Saturday, September 3, 2011

CoA Tiny Flyers WIP

I've hit a couple of snags tonight while working on the Tiny Flyer tokens for my CoA fleet. Due to an early mistake I had to change my plans for these little buggers and I'm not as thrilled with the revised color scheme. Nonetheless I will continue on with it and perhaps plan on picking up a 30-pack of flyer tokens once they're released which I can paint as I had originally envisioned. Initially I had wanted to the flyers to be based on the same blue scheme as the rest of the fleet but have instead opted to paint them in a mostly metallic set of colors.

The Tiny Flyers deployed by the Covenant of Antarctica are quite different from those of the other major powers in Dystopian Wars as they are in fact remotely operated drones. They thus have several notable differences in how they function in the game. Further the CoA cannot make use of any Torpedo Bombers so that all of their drones are classified as either Fighter Planes, Recon Planes, and Dive Bombers. I am using the color of the central coil as a means to distinguish each of these types of tokens.

Fighter Plane

Dive Bomber

Recon Plane

The ten Tiny Flyer tokens that I get to include for free with my fleet I have chosen to organize into the following squadrons: two squadrons of three Fighter Planes each, one squadron of three Dive Bombers, and lastly a single Recon Plane that is its own squadron. I primarily chose that arrangement of flyers however so that I would have at least one example of each type of token to paint.

I'm a little anxious about how this batch of flyer tokens will turn out but fortunately they don't represent too large of an investment in either time or money, especially as I would have wanted to buy a pack of flyer tokens anyway just to get their stat card. I do still hope that I can salvage these ones as I could then use the differently painted tokens as a way of further distinguishing my squadrons. Plus I have a feeling I'll like the revised color scheme more once I am further along with the tokens. That in turn is good motivation for me to return to painting them right away. Goodnight!

11 comments:

  1. I hate to do this too you... but when you look at the CoA flyers don't you thing they look like erm... winged... erm... lady bits pleasurers? You know of the... erm... 'vibrating' kind? I say stick with the colour scheme until you're done and then decide. If However you're not too keen, I've found good old Dettol disinfectant does the trick. Not too sure if you get the stuff in the states, but I'm sure you have an equivalent.

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  2. I can understand your predicament, I just finished doing all my prussian fighters the one colour only to realise I probably shouldn't have and I'm not sure if I'm happy with them as they are but have no idea what to do instead...
    I liked the green energy vibe your Covenant stuff had, could you maybe differentiate them by colouring their wings differently or putting a diff colour stripe on them? Thats what I'll be doing for mine, Black wings for bombers, white for fighters, yellow stripe for recon etc. Could something similar work for you Papa JJ?

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  3. They are just flying wangs! 'We, the representatives of the CoA government, would like to thank our sponsor Ann Summers for their generous donation to our military!'

    In all seriousness, I tend to paint the space in between the fighters a different colour to represent the different types.

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  4. @ Frontline Gamer - LOL! No worries though about having to point it out, I've actually been working on a theory about the drones'... um, interesting design. Perhaps as a young and rather isolated colony, the Covenant of Antarctica find themselves in desperate need of more women. In that case I think the drones might be a form of advertising for... shall we say, the benefits of science? So far that's the only explanation I've come up with to explain why they made flying attack-vibrators. Now that's some weird science for ya! :)

    Thanks for the suggestion about how I can strip the paint from these tokens. Do you know if I need to take any special precautions when removing paint from resin? I don't think Dettol is normally available here in the states, but after just looking around briefly I think I can get ahold of some fairly easily. I might paint a little more on these tokens but right now the thought of starting over appeals to me.

    Thank you very much, Frontline Gamer!

    @ Bo Bo - Awesome idea, I think I'll do just as you have proposed. I had thought the differently colored power coils would look better than they turned out but now I'm not too thrilled with the effect. I think you are right that they would look better with glowing green coils and that it would help keep them consistent with the appearance of the rest of my CoA collection. Thank you for helping me rethink my approach as I suspect they'll look much better with your improvements. Thanks, Bo Bo!

    @ Musings of a Smurf - Hahahaha! Maybe in return for their sponsorship, the CoA scientists agreed set up some Ann Summers manufacturing plants within The Vault. Not only would that be for the benefit of all humanity, but I imagine that would also improve the morale of those living in such a desolate environment. This might explain why so many people are abandoning their own countries to take up residence in Antarctica. ;) Regardless of the reason, it does seem to be something of an odd choice in design....

    As I mentioned above in my other responses, I think I would like to redo my set of tiny flyer tokens. I hadn't thought of using the base of the token itself as a way of differentiating the class of flyers. That's a cool idea, thank you for suggestion! Can any examples of your solution be seen in the photos of your fleet on your blog? That does sound like an interesting alternative.

    Thank you, Musings of a Smurf!

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  5. No worries, I'll get some pictures loaded up later for you. My camera needs to be charged. I always imagine the tiny flyer tokens representing their position on a board in a war room, like WW2 fighter command when they moved the pieces around with a stick. That's why I don't mind them being different colours as opposed to representing the sea

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  6. Right on! It would be great to see how you painted your flyers, thank you. I really like the way you're thinking about these tokens, your idea about the war room business makes a lot of sense to me. Otherwise I'm not too crazy about the look of the bases themselves with those girders along the edges. Thanks, MoaS!!

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  7. No special precautions really I've found. Spartan Games resin is pretty hardy stuff. Not that I've had to strip any of it of course... erm... I'm far to good a painter... yes that's it, a friend told me!!!

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  8. Glad to be of assistance Papa JJ! I'm not keen on the girderd either but Moas' War Room suggestion has me intrigued... I'm now wondering if it could be worth while painting the base as a sort of digital read out, glowy green radar thingy on my Prussian fighters...

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  9. @ Frontline Gamer - Ah yes, of course... it must have been that other fellow who screwed up his miniatures. Still I really appreciate the recommendation and will file that tip away for later use. That's because I decided to continue on as you originally suggested and now I rather like how the flyer tokens ended up. Thank you for offering such sage advice. :) Cheers, Frontline Gamer!

    @ Bo Bo - Ooh, that sounds really cool! I like the radar thingy idea a lot, that could look great. Thank you again for the help in sorting out my flyer tokens dilemma. You will see however that I ended up changing my mind once again and decided to not repaint anything. That way I can press on and begin painting the next part of my fleet as soon as possible. Any additional tokens that I paint will be done in the green colors and I'll then work out the squadron markings to go on their wings. I thus will gradually shift over to only using drones with glowing green coils, but is something I can work on at a more leisurely pace. Thank you very much for helping me develop this plan, I'm really happy with it. Best wishes to you, Bo Bo!!

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