Federation Commander

Thanks guys. I have definately taken a different approaches to my SFB and B5W minis.

In the case of SFB, I've kept the look pretty clean. Limited use of washes and dry brushing, if any. Some metallics, but not a ton. From the very get go, I have treated my SFB minis as gaming pieces first, models second. As a result, I've occasionally sacrificed in the area of more complex painting techniques to keep the very large fleets of minis uniform in appearance. Another factor is many of my SFB minis were painted back in the late 1990's and in my quest to keep the fleets looking uniform, the paint jobs don't change much. I think the quality on my more recent SFB minis, like the big Fed redo, is a lot better. And of course my limited skill with a camera doesn't help.

My approach to B5W minis has been the opposite. I don't get to play B5Wars much, but the minis are spectacular. They are also, typically, a lot larger. The Narn Bin'Tak, for example, is as big as my SFB Juggernaught mini, and the EA Posideon dwarfs anything in my SFB collection. The result, a much bigger piece that is far easier to detail. They are definately models first, and game pieces second. Lots of washes, dry brushing and other details I would typically not bother with. They also reflect a lot of lessons learned from painting literally hundreds of SFB minis before I painted my first EA ship.

On the Narn minis, the colors are a little darker in real life than in the photos. I'm not the best photographer, and the photos came out a little bright. If you're familiar with Citadel paints, the red is Scab Red, the Green is Snot (Yes Snot...wonderful name) Green, and the tan is Bestial Brown. Most of the washing and dry brushing is confined to the metallic sections.

As for close ups, I've added hyperlinks on the webpage that will take you to a full size version of each photograph: http://jgray-sfb.com/Bab5/bab5wars.html

Thanks again for the kind praise guys!

Added a few more photos to my Babylon 5 web page. Most are some rather bland single-color Narn hulls, but there is one kitbash of the Na'Ston I'm particularly proud of.

Basically flipped over the center of a T'Loth mini, angled the outer hulls downward at about a 30 degree angle, and built a third wing out of brass, putty, and a wing from a second T'Loth mini. Painting the interior panels on the hulls was a must before putting on the third, upper hull. This thing is stupidly heavy (at least as big and dense as a B10 mini) but amazingly balances just fine on a single, standard flight stand like those sold by ADB.

Na'Ston-class Explorer



This is what a T'Loth looks like for comparison:


Oh, in other news... While I left all of my finished SFB minis back in the states, I was digging through by unfinished box and found a couple Orion DWs here with me in Germany. Time for some more star field camo!

Coming soon...

Just finished up my latest miniature project. For several years now, I've worked in fits and starts on a homebrew fleet of SFB ships, the Borak (http://www.jgray-sfb.com/Borak/borak.html). In the last year or so, I dusted them off and made a concerted effort to bring them up to snuff. Dale McKee and I have been playing some games with them and the itch to make minis for them got severe.

I entertained a bunch of options, ranging from styrene scratchbuilds to lead masters based on graphic models. Time or money made most of those less than ideal. Ultimately, I opted for the option I'm best at...kitbashing. A pretty exhaustive search led me to Kallistra's Space Dreadnought 3000 line of miniatures (http://www.kallistra.co.uk/) Specifically, their "Vargan Empire" ships looked like a reasonable start.

After ordering a selection of ships, I set to work on them with flush cutting pliers and files. Off came all the booms, and quite a bit of work went into the new flush bows, adding in hexagonal details made out of sytrene. I felt pretty bad as I was cutting up the ships...they looked awesome as is. Finally, I used LPA turrets from a Babylon 5 Wars Nova Dreadnought (http://jgray-sfb.com/Bab5/bab5wars_files/image023.jpg) to replicate the notorious Borak megaphaser turrets.

With all the assembly done, all that I had left to do was give the Borak their distinctive yellow paint job. This turned out to be a challenge, as I've never used that color as a base for any mini project. All in all, I'm very satisfied with the final result. Enjoy...



The Borak Mini page: http://jgray-sfb.com/Borak/borakmini.html

Very cool Jeremy.

Those are some nice looking minis. Great job with the yellow base coat, that sure is a tough color to work with.

Very nice work, Jeremy.

What process did you use to acheive the brillant yellow base color?
I've used yellow several times and while I can get that bright a color, I have to go through a somewhat time intensive process. I'm hoping your technique may be faster.

Nice work my friend

Thanks gents!

To get the yellow basecoat, I primed the minis with white primer and then painted them with two coats of Citadel Golden Yellow. The white primer is key - a darker color will show through the paint. I finished off with a wash of Citadel Sepia.

It gets tricky if you overpaint something that you wanted yellow. I was very careful painting the other colors so I didn't have to go back and repaint any yellow areas. If that happens, you have to start the process over - white base coat, then two coats of yellow.

Yep... that's pretty much it.
White primer followed by two or three coats of the desired yellow.

Those really came out nice. Especially since yellow is one of the most difficult paints to paint with. Your ships came out crisp and clean.

I was thinking of getting some of the Quellaris ships about a year ago. I really like the look of therm and you can't beat the price. Now you have me looking at them again.

Great looking models!!

Recently painted a couple of Orion DWs and a Construction Dock purchased through Shapeways. Pics posted over in the Painting Samples thread.

I highly recommend the Shapeways Dock. While the surface is a little rough, the "white, strong, and flexible material" is the way to go on this one. Anything more rigid, and a mini like that (cast as a single piece) would be way too breakable. Here's another shot, partially concealing the next project on my workbench...

Very impressive! I look forward to seeing Galactica when she's finished, too.

BTW, has something gone amiss with the B5 photos? I'm seeing Dilgar rather than Narns.

Yeah, the B5W photos got re-numbered thanks to the wonders of Microsoft when I updated the webpage. Fixing it would be something akin to a root-canal. All those B5W ships, properly labeled, are here:

http://jgray-sfb.com/Bab5/bab5wars.html

Great job on all those Jeremy.