and cutted them to size and form which i wanted. These i inserted in the green stuff or glued them inside the throat:

Worked quite well.

Next problem was the sand the sand-worm would emerge from. I thought about a rolling sandwave (do you know a way to model dust waves 😉 ?)

I painted the inside of the throat before glueing it inside the opening, because i was not sure if, i later could reach the bottom of the throat. Think, before doing.

I also primed the modell before glueing the throat in. Then i glued more tooth picks in.

The inside of the mouth was painted in a flesh tone and then washed with a sepia and flesh wash mix.

The skin of the worm was painted in a mix of flesh and light earth/sand colours.

Base in the same colour of the board.

I’m totally surprised myself with the result. And i think it was one of the key-models and most photographed models in the display on the Tactica. It played a vital role in the 2nd scenario, because the fremen with the thumper could call it in like a bombardment and in later turns it would randomly attack the non-fremen, who does the most noisy sounds 😉

So that is mostly what i did. I think all people at the Tactica who came by at our table loved it.

Pink Uncorn: doing an interview

Impression from the Tactica. By the way we have many visitor from the UK and neigboring countries.

We saw tanks and buggys, but the most utile vehicle ist the ornithorper.

I was very lucky to find a Revell ornithopter with a affordable price tag:

I also bought 2 ornithopters/flyers from puppets war, which i really can recommend:

https://puppetswar.eu/product.php?id_product=187

The 2nd one with the container looks to be missing.

Sadly i was not able till now to finish those flyers (they had no use for the Tactica scenarios i did). I hope to finish those in the next year.

Then i found those ornithopters/flyers:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/978361943/the-kore-aeronautics-larc-a-vtol-for-32mm-sci-fi-w

When i received them (just in time), well i wont hide it, they were not the best quality models. So it took some time with warm water bending, cutting and filling holes. But when done, primed and painted these came out quite well:

Next post something different… another beast.

And now to something different… another beast.

On my schedule there were some characters to be done.

And maybe Rabban is the boss on Arrakis, till his beheading. But there is another Boss for the whole House Harkonnen. The Baron. Valdimir Harkonnen.

And to finish the line for i needed one last piece of artillery, which is a Sig-33. The crew has a head swap from Mad Robots range.

You may ask why this modell? It is not shown in the movie. Well this piece is quite usefull on arrakis, were no one else uses artillery pieces, because of the use of shields. But we see the Atreides had a traitor, who sabotaged the shield generator.  So castle arrakeen was unprotected from artillery. Another point is, Shield don’t work very good in the desert. They tend to overload, like to be seen in the battle with the corrino. And last shields in the desert attract worm. So placed on a protected postion these were of much use.

Next post something different.

Suits. Here we have them. The mysterious navigators guild. Moving without moving. I would love to insert the scene where the 3rd stage navigator meets the emporer. But i was unable to find a clip.

Well the first one to do was this buddy:

Well i have another small one. But he is not painted atm. So i did a 2nd stage navigator like Edric, who was to be seen in the mini-series:

I wanted to present this buddy in a tank filled with spice gas. With a 3D-modelling program i constructed a bottom and top part for the tank, which i sent over to a 3D-printing service after some preparation. It came out quite nice. For the tube i used a acrylic-glass tube. The spice gas is a orange-coloured woll. The black parts of the tank are sprayed with a black gloss spray.

And then i came to this masterpiece of the 3rd stage navigator, which i almost ruined in the painting/spraying process:

I was quite lucky to get this unavailable model. The painting of the navigator was easy. Painting a light flesh colour then sepia washing and cleaning. Adding the eyes and done.

The tank was quite harder. Using the minatures size and the movie prob used in the movie i constructed a multi-part model. So it would not cost to much in the printing process. I had 2 bottom parts, 4 top parts, 1 acrylic tube halved and 2 sheets of acylic glass. At the end it still was quite expensive, but it is a unique part, which i wanted hard.  I sprayed the model in a black gloss (don’t use this spray under 10°C, trust me, don’t, never. You will almost ruin the model). In the end i did it in cellar, with a breathing mask and after this i opened all windows. Never do this. But time was running.

And i love this model. Almost perfect.

From one beast to another. Next post comes another kind of beast.

Well here we are, returning to the to people of the desert, known as Fremen.

At first i thought i now have enough of them. But now i think, i need more of them, the size of the population of them was hidden from us. I now have 47 including the characters. For bigger games i need more. So i’m looking in the Freeborn from Gates of Antares or fighters from Akula. But my original source seems to be closed. Or we see them from Gale Force Nine. We will see.

Because there was not much variation on my miniatures, i did some head swap (Hasslefree), weapons swaps (sniper-rifle, missle launcher, thumper, some weirding modules) and bending.

Also did some hidden markers.

In the movie from 1984 most of the fremen wear black still suits. Especially the main characters. Mostly these were covered in a very thick dust. which i tried to replicate with pigments.

From one batch of fremen to the next i tried to get a little lighter. For adding shadow i used agrax earthshade and when dried on this the pigments (light yellow ocre from Vallejo). I also painted the with of the eyes with light blue, but due to the flash, it is not good visible.

Next post on guild.

In the both movie versions the main battles on Arrakis happen in Arrakeen. There were more battlesites. But these were the important ones. First House Harkonnen and Sardaukar vs the House Atreides and the 2nd one Fremen vs House Harkonnen and House Corrino.

What did i need. Mostly flat houses, like we see them in the middle east today. Here are some references:

On the same way i found most of my terrain. Here are some of my sources:

https://www.ziterdes.de/wustenzuflucht.html

https://www.ziterdes.de/wustenzuflucht-ii.html

Mud Brick House

To these i added some extra like wooded frames for glass windows and more to give some variation. These were cheap, but needed much filling on the gaps.

https://www.miniaturebuildingauthority.com/products.asp?cat=28mm+Middle+Eastern+Series&pg=2

Scatter Terrain and other pieces from Micro Art Studio.

I mostly started with base coat of zandri dust. Then washed them with agrax earthshade. When dried i, i drybrushed all of them.

On a similar way i did the scatter terrain (which i also use in Freebooters Fate now):

These were needed the first time in out test games for the Tactica.

Next post i will return to the miniature side of this project. Long life the fighters.