Cultural Learnings of Painting for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Nomads

Thanks so much for the feedback, guys!

Well, I have something new for you – my Grenzer conversion :)



Which puts me at three Grenzers – only two more to go to reach full AVA :P



And here's another one-on-one comparison between my first one from last year and the new one. I mainly amped up the OSL of the lights and added more olive. Otherwise they don't differ too much:

 

And as we know, lighting is half of all painting skills :P

Alright guys, I'm happy to announce another new project. It's time for

Operation Crimson Stone



This is the first time since I started with the hobby again that I actually bought a Corvus Belli product the same month it was released. Feels like a big deal to me. I'm super excited!

And since not everything in this box will be Nomads, here's another story I want to share. Let's begin with a few concept designs:




Those are artworks from an artist named Nivanh Chanthara. I first came upon his works many years ago when he published the first sketches of his "Babiru" project, which I found simply breathtaking (and which I still hope will be turned into a video game one day but which apparently has a tv show in production rn):






Ever since then, I kept an eye on this guy's stuff. And when I saw those artworks above, I knew that I had found something I wanted to use as the basis of my next army:

Kosmoflot

– or, as my actual working title for the project is, Kosmofem:



My goal: To build an entire Kosmoflot sectorial with only female minis. Why? One reason is that I just like most of the female minis more than the male ones. Another is that I simply liked the idea of an all-female space corps in the otherwise (as it feels to me) very hyper-masculine Ariadnan society.

However, because there are obviously not nearly enough female models for all the Kosmoflot profiles, the army will be almost entirely kitbashed and/or done with proxies. Only a handful of models like the Rokots, Zenith-7 and SAS will actually use the official models. The rest... well, you'll see.

I also decided not to open a new thread this time, since a bunch of these models will come out of the Crimson Stone box, and I wanted to have the finished box all in one place at the end.

Why Kosmoflot though? When I heard that this year's two-player box would feature Nomads and Ariadna, I knew I wanted in, and I also knew I wanted to try a new army and a new style of painting after I was done with my NCA.

That's where we come back to Nivanh Chanthara's artworks. Seeing his style, I decided I wanted to try completely different color schemes for each unit, held together only by browns and blacks as well as the fact that all those colors are very muted. This pastel/low saturation style would give me the chance to try out something I neither did with my bright, shiny Nomads nor with my dirty, speed-painted NCA.

Alright. I know I tend to talk too much while all you want is to see pretty minis. So here's my first test on what will be my Rokots:


Since I needed a third female Rokot next to the two ladies from Crimson Stone to play the box, I converted a Line Kazak with a head from Puppetswar. Turns out they are a little bit bigger than the usual Infinity helmets, but considering that most of the helmets in Infinity are way too small to realistically fit around a human head, I thought I'd just go ahead anyway.

Finally, here's a side-to-side with the artwork she's based off of:



What do you think? As always, I'll be happy to read your comments, questions and criticism!

 

Thanks for the feedback guys! I think the main thing I have a problem with is not so much the head size on the individual model itself, but the side-by-side with th other models with "normal" head sizes. You can see it in the group picture of the conversions. Compare the Monstrucker (which will be my Irmandinho) with the Frontovik (which will be my Unknown Ranger). The Monstrucker herself looks good, but next to the Frontovik she looks weird.

I already sent Puppetswar a message asking if they can do custom scaling. Waiting for a reply. If yes, I'll order some more heads, but scaled down 15 percent.

 

Thank you for the offer! I really appreciate it. If I knew where to get good 28mm scifi helmet stl files, I might take you up on it :D Anyone have any suggestions? Monstrous Makings only has one set and I don't like it.

 

Totally true. And you're right, consistency will be the biggest issue.

I've heard back from Puppetswar. They can do it. I've sent them a list of the heads I want and they said they'll get back to me next week.

Now the only question is: how much would you say the heads need to be reduced in size to fit in with the rest of the Infinity crowd? I told them 15 percent, but tbh that's just a guess. What would you say? More? Less?

For reference, here are some more conversions. My Alguaciles all got different heads too because I didn't like a single one of the new ones. The heads are: Katana Morlock for the female, Bounty Hunter and JSA Spec Ops for the males.

 

You could always sell the ones you already have ;) That's what I did with mine. Sold my old BSG Hellcat, engineer Tomcat and three Alguaciles. The rest of the original Alguaciles will serve as Moderators now, which makes much more sense anyway considering their old and very bright paint scheme.

Which leaves room for new Alguaciles with a new paint scheme:



I tried to find the perfect balance between the very bright Moderators (old Alguaciles) and the dark Securitate, while still avoiding any orange since they're line troopers. I'm very happy with the result. Here's a side-by-side:



Edit: Zooming in I noticed my old Alguacile lady really needs a dusting XD