Another day of painting, another step closer to playing the USE ME Danger on Outpost 32 scenarios.
With the Zeta Reticulans out of the way, I was left with five HOF Muster Troops and nine figures from the
SHM Range. I decided to group the Human Bounty Hunter mini in with Muster Troops - those can wait for the next painting session. That left me with four armed aliens, three unarmed aliens and one human miner (which I'd already decided to paint as an alien anyway). The molds on the SHM Range figures are still nice and fresh, so there was very little to clean or file. I proceeded in the same way as the Zetans - white glue to mount four figures each to two craft sticks, and sprayed with white primer.
The process from here was a little more complicated, but a bit more fun. With the Zetans, I was able to paint them assembly-line style. All the grey on the first stick, then grey on the second stick, then grey on the third stick, then orange on the first... and so on. But I wanted to give each of these alien figures a unique paint scheme. So I painted all of the base and highlight colors on one figure before moving onto the next, then went back with the final washes and touch-ups after all eight figures were finished.
Here's the completed "unarmed" figures:
On the left is my favorite sculpt of the lot - the Starport Urchins. It's a "mama bear" alien figure (that somewhat reminds me of the Mystics from The Dark Crystal) clutching an assortment of four alien children. I decided to paint the tallest child as a human, since there were no obvious alien features. In hindsight, I should have reversed the blue and green of the second and third figures - there isn't much contrast between the green child and its foster mother. But overall, I like the finished result.
The next figure is called a Baroka Crime Lord. It's a pretty ubiquitous sculpt - could be used as a village elder, an old spice trader, or even some kind of Yoda-esque mentor figure. It has quite a few details that I didn't pick out this time, but I can always paint another one in a different style later. The Miner was sculpted as a human, but I used Vallejo Heavy Warmgrey to give its skin an alien color. I really like its mining tool, which could also be used as a large spanner in a starport workshop. Finally we have the Calamite Preacher. It looked like an aquatic being to me, so I thought a blue robe might have some religious significance.
Moving on, we have the armed figures:
I fought the temptation to paint the Snake Alien in the same green scheme as my Critical Mass Astagar and went with black scales. For its clothing, I decided to get some more practice with yellow - a color that has never quite been within my painting skills. Well... I obviously need more practice. On the other hand, I'm very pleased with the white armor on the Trandan Mercenary. It would be great to see a few Trandan variants - I would like to field a complete team of this race in future games. The Gizbin Mercenary reminded me more of a Star Wars alien than any other sculpt in the lot. It definitely has a future as a bounty hunter in one of my game settings.
Finally there's the Prang Soldier - in my opinion, this is Eli's best sculpt. This guy just looks as strong as a gorilla, and clearly possesses a very advanced tech level on top of the brute strength. Eli has already been working on a few variants of this sculpt, and I'll buy plenty of them when they're available. This species will play a key role in a space opera setting I've been writing in my spare time.
My average working time on this batch was about 25 minutes per figure, and they are certainly ready to play. So, in three sessions, I've finished 21 out of the 27 figures included in Danger on Outpost 32. Just a half-dozen humans left to finished, and then it will be time to start picking apart the game scenarios.
Cheers,
Chris
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