Quarrel

This is a nice change, an evil little Decepticon. This figure was made from splicing up two others and adding plasticard.

Quarrel can transform into a recon helicopter and is renown for his tracking skills.

It's nice to make some smaller 'cons' to beef out the numbers.

 

Watercolor course

I've just finished a course of five watercolour basic lessons after being inspired by Vic Reeves. They were held in a beautiful old farm house in Milton Keynes. The property was bought by artists back in the 60's and still houses a number of artists in residence today.

I had to miss the first lesson as a Fallow deer ran into the side of the car and wrote it off. However, the subsequent basic lessons were fun with loads of handy tips. Practice is the main thing though and that's what I need to work on now. So don't be surprised if you start seeing a load of watercolour hobby cartoons.

 The old part of the house is full of character so I had to take some pictures.

This beautiful door is actually a painting, from a short distance away the 3D effect is very good.

 

Bob Ross trees, well it had to be done.

 What a lovely old place.

Acid Storm

Its time to scramble a new attack wave of Seekers. The 'Rain makers' are a nice quick option for a paint job. I've tweaked my version a little bit to add some more detail on his legs. The yellow is a nod to a later version of the character.

 Below are two versions of Acid Storm, the earlier one showing the yellow details.

Below can be seen the other two 'Rain makers', Nova storm and Ion storm. I'm hoping that some Contrast paint over a white undercoat will create the right neon colours.

Confederate Infantry

Come on guys, sort it out! A rather disorganised bunch of Rebs dry off in the sun. For a change I brushed this batch with Dark Tone Dip. It drys so much quicker than Strong Tone and should work just as well on the browns.

Funny enough, six bases makes up a simple Regiment in Bonnie Blue Flag. These generic soldiers will be defined by the State standard they march under, be that Texas, North Carolina etc.

I couldn't help trying out all of the different fine line markers to do trouser and blanket patterns. This just adds some nice detail to the ranks and is very easy to do.

 

Heavy Metal!

This is my Autobot I've called Volley. He can transform into an armour tank that can unleash a withering volley of rockets, hence his name. My first design and paint job didn't really live up to the name, so I tweaked him a bit. A couple of extra rocket launchers seem to make more sense as did some more armour. This was good as it took him away from the 'car' look.

He joins the other tank Bots, Recoil and Impactor.

 It's quite hard designing the colours, I try to stick to three for a good toy look.

Creating Impactor

I really loved the character of Impactor in the new Netflix series. After buying an old comic and finding out his origin, I decided I had to create him. My version will be an early form in the early war stages to justify his appearance.

Impactor lead a group of commando Autobots in the comics and this unit would be great to game with. So Impactor got the green light and went into the assembly line. I used a small Optimus Prime figure as a starting point and added bits of plasticard for detail.

I loved his shoulder mounted cannon, mine might be a tad oversized but I like it that way. A meaty weapon that forms the main gun in his tank mode.

I used the corrugated plastic again to create tank tracks, this time flaring them out on the side of the legs. Making these bots is very fun and rewarding, I never thought I'd ever be able to war game with Transformers.

My oversized gun gets more greeblies on it, can you ever have enough...?

I quite liked the fact that a lot of his detail is made up of GW tank tracks. It just seemed right as he changes into a tank, they just gave him the right vibe. 

The character from the Netflix series, complete with his harpoon hand. I wasn't sure if to give mine this feature, but in the end I found a subtle Lego bit that worked.

Making these guns and robots has lead me to think about one day creating a space fleet of starships. I think it could be easily done, or maybe create some larger captital ships for a smaller range. Anyway one thing leads on to another in this hobby, I think it could be done.

I do love his shoulder cannon, you can see why he was such a formidable fighter.

Right at the start, a little Prime figure waits for his plastic surgery.
 UPDATE: Impactor lives!