Out of the box and on display

Well some of them at least.  Given that I had boxes of minis and no where to put them I decided it wsa time to learn woodworking and make a display cabinet.  And it cost about as much to make a new one the size I wanted as buy a new one. and mine is better!.    So I designed a solid model, then learned how to use a router and wood tools and ... a month or two later a cabinet!.  But of course this holds only like half of my models... I need to upgrade the number of shelves later.

The Zep Dreadnaught, still incomplete

The air fleet  from Crimson skies facing off against our ww2 fighters. 

 The UFO invaders vs the human x-com troops

 the battlestar fleets

 some random ships

 and a bunch of cars and stuff that will probably go back in a box in favor of other models.

Tshirts

Because I never have just one project going,  i had been playing with turning some boring shirts into something a bit more interesting.  I drew some stencils, cut them out of cereal boxes and sprayed through them  A few of the shirts took a couple sprays as you really have to iron this stuff hot to make it fix.

 First, a basic interesting design.

 Combined with a new stencil and skull.

 An alien/zerg/whatever

 While Im at it try black and try a Protoss

 Reuse of old stencil on black shirt

And a new skull design

WW2 Fighters Wave 5

Last batch for now.
A ww2 US lockheed P-38 Lightning

 WW2 Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero, Kate, Nakajima B5N

WW2 British Hawker Hurricane

WW2 US P51 Mustangs

And steel versions of the P51 mustangs

And finally the WW2 Grumman F6F Hellcat

WW2 and Crimson Skies Fighters wave 4

And now for a set of WW2 fighters, same 200th scale painted in accurate'ish camo all airbrushed as usual.
















A Curtis Wright XP-55 ascender.  I had this designed up and printed in my dreamfoundry shop on shapeways since no one made it with sufficient detail.  I really liked this design so I had several printed to play with their paintjobs.

A Ju 87 stuka divebomber

A Ju 88A-11 German Bomber

A CS William and Colt Peacemaker from the Crimson skies universe

 A bare metal CS Sanderson FB14 Vampire (crimson skies)

And another vampire painted in dazzle to match the Mazikeen as one of its escort fighters.

The Airship Destroyer: Mazikeen

Named from a Jewish demon, this Jewish naval ship patrols the sky protecting the holdings and operations of its citizenry.  A state of the art destroyer capable of taking on ships twice its size with a combination of speed, agility, and raw firepower.  With an enormous counter rotating turbo-prop main drive and an impressive array of rapidly deployed mechanically controlled sails the Mazikeen can outrun any ship in its class.  and keep up with some frigates.

It boasts a main deck gun with 3 barrels  that can deliver long range artillery,  flak,  or ship killer rounds.  A 6 pack of rockets typically loaded with a few ship killers and a few broad area flak rounds to make short work of incoming squadrons and pirate airships.  a handful of heavy caliber deck guns hold their own against fighters and even mid sized corvettes and smaller frigates.   A huge serrated prow blade allows for collision courses to be pretty one sided as it can shred the top of a zepplin or tear the sails or heavy gantry struts of other large craft.  Finally, the Ventral spine boasts 4 cradles that can carry up to heavy-figher class escorts making this cruiser a bit of a pocket carrier in a pinch.   This state-of-the-art destroyer is not to be taken lightly.   It has its own messages for pirates on the aft string of signal flags.

More fighters coming soon.
Also looking closely you will see two Sanderson Vampires, one Hughes Devastator and one Hughes Bloodhawk docked on the ventral cradles.  I magnetized some of these models to allow for easily attachment and removal from the cradles on all of the equipped airships.  

Crimson Skies Wave 3 Fighters

A Russian Devastator camo'ed for the harsh Siberian winters.  A custom logo modification of the hammer and sickle... with gear. 

 A generic painted Avenger

  

A Firebrand in desert camo Flown by the Valkyries (custom logo)

And a Tesla Aircraft Misericorde .  Apparently Tesla likes *lightning* fast aircraft. (again custom Tesla logo)

Crimson Skies Fighters wave 2

 Bloodhawks belonging to Tesla Aircraft (notice the slightly modified logo for the time period) and the Gearheads (yea its a gears of war logo, but it seemed theme appropriate for diesel punk) 

 Hinted at earlier the Black Gold Brigand heavy fighter running escort for Texaco. Again, period appropriate logo.

 A competing Brigand flying for Mobileoil with another period appropriate logo.

And last the Hells angels flying a Fury and Avenger appropriately.  The logo is of a succubi and a gear. 

Crimson skies dieselpunk fighters from Iron Wind Metals

The Airship Blockade Runner Type Corvette Known Only as 343.

This captured naval blockade running strike bomber was somehow captured by pirates.  No one knows how but they couldn't have asked for a meaner little corvette.  Not mounting much for long range weapons the 343 typically is escorted by fighters as it charges through pickets.  It wastes no "fuel efficiency" on sails instead relying on a relatively enormous prop to propel this heavily armored ship through enemy lines, and sometimes right through enemy sails using its lateral sail cutters to shred its enemies ability to give chase.   6ea 70 caliber cannons under the nose allow it to chew through most ships in its path or strafe a path of destruction on enemy fortifications. It has two dorsal flak cannons to ward off fighters and can carry an explosive bomb so powerful many in an alternate time line would think it is a mini nuke. While the only official name appears to be the 343,  rumor in the pirate community is the crew often refer to it as the penetration.

Though fast it is not nimble and any strike is typically a single pass.  No one knows why the 343 was taken though some suspect it is now used to run contraband knowing few forces are likely to spot this small sleek ship in time and no reasonably sized patrol can prevent its passing.  The captain known for his vulgar signal flag messages fails to disappoint and may be making some reference to the unofficial name and function of this airship.    

Lightning jack's Cutter Shiv Class Airship

Lightning Jack, once known however briefly as Jumpin jack is back and takes no S#$# from anyone.  His previous crew  of the Jako'lantern themed for pumpkin carvings and glowing pumpkins thrown at  ships during boarding operations died in their sleep one night after a pumpkin light jack on fighter causing him to jump around before putting it out.  The name jumpin jack stuck.. for the night.. until he set the entire ship on fire and took off in a captured autogyro to start over.   Somehow he got a new crew (that shows 'em proper respect) and this incredibly fast Cutter class ship he uses it to make lighting raids on unsuspecting cargo haulers and cruise liners.  His cutter has been upgraded with a launch rail for anti-ship Rockets that should be out of this cutter's class,  a huge ballista like harpoon for snairing its prey, and a few deck guns to ward off fighters.  Never take for granted the resourcefulness of those who aim to misbehave.
The prow has also been refitted with a sail shredder allowing the Jacks ship to scream in and quickly shred through a main sail while then latching on with a harpoon and suppressing the prey's crew with the deck guns.  Jack is a nasty bit of work and rarely spends more than a few minutes on a captured ship before making his escape.  an incredibly effective tactic that has allowed him to escape some impressive relief forces sent to rescue his hapless prey. 

He too has a parting message in signal flags on the aft section of the ship. with the impressive array of sails and the trio of turboprops for propulsion, only fighters with long range have any chance of catching up if he has a head start. 

Crimson skies: Fortune hunter Devastator ON FIRE! + other fighers

Lets start off with a classic from the crimson skies universe,  a Fortune hunter Hughes Devestator with a flaming paint job for Zach.  I got these fighters from Iron wind minis a looong time ago. time to let them see the light of day.

Followed by some Crimson Skies fighters for the Yakuza

A Fairchild Brigand, A Hughes Aviation Bloodhawk, And a W&D Raven

And to keep the silliness going, some Russian fighters from our WW2 history.  Two USSR Migs escorting an Ilyushin Shturmovik ground attack craft. 

Texaco Oil Tanker: Texas Teapot

Next we have an oil tanker from Texaco complete with period appropriate (or so I think) logo. 
The martime signal flags on this one is advertising a vacant crew slot for work though you'll need to translate it yourself. 

The tanker is named the "Texas Teapot" for its cargo.  Also a minimum air escort of a single attack craft is cradled below.  A Fairchild Brigand fighter called the "black gold" due to her black and gold paint scheme.  While you might expect a fuel tanker to need a larger fighter escort these texaco tankers have a nasty reputation of being suicidal.  Fitted with several high pressure nozzles facing several directions, it is able to spray a sizeable volume of fuel into a makeshift Fuel Air thermobaric explosive.  Any fighters charging it are likly to charge into a cloud of pre-saturated fuel which then ignites by their engines or a flair fired from the teapot or her escort fighter, and its game over.   If they believe they are going to loose anyway, captains have been known to set all nozzles to spray then jump overboard firing a time delayed flair as they fall.  To date no hostile hijacking of a texaco fuel tanker has been successful.  Dont F' with Texans and their Tea!

Pulp WW2 airships spotted

After frankly years of backburnering this project time and again Ive finally made a solid push over the past few months to get a big chink of the fleets finished.

The inspiration was from crimson skies aircraft pulling from a pulp or dieselpunk ww2 era, but I felt they didnt go far enough.  Their airships were a little.. dull.  So many years ago I started kitbashing airships.  A hint was shown about 7-10 years ago with the large graf zepplin conversion (which still isnt finished being painted)  but more recently I started pushing through alternate airship designs.  I thought if we are taking zeps and adding more weight than they can possibly carry, why not go with sails and other fun or more exotic designs.  Now in the next few days/weeks ill post the progress.  I had to make myself stop painting and start taking pictures... because painting is always more fun when I can find time for it.

To start, a Yakuza yacht.  With 1 small ducted turboprop this thing can get decent speed and with the sails, its as fast as the wind.  .. mainly useful to get them away from rival gangs while their air cover mops up.  But nothing makes  a statement of elegance like 4 enormous sails.  With the right jet stream few fighters have the range to be a threat for long.  And it may look like a Yacht,  but never trust the Yakuza gangs from sneaking zepkiller rockets in place of their life boats. 

 

 Ive got about 4 more zeps  then a shload of fighters both from the CS universe and from our own WW2 history that should be posted in the next few... when I get around to it.

DS9: (site almost back to normal)

After a long time of being lazzy, and preferring to do real work rather than update a website I started refreshing the broken image links from the blog after the photobucket exodus.    But to kick off the repair work I will post a present I made for my mother, an avid DS9 fan.  For her birthday she got a DS9 and her choice of 3 ships, she chose the refit enterprise, the solar sail ship, and a Klingon BOP.   The background is just a gaming mat I made years ago for space games since it had a supermassive black hole with superluminal jets... that looks a bit like a wormhole.

all models, to the best of my ability, are roughly 1:2500 scale. 

Now back to the diesel-punk air armada!