Infinity 2019

For starters I’ve decided to catch up with my Zhanshi collection. I rarely used those guys in Vanila, but since they are also an option in new Invincible Army I see more uses for them. Additionally Yu Jing got all new support pack lately and those are very useful figures and they are based on Zhanshis design-wise. So it was only rational to add them to the project. I’ve painted two of three Zhanshis from Operation Red Veil some time ago, and added that last remaining mini as well.

This way I came to painting 7 minis:

• Combi rifle Zhanshi
• Mech-engineer,
• Medic,
• Hacker,
• HMG,
• Missile Launcher,
• Multi Sniper Rifle.

As title says.

Those minuters show very well recent evolution of Infinity models in regard of construction. The SWC box (HMG, Sniper, Hacker and ML) as well as the female from Red Veil are older type with fiddly joints, but the engineer and medic are true joy to assemble.

The cast quality was very good as it is usually true with Corvus Belli minis, only a bit of filing was necessary.

As you can see I’ve removed those lumps of metal from beneath of their feet as I’m going to put them on MDF bases, which by the way I’ve also prepared (glued some part, drilled holes for pinning, drilled bottoms and glued magnets bellow).

Next step. Priming.

Recently I’ve moved to Vallejo Mecha stuff, and have to admit I like it a lot. It sprays thin and sticks to the surface extremely well.

As you can see on the picture bellow, I went for classic zenithal priming, no much to add here.

The bases are done.

While works on minis themselves progress slowly (with so thin armour on them, I’ve decided to paint them all by brush only), I’ve finished the bases.

Bellow you can see some work in progress photos and a final product.

Bellow there is a reciepie, both for me to remember it and maybe for those of you who may be interested.

Bases are done completely by airbrush, I use Vallejo colours so the recipe below quotes names in that brand.

The stripes are done with:

– base: Sombre grey

– shades: Imperial blue and black,

– highlight: wolf grey and white,

There are also some glazes of turquoise here and there.

The main part of the base is done with only three colours:

–  base: Olive green,

– shade Panzer DK grey,

– highlight: Light livery green.

In the end I apply thin glaze of base colour (by airbrush).

A medic (or officially Zhanshi Yisheng) done. I did him to an extent as test the colours with the brush (I earlier I used slightly different mix with Airbrush). All in All I think it worked good. One surprise: Vallejo Mecha varnish – this thing is FLAT, with single swipe of airbrush I killed any shine in the model.

The colour recipes (shadow, base, highlight) are (note I almost never lay them straight, there is always some mixture of them in each layer):

Armor: orange brown, golden yellow, moon yellow, bone white (pinwash with GW gloss flash wash);

Uniform: black, 1:1 mixture of turquoise and black-green, bone white,

Redish bags: black red, cavalry brown, dwarf skin (pinwash with GW gloss flash wash);

This weekend, I’ve finished HMG and ML Zhanshis. All recipes are same as in medic bellow.

The title has it. One last mini left unpainted in this project.

Last Zhanshi is done. In the proces I also started a Guiliang and Pheasant Sniper as i Had all those paints on my palet. However, in the process I lost my inspiration and in effect, the paintjob is a bit slopy.

I don’t think you need any more words, the pictures:

And all the Zhanshi I’ve painted to date:

As mentioned in updated project description bellow are models painted earlier this yer, but not shown up to now.

State of the 2019 strugle on 18th June:
Figures:
purchased – 24
painted – 11

Terrain:
purchased – 0
painted/build – 3

To date I’ve 3d printed and painted 3 pieces of terrain with Infinity in mind, I mean this year.

Bike and forklift are Antenocitis’ models from their recent *.stl kickstarter, Taxi comes from Thingiverse https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3409856

Photos bellow.

Now that was significant hiatus, but I have good excuse. I’ve built a full table worth of terrain for Frostgrave, and now finished a table for Infinity.

For years I wanted to build ‘spaceship’ table with narrow corridors and rooms full of strange tech. The thing is, however, that no matter how hard I tried, tables like that were not so enjoyable to play. I tried with Space Hulk tiles, and while it was something new it didn’t play well. It was always too cramped and crazy koalas were simply THE BEST piece of equipment imaginable, due to lack of maneuverable space.

Now, with imminent new campaign which shall take place in space-corridors of Human Edge stations and Defiance looming on the horizon, I decided to take on the idea of ‘spaceship’ table once again, but approach from different angle this time round.

The design ideas were more or less this:

• all components have to be 3d printed,
• printing time has to be manageable (there are tons of free and commercial designs of the corridors which take tens of hours to print 4” module),
• it has to allow building corridors and rooms of any sizes,
• it has to allow to build curved corridors,
• it has to be easy to paint,
• it has to take as little storage space as possible (that is my second greatest complain about all drangon-lock and similar solutions, they took tones of space to store),
• it should be set possible to set up a table in reasonable time.
• It should allow for building of higher levels (future project).

What you see bellow took:

• 40h of design and prototyping,
• 140-150h of printing,
• 20h of painting,
• 32 min of set up.

All components weigh 2,2 kg and fit comfortably in shoes box.

That would be it for description, photos time (one disclaimer here: I had major problems with lighting the scenes properly, the sun was already too low as it shows).

And in the end last warning for parents, similar projects are like magnets for children, as soon as I started setting that all up for photos my kids found out that those are actually very interesting blocks.

This is 3d printed crate downloaded from : https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3063316

Self designed and painted this little bridge for Neo Lotus terrain inspored by Operation: Red Veil cardboards.

Self designed and painted this little bridge for Neo Lotus terrain inspored by Operation: Red Veil cardboards.

I chose the colour scheme considering the fluff of brawlers as the lowest cannon fodder among bounty hunters ranks. After painting the mini looked really plain and uninteresting. I tried to add something with the base which probably took about half the time spent on painting actual mini, but effects are… well not so great.

Now I’m thinking about adding some king of hacking deck, which can be seen as prototype on one of the pictures bellow. Haven’t made my mind on that yet.

My terrain painting campaign is going strong. I designed several different crates inspired by customeeple HDF kits. Some time ago I 3d printed and painted about 50 plain crates, this time, to break monotony I added some well-known pop culture trademarks.

Some time ago we had hobby contest in Haqqislam briefing room during Asteroid Blues campaign.

I managed to pull off a victory there, and since the competition is over, decided to publish my work to wider public here.

This mini was my prize for the painting contest during the campaign.

I  don’t play any faction that could field her, but I loved the mini the moment I first saw her and winning a prize seemed a good occasion to get her.