Irrational Number Line Games, LLC
home forum stuff-to-buy idea archive about-us contact
Near Future Space Explorers
I had such a good time with the VOID Veridian bodies, that I have lined up a couple more projects with them. Without the pauldrons and shields, you are left with a very nice space hardsuit that looks a little retro-future. Better than GW marines for this, the torsos are not the big, round ones, but have a reasonable chest plate. Since this is a retro science team, I went ahead and split the figures between fighters/security forces and explorers/scientists. And I threw in a couple vehicles and giant robots, just to kit them out for a variety of combat and RPG adventures.
Here are the parts for some of the conversions. The big things that
pop out are the giant robots (WizKids MechWarrior mins) and the dead
mice that will become vehicles. I have a bunch of MW legs to put
under one mouse to make it a kind of rover and some 1:72 plane parts
(F/A-18?) to make it a flyer.
Equally as important are the conversion pieces for the figures. I have a couple HeroClix figs for some part swapping and a couple of extra big guns. I had a camera casualty, so there are some other figure conversions that I don't have a WIP for, so I will point those out in the finished minis.
Here is the above set assembled. The flyer gets two torsos in the
cockpits (a pipe fitting and a bottle cap), along with some MW
misc parts to be controls. I also based a piece of a MW torso to
be some kind of large equipment piece. From left to right on the
figures we have:
- Two heavy weapons people with some unreasonably large guns
- A guy with a mech arm, maybe jaws of life or industiral equip
- Shovel = low man on totem pole. Go dig those latrines!
- Tony Stark's Iron Man briefcase will be make a good med kit
- And the extra legs from the pilots with some half-dressed 'Clix torsos
Up close, you can see the international orange and shiny white
(I used a wicker white paint) color scheme, punctuated with
silver gear. With the bell-bottom type leg pieces, I think
this makes a nice 70's vibe.
I added some backpacks here, and gave large rifles to a pair of the gun wielders. Also, I modded the pistol guns. The VOID figs some with sub machine guns that have clips. When you clip the clip, it gives a nice retro-future pistol look. Even the scientist with some kind of readout device has one. The spex on the leader are pretty cool, but even cooler is the number of poses you can get from these figs. There are only two arm variants for each side, but with six figures here, we get a lot of variety. And no arm modding, just positioning.
Here are a few more explorers. The medic finished out OK. I
am not sure about his pose. I like the fact that I could make
him like that. He looks OK when you have a figure lying on the
ground in front of him. It appears he is diagnosing. But
otherwise (like 90% of the time), he just looks weird.
Another gunman. 'Nuff said.
And a woman with a space monkey. Gotta have a space monkey for campy scifi. And ... yes ... I just happened to have an extra monkey lying around. I had to reposition his head to make it work. The suit is just painted on (i.e., it's a regular monkey), but accounting for the fact that he is smalll, in the context of the other figures it looks like he's wearing a teeny space suit.
Now we have our two half-dressed figures. I went with off
white undershirts, first, but ended up deciding to repaint
them with olive drab. Then I went ahead and made the hats
(two ball caps and one beret) that the other figures are
wearing match the olive drab.
I'm not sure what they guy on the right is doing. I used a spear shaft to make the green thing. More than having a purpose, I really liked the idea of the leaning forward pose with the arms out. I still like it.
Here is our flying mouse. Not too bad. Using wings from a kit
pretty much turns anything into a cool flying vehicle. (I am
always on the lookout for cheap airplane kits in the discount
bin.) I think its a case of your expectations setting the conditions
for your mind to fill in the blanks. Same goes for the "controls"
in the cockpits. You are expecting them to be some type
of flight control instruments, so you project your expectations
on the bits that are there ... though picking some pieces that
look like display screens and have knobbly parts helps.
And last, we have three more generic worker types. The
man with the shovel, a guy with some type of power arm
assistance, and someone with some randomly non-specific
piece of gear. There's also the mech torso, painted up.
It looks like it could be a console, a Disney's Black Hole
type 'droid, or maybe a drone in vertical launch position.