Welcome to the 6mm(2mm) Rotunda Sculpting Page

Went for something a little different here.
I wanted to create a new race to go with my 2mm range of sci-fi vehicles. But these vehicles look at home with 6mm as alien or robotic vehicles that they could work for either.

I'd had an idea floating round in my head for tanks that were completely round with a turret
sticking out. Essentially they would end up looking like Dalek heads.
A couple of test runs didn't produce the results I wanted so I tried a different approach.


Pic 1

The result was the tanks in pic 1.
I placed the weapon turrets under domed lids and continued with the round theme for the hulls.

I toyed briefly with giving them an air cushioned base but it didn't look right so I've gone for a simple grav look.
The tanks shown are the heavy, medium and light versions.
Multiple weapons was always an option for these tanks so I used a simple approach of giving them lots of weapon barrels. The heavy tank got a tri-barrel weapon which could be a rotary cannon or a missle launcher, along with a main single barrel cannon. The medium tank got a simple double barreled cannon and the light tank got three small barrels. Probably as some kind of tri-laser or even shotgun spread weapon for taking out lightly armoured targets and infantry.

The heavy tanks dimensions are 13mm across and 11mm high. They were made with magic sculpt for the main parts and green stuff for the weapons.

Next up I needed some vehicles that could be used as anti-aircraft weapons. It was clear the weapons under the dome approach was not going to work for weapons that could fire upwards, but I wanted to keep the round style of the vehicles.


Pic 2

So this time I cut the sides of a dome piece which gave me two flat sides to mount weapons, as you can see in pic 2. For the medium version I gave it two tri barreled weapons. Multiple barreled weapons always look more likely to be able to take out flying objects.
For the light version i gave it a double barreled weapon and also a single barreled cannon to add variety.
The hull bases I kept the same as the original tanks.

I then started to think of infantry to go with the vehicles. The concept I had in mind for this race was basically fat. Not very politically correct I admit but this is sci-fi and so I went with it.
So if the race was going to be made up of huge blob type rotund creatures (hence the name Rotunda!) I thought there was no way they would be able to move without their vehicles and so infantry was a no-go.


Pic 3

So I came up with robotic infantry and the little fella you see in pic 3. He's 5mm tall and a sort of cross between a Dalek and K9 (lots of Doctor Who references?) anyway I was still able to capture the round feel as with the tanks. I gave the robot a double barreled weapon and plan on making a missile version with the same shape but a missle pack on the back
I love the idea of filling bases with loads of these little guys as a robotic horde :)
But of course my sci-fi miniatures are following a manga style so it was not long before I turned to a mech style walker. But again it had to be round. Pic 4.


Pic 4

I had never made a humanoid miniature before. So I started with the traditional armature and then added the feet, groin and head. I then started to add the shoulders and knee pads with a view to then adding or covering the exposed wire with putty, but I wasn't sure how to go with it. So I made the weapons and thought to come back to the arms and legs.


Pic 5

It soon became aparrent to me that the shoulder pads and knee pads I'd made were not big enough for the look of the model. So I took them off and just added larger shoulder pads. Adding green stuff and detailing it to look like the rubber cover of machine parts I started to get a look I was more pleased with. Picture 5 shows this and also how I decided to do the legs. Rather than a knee pad I did the same cover detailing for half the leg and then a shin guard. You can also see in picture 5 the cockpit detail added to the head piece.


Pic 6

As you can see from picture 6 I made the Rotunda Mech in two parts. I found it easier to make it this way and it also means you can twist the torso to give some variation to the position of the miniature.

I think this range of mini's is coming on nicely. I still need to make some flying units and to keep the round feel I'm thinking flying saucer type craft and a nice round fat drop pod would go well.

So back to work on the Rotunda.

Production rights bought by Ground Zero Games

Jeremey (AKA Germ)