Space Force Crashed in Claymore Country: My Kosmoflot turned CHA

Hey people, do any of you remember my Kosmoflot? I had posted about it in my Nomad thread back in 2021-2022 when I was still painting it.

Then I decided to make my Nomad thread Nomad-exclusive.

And then I found out that I didn't actually enjoy playing Kosmoflot and that you could bring four werewolves in Caledonia. Therefore, the spaceship my Kosmoflot division was originally on has now officially crashed in Tartar Territory and been absorbed by the wild clans of Caledonia.

That is to say, I will turn my existing Kosmoflot collection into a CHA army. Shouldn't take long, right?

BACKGROUND

Before we get into the new stuff, let's revisit this project's origins.

It all started with these wonderful artworks by the talented 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:






So I used his dirty yet colorful color schemes as inspiration for my Kosmoflot, enjoying the idea of painting each unit in a different scheme.

Here are a few examples of how that turned out:






And here's everything I painted for said Kosmoflot over the last two years:



NEW PROJECT

So, how to turn this into a Caledonian Highlander Army?

Well, this is my idea so far on how to use what I have as proxies:



Originally, the idea for the Kosmoflot project had been to make the whole army female (except for the animals). However, I've lately come around to prefer using the official model for a profile where possible, so for the missing units, I will try to get the real ones.

This puts the following minis on my (possible) wish list:

• McMurrough
• Highlander Greys (hard to get, but I already managed to find two HMGs)
• Mormaers
• Scots Guard
• Cadin (can proxy as a normal Wulver as well)
• Cameronians (extremely hard to get)
• Traktor Mul

I also might replace my Galwegian and Wallace proxies with the real deal.

Alright, enough talk, let's show off the army:

Caledonian Volunteers (Rokots/Line Kazaks/Kazak Doctor)


Highlander Cateran (Zenit-7)


112 (Dynamo)



Wardriver/Dozer (Brawler)

Isobel McGregor


Warcor (Bounty Hunter/Monstrucker conversion)


Highlander Greys (BSG) (Kaplan conversion, Polaris Controller)



S.A.S.



Uxia McNeill


Highlander Rifles 'Galwegians' (Brawler conversions [for now])


Cameronians (Duroc, Bearpode)



William Wallace (Margot Berthier [for now])


And finally, here is a bit more work in progress of what will be added to the army in the future:

McMurrough

I already shared this in the conversion thread, but since he belongs here, let me show you my McMurrough with a more reasonably sized Berenice and chain rifle:



Traktor Mul

I once built a Mulebot for my Pano out of a Traktor Mul and a PanO EVO bot. From that project, the respective other halves of each model were begging to be put together as well. Which is what the Traktor Mul for my CHA will be:



That's it for now. Looking forward to giving my Kosmoflot stragglers some kilts!

 

Alright, time to show off the first addition (and the first Ariadna mini I painted this entire year). I finished the Traktor Mul. Unlike the rest of the force, I simply copied the official studio scheme on that one.

Won me the latest round of the IGL Painting Contest, so I'm happy with that.

Check out the podcast episode too if you want to hear Diomedes and Doby Young (the last winner) talk eloquently about painting!

 

As soon as it started, my Caledonia project had to be put on hold again. Too many other projects that have priority right now. But here's another straggler that got painted together with the Traktor Mul back in September – the last Brawler I had converted into a Varangian Guard and who will now likely see use as a Highlander Rifle or a Volunteer paramedic:

 

So. Things took a sharp left turn. I had already acquired a bunch of original CHA sculpts last year, but then two things happened: First, my wife got pregnant (the kid is actually due any day now). And secondly, I realized that there was little sense in putting all these CHA models on my painting backlog when I had perfectly serviceable, already painted Ariadna models in my collection. What would I have done with the old ones afterward? Sold them?

In the end, this meant that I sold my CHA stuff to a local player who really wanted to start CHA, and thereby massively scale down my own project. Not that it ever got much of a reaction on here, but I just thought I'd mention it in case a couple of people are still following it.

So what's left? I kept both McMurrough sculpts, because I still need wolves. I also decided to whip out my leftover Minutemen models that originally served as a Volkolak and Kosmosoldat and actually paint them like Minutemen. But more on that in the future.

For now, I have at least one more model to show for my CHA – N3 McMurrough:

Spoiler: More angles

As a reference, I reused and slightly re-interpreted an artwork I had already used for my Zenit-7:

 

Thanks!

Now for something not very Caledonian: Minutemen.


Here's the thing: After I abandoned the idea of painting up all the old Scots, I still needed a Grey HMG proxy. The only really fitting model I had though was the Minutemen, who I had still left over from my conversion projects using the two female models for my original Kosmoflot project.

I might buy off my friend's USARF collection at some point in the future as well, and he has painted them all in the official studio scheme. So I thought "What the hell" and simply repurposed the two ladies back to Minutemen status with minimum effort and painted up the AP HMG as well in the process. They're all proxies anyway, right?

Minutemen AP HMG


Minutemen Boarding Shotgun


Minutemen AP Rifle

 

I hear at least old McMurrough is still available in some online shops. I found mine only a year ago.

Speaking of McMurrough and things that happened last year though – I won the Bromad Academy painting contest that one time, and as a reward, you get a blister of your choice for free.

I chose the new McMurrough.

I still wanted to be able to put 3 wolves on the table for my Caledonia list, and actual Cameronians are, as @Law Dawg correctly stated, impossible to get. So another McMurrough had to take the spot.

In order to keep all my Caledonia units unique, he not only got his own color scheme, but I also decided to base his coat on our dog's:

 

I don't get to paint a lot recently, but I did find some time to take group shots. Here are my four "wolves" for CHA:

 

I hadn't planned on adding anything to my Caledonia anytime soon. Then CB's painting contest came along...

In search of a mini that allowed me to try out some fancy ideas while finishing in time, my eyes eventually fell on the Caledonian Mormaer I had recently gotten for cheap. All my Ariadna minis have their own color scheme anyway, so there was no danger of messing with the coherency of the force, and since it's an S2 mini with a relatively closed pose, it wouldn't take me too much time to actually get done.

The Process

With the incredible competition out there, I knew there was no chance for me to win this thing. Still, I wanted to give myself a running chance, so I decided to spice things up by putting the guy on a little diorama and adding some fancy OSL.

For the diorama, I simply used an old piece of wood and added some texture to it so I could hide the base.


For the OSL, I made a little reference photo that would later help me sketch where the light would hit the sculpt.


As for the color scheme, I decided to use the craftworldstudio technique again. Working off one of their tutorials, I started sketching in the underpainting with the airbrush:



For the OSL, I followed another tutorial, this time from the god of OSL himself, elminiaturisa. I decided to have the light come from a flare on the ground, which I kitbashed from a leftover piece of plastic and a smoke cloud print from greenstuffworld:



Here's the final result, first on a white background...

Spoiler: More

...and again on a black background:

Spoiler: More