Tag Archives: miniatures concepts

Colony 87 – Attack of the Amphirans

Crooked Dice Games have released a couple of images with miniatures based on my concepts, sculpted by the talented Ari Neilsson. They are a selection of Amphirans (a race of frog-like amphibious aliens) that you might encounter exploring Colony 87.

Here’s an amphiran water trader. He’s chewing some leaves whilst he travels the wastelands. Apparently frogs don’t get their water from drinking (they absorb water through their skin (osmosis)) but Amphirans obviously do. He has a moisture suit to keep his skin damp and lots of gear for repairs. I’ve also designed some water trading company logos too.

This is a Colony 87 medic team; three paramedics, one who is a bodyguard and ambunaut (flying ambulance) pilot too and one who is an Amphiran. Certain frogs have anti-bacterial substances on their skin which I thought would be very useful for an Amphiran. He wears a human hat to feel more like a member of the team.

Who doesn’t need a lovable rogue antiques dealer and his strange expert friend for their tabletop? Here’s my concept drawing of an older Amphiran expert on valuables and artefacts.

And finally some more Amphirans, a couple of youths, an Amphiran space suit and a bloated merchant prince. He’s a combination of a couple of fictional Barons, see if you can tell which they are!

None of these are available to buy yet.

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Colony 87 Rides Along

In case you thought this website wasn’t still active, don’t worry, it is! I’ve just been very busy working on various projects; particularly on illustrations for Colony 87.

On that subject I noticed on Facebook a couple of my concepts for jet-bikes have made it into miniature form. Here are the original concept drawings:

Colony 87 Bounty Hunter 1 on Jet-bike
Colony 87 Bounty Hunter 1 on Jetbike.jpg
Colony 87 Bounty Hunter 1 on Jet-bike side and top views
Colony 87 Bounty Hunter 1 on Jetbike – side and top views
Colony 87 Bounty Hunter 2 on Jet-bike
Colony 87 Bounty Hunter 2 on Jetbike

They were for a homage to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza but in a science fiction setting and these were the jet bike versions of Rocinante and Sancho’s mule (which I think in the story didn’t have a name).

The Bounty Hunters you may have seen on their jet-bikes on these sketchbook pages: https://www.willbeck.com/artblog/2021/03/colony-87-rides-again/

Here are the jet bikes on Crooked Dice Games site:

Colony 87 range – Jet Bike 1

Colony 87 range – Jet Bike 2

Though if you wanted to re-create my concepts in miniature form then you’d have to do a bit of converting! Here are links to those as well:

Colony 87 range – Bounty Hunter

Colony 87 range – Squire Sanchos

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Happy New Year! More Colony 87 too.

Colony 87 Anti-grav rickshaw ideas
Colony 87 – Sketchbook Oct2022 Colony 87 Anti-grav rickshaw ideas

Happy New Year everyone who looks at my art and this blog! Here’s a miniature that has taken ages to get a sculpt, it’s based on various sketches of mine that go back a few years. I think it was Jon, the originator of the Colony 87 range of miniatures, who wanted an anti-gravity rickshaw, with the weight of the miniature on the beast. Above sketches are me working out how to achieve this with options for various drivers.

Sketchbook Oct2022 – Colony 87 Outland Farmers ideas

Above is some ideas for Outland farmers travelling into Vandestad to sell their produce or buy something for their farms. I’ve changed my eel-lion into a pet eel-cat for the female farmer to be looking after.

Sketchbook Oct2022 – Colony 87 Hover-rickshaw plan and Outland farmer

And here I’m refining the design, with a mini-fusion generator on the back fuelled by hydrogen-bricks powering the anti-grav generator on the underside of the cabin.

You can purchase one or just admire the sculpting and painting here:

Colony 87 range – Hover Rickshaw

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Back to the Panzerfäuste past

Trow infantry sketches
Trow infantry ideas big fangs

Here are some more ideas for Panzerfäuste that haven’t made it into miniature form (yet!). These are Trow, their equipment is based on the Swedish army of WWII. There is some Black Metal traditional Trow facepaint too!

I gave them big fangs after I sketched the whole double page and thought they were lacking something. Then I remembered my well-thumbed copy of Heroes for Wargames and a particular Asgard miniatures troll sculpted by ace sculptor Nick Bibby which I always liked. He had downward tusks/fangs; so I added them and that completed the look.

That Nick Bibby miniature is available now from Alternative Armies along with a load of Asgard miniatures: https://www.alternative-armies.com/collections/nick-bibby-asgard-miniatures/products/fm27v2-half-troll-chieftain-35mm-tall

I think he’s available for US residents from here: https://thevikingforge.net/

Panzerfäuste Trow infantry

And here is my final pencil drawing, after I’d asked whether or not Trow had tails (they do).

It was a large drawing; two A3 pages together. There’s loads of period-specific details with a Viking/Swedish/Troll twist. And the carved stone heads (top left)depict a famous Trow bard quartet.

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Colony 87 Report

It’s been ages since I put anything online (I recently moved house which is very stressful). I’m working as a freelance concept artist for Crooked Dice Games and much of what I’ve created whilst in the game development phase is secret. However the beast in this illustration has been released as a miniature (sculpted by the talented Andrew May).

Colony 87 range – Sandtreader

Colony 87 jet bikes and beast riders

This creature (called a Sand Treader in the Colony 87 game) evolved from a sketch on these sketchbook pages from 2020 I drew for the Colony 87 project. (We’ve also got some Pale alien race ideas, my two bounty hunters on their jetbikes, a nomad on his domesticated giant bird, a Colony Police person on a jetbike, a wasteland scrap merchant on her dinosauroid, a raider type on his camel-lizard, some portraits of raiders, the hover-rickshaw and the beast that Karl at Crooked Dice liked, at the base some more colony cops on their bikes!)

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More Panzerfäuste Mountain Trolls!

Mountain Troll Commander

Here’s some more colour sketches of Panzerfäuste Mountain Trolls. We have a Commander with a badge of a Iku-Turso or Tursas on his wool hat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iku-Turso_(creature)

Mountain Troll Lotta Svärd and Shaman

Next we have a Lotta Svärd (Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotta_Sv%C3%A4rd) and a Shaman with his ceremonial drum with a Troll rune pattern.

Mountrain Troll (Vuoritroll) Command

And here is the final miniatures concept page. The Lotta Svärd’s sword is loosely based on a famous Finnish iron age sword belonging to a noble woman. I invented all the runes at the top too! I really enjoyed drawing these three, I’d hoped to see them in 3D form some time but that wasn’t to be.

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Panzerfäuste Mountain Troll Anti-tank Team

Here are some more sketches of unsculpted Panzerfäuste Miniatures – These were Vuoritroll (based on the Finnish fighters of WWII) anti tank-team with their traditional weapons for taking out armour – logs and fuel drum molotov cocktails.

Various historo-fantasy games including Panzerfäuste can be found here:

https://orcsinthewebbe.co.uk/

And Steve Blease, Panzerfäuste mastermind, owner of Wessex Games can be found here:

http://www.wessexgames.co.uk/

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To Colony 87 and beyond!

I’m still working on Colony 87 but much of it is top secret. Occasionally I find a sketch or concept drawing that has been sculpted (this time by the talented sculptor Andrew May) and released.

This page contains four new characters; a woman who repairs robots, often cobbling them together to sell, the itinerant lawyer helping the poor, a sinister alien artefact trader and a lone, aged colonist unable to walk but who drives around the market on his custom kart.

Colony 87 Market characters

You can purchase them here:

Colony 87 range – Bot Trader

Colony 87 range – Street Lawyer

Colony 87 range – Artefact Trader

Colony 87 range – Rolling Messiah

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Sump Spider Hunters artwork

Here are the finished images that I sent to Mad Robot Miniatures. The first is the Sumpship Captain.

Yaktribe – Sumpship Captain

The next are two harpooneers with their appropriate alternative heads (and weapons) to make a crew of four.

Sump-sea Harpooneers
Sump-sea Harpooneers 2

Here’s the link to Mad Robot Miniatures:

https://madrobotminiatures.com/

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Here’s some artwork!

Hello everyone, I know this blog has had no new posts since last May but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on art and illustration! Apart from my main commission from Crooked Dice Games (Colony 87) I’ve been learning the 3D program Blender which I’ll show you some examples of later.

Before that we’ll go way back to late 2020 when I was commissioned by Mad Robot Miniatures to create a special character miniature for the Necromunda Yaktribe meet up, I don’t know whether it happened or not due to COVID restrictions.

My brief from the Yaktribe community described a sump spider hunter on a ship who was a reimagining of Captain Ahab.
As it happened BBC Sounds had an audio adaptation of Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick so I listened to that, as I’d never read it before and I made some sketches and notes.

sketchbook pages showing the development of the Sump Ship Captain and his crew
Sumpship Captain and crew ideas

Here are my initial sketches of him and some ideas for his crew. I liked the metal eye-patch that Chang (played by Chritopher Plummer) had in Star Trek VI so that was a starting point for his head. He would need a harpoon that could break through the tough exoskeleton of a sump-spider so I designed ones with various drills/grabbers/flamethrowers. I spent some time figuring how these would work.

Sketchbook Mar2018 Sumpship crew ideas

Here’s the link to Star Trek VI on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_VI:_The_Undiscovered_Country

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