Nothing feels better than painting a complete set of minis faster than expected.
Having finished the Zeta Reticulans and the alien militia and citizens of Outpost 32 in three painting sessions, all that remained were the six armed human figures which represent the Outpost's security forces. They consist of an SHM Bounty Hunter and five HOF Muster infantry. I started with the Bounty Hunter figure, which is a pretty nice sculpt and pose. I basecoated the figure with Vallejo Heavy Ochre and painted his jacket and boots with P3 Cryx Bane Base. A quick brown wash over those areas give his pants and shirt a nice "fatigue" appearance, and the impression of a leather jacket. Then it was a simple matter of painting his face, hair, hands, and gun.
After my earlier failed experiment with a yellow color scheme, I decided to try something a bit different. Using the same ochre color, I painted the paints and sleeves of the five Muster troopers. Then I drybrushed the Sun Yellow over the ochre. This gave me a much "richer" yellow color than doing two coats of Sun Yellow directly over white. Then I painted the armor, boots, gloves, and helmets with Vallejo Scarlett Red, the backpacks, weapons, and faceshields with Reaper Master Tarnished Steel. After applying black Wonder Wash to the entire figure, I went back and very lightly drybrushed the yellow again, and added a yellow stripe to my chosen leader.
I really like how the Muster troops turned out. The sculpts didn't seem all that detailed when they were bare metal, but really came out once I started painting. And it gave me another excuse to use another Big Ten conference color scheme... who would have thought that football uniforms work so well as Space Opera military colors?
It only took about three hours to finish these, not counting the drying time for the bases. So in four sessions, I finished every figure in the Danger On Outpost 32 boxed set. Not a bad way to spend a week!
Up next: a close look at the scenarios, including a few custom terrain pieces.
Cheers,
Chris
These have come out well, Chris!
ReplyDeleteThey look great.
ReplyDeletePretty dammed quick
ReplyDeleteIve been looking at speeding my painting up, simply so I can actually use it and Im trying a new method with an airbrush. Use airbrush after priming with base color.Paint face, ammo packs and boots and then weapon. Wash with devlan mud and a little highlight on armor pads. I can get about 25 figures done in 4 hours.
Sadly the basing still takes me as long...as I hate doing it!
The airbrush is something I have yet to master. But I've become pretty quick at assembly-line brush painting. I'm about the same as you with washes... as a lazy painter, I absolutely swear by them.
DeleteThe bases I used here are pretty much my new standard. Spray paint a bunch of 3/4" fender washers with gray, glue on the figure, brush white glue onto the top, dip it into a mix of fine model train ballast, and seal with a final coat of thinned white glue.
They aren't nearly as nice as many of my fellow bloggers' bases, but they look neutral enough on deserts, snows, red planets, and anything else I throw them on. And they don't take much time, other than letting the sealant coat dry.