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Steambots!
This game,
GRIND
was on sale at Miniature Market (and still is, though not as much on
sale as before they moved locations). It is some type of gladiator
steampunk robot game. I didn't read the rules because I snatched it
up for the pieces...
... very nice 28mm scale big steampunk robots. They have a decent
amount of detail and there were ten of them with the game. I think you're not supposed to glue them
together because the rules want you to take them apart as they take
damage in the game (I did look at the rules).
But for my purposes, I am going to assemble them with glue, and mix and match the parts, just to give them a little more variety. I also think you're not supposed to paint them up as swapping arms in and out during the game would likely cause problems with that.
The game also comes with "extra" arms ... too many for ten 'bots. I
will hang on to these for when I need miscelaneous cyborg parts. Which
is often.
Here they are assembled, primed and painted with the primary color. In
assembly, some of the parts didn't fit well. Thinking back, I probably
should have noticed whehter that was solely blue parts fitting into red
parts or vice versa. I don't think so, as I had some problems with the legs as well. Regardless, a little green stuff in the joint is all
it took to straighten that out.
The burnished metal color is boring old cheap craft paint silver with a dot of black mixed in. The metallic silver is always way too silver for anything, but one little dot of a color in it makes a very nice and fairly realistic looking metallic color.
So the power of color shows here. This is a "red" and a "blue"
on the same team. Once you paint 'em up the color scheme really
eliminates the differences.
The plunger thing on the right is supposed to be some type of bludgeoning device (I think the whole game is close combat, gladiator fights), but I like to think of it as a missile. Likewise, the drill bit thing on the 'bot on your left could easily be a sparking electrical bolt weapon.
A couple more for the other team. Since the 'bots come as two legs,
a torso, a head, and two arms, you have a lot of freedom in posing
them. I like that. The bases have holes for pegs the feet, but I
think I have several of them on "backwards" or "sideways" and am fine
with that.
With great freedom comes great pain in assembly. To get some of the dynamics, I had to brace figures in position. For a few of them, I didn't get the effect I wanted, but was able to accept what I could get from them.
Here's a construction 'bot. I think the scoring I added to the
plungers is pretty visible - I just drug an X-Acto across the face
in a few series of crossing lines. I also added a bunch of other
nicks and gauges as well as hitting this one with a triple brown wash
for that nice, industrial grime effect.
"No. I understand we're both gladiators. I just think one of us
is in the wrong genre."
I'm kind of proud of my painting on this one. It's certainly not up to "pro" standards, but I painted from the inside out using a series of six progressively lighter colors of brown. I really like how that came out.
"Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!"
These ones are more general purpose bots. With clamps and hands, they could be applied to a number of different types of task - sports, valet service, dangerous environment work, etc.
"Jethro! What has you gone and done with my still?"
Seven different colors of metal on this one. I couldn't decide on a single color for the rivets, so I didn't color them. I may decide to go back and change that later. Probably will. Still, this one has a nice copper/brass/bronze/steel steampunk vibe.
Ivan Chornik's 'bot here got the regular silver-black burnished metal.
Then I went back and added some more black to the mix and redid the
outer plates (not the legs and internals). I hit the highlights with
a silver Sharpie pen (the metallic ones are paint pens, not ink pens).