Cool 'Rebel Alliance' Figs from Several Manufacturers

    Decided to do 1 more batch of figures for my Star Wars skirmishes - this one for the Rebel Alliance

So, I thought I had all the Star Wars figures I needed for my first skirmish. However, I decided to paint up one final batch specifically for the Rebel Alliance faction (as opposed to the Local Rebels). I was making cards for each faction and I noticed the Rebel Alliance figs were being pulled from several different projects. Unfortunately, that also meant they'd have several different basing schemes and flocking. Call me anal, but I wanted each faction to match - so they at least looked like they belonged together. I know, I know. Think of this way, though -- it gave me a chance to paint up these really cool figures.

    These 5 figs are from 3 different manufacturers - I think they nicely show a polyglot alliance

This might be my favorite faction as far as looks go. The Criminal Syndicate is close, but the Hydra Miniatures I used for the combat droid and the Valkeeri sniper are top notch! I wanted this squad to reflect that the Rebel Alliance was pulling from different races and trying to unify all the anti-imperial forces in the galaxy. So, I went through all of my unpainted Sci-Fi figures pack by pack, and picked out four that I really liked. A fifth I would assemble from the Stargrave Crew boxes. The sixth would be one from the Mon Calamari batch I painted earlier this year. I'm shooting for squads of six figures, though I will likely have players initially start with 3-4 miniatures per force until we get used to the rules we'll be using.

    These awesome figs are from Hydra Miniatures - I really like their retro look & how they turned out!

I mentioned the Hydra Miniatures, so let's start with them. Awhile back, when I was painting forces for Xenos Rampant, I ordered a few packs of their Valkeeri and Astro Angel lines. I painted one of them up as a crew member for my Five Parsecs from Home campaign, but hadn't touched the others. And on a trip up to Michigan, I stopped by the Michigan Toy Soldier & Figure Company, I picked up a few packs of their Robot Legion. Because...you know - that's what we miniature wargamers do! They are incredibly cool figures and I don't know why I didn't think earlier about painting some of them up as a faction. So, I pulled out one of the robot legionaires and one of the kneeling Astro Angel figures to include in this batch.

I like the purple color scheme for the Valkeeri sniper's uniform. That and the bright bronze metallic seem to go well together. I kept the green skin I used for Zorina of my Five Parsecs crew. It is Sci-Fi after all, there HAS to be green-skinned aliens! Otherwise, I painted her jet pack exactly like Zorina's, but made one or two other changes. The main one being substituting purple for the color shift paint I used on Zorina. For the Robot Legionaire, I painted him a base Gunmetal Gray metallic. I gave it Pewter and Silver highlights. The accent color I decided to do as a Turquoise Metallic. The baby blue color looks "good guy" enough so he's not confused with an imperial droid. I gave him some panel lights on the front and back, too. I am very happy with how these two miniatures came out. I need to find a reason to paint up more of them!

    If Star Wars can have Chewbacca, why can't my Rebel Alliance have this Battle Valor orangutan?

Seeing how Chewbacca is part of the Rebel Alliance, I thought I could use a big furry guy for my faction, too. I had one unpainted Orangutan with gun from our order with Battle Valor Games. I had already painted one up for my Planet of the Apes forces, but remember that thing about bases? I wanted his base to match the rest of the crew's, not be completely different. I tried a slightly different color scheme, too. I base coated him in Georgia Clay, then did a Salmon dry brush highlight. I think this was a mistake, though. The colors were too similar and the highlights don't show up in the fur as much as I'd like. I probably should have stuck with the red-brown base coat and the more orange highlights. Oh well. I made sure I gave him a good dark brown wash, though, so that would help out with some depth. His face, hands, belly, and feet were done in dark brown with medium brown highlights. Even though he didn't turn out perfect, I still like the miniature and how it looks.

    Plastic Stargrave mini on the left, Battle Valor metal on the right - enjoy the metal much more!

While going through my post-apocalyptic figures searching for suitable rebels, I found several left over unpainted from my Followers of the Dark Prophet survivor gang. One of them had a very cool heavy weapon, so I picked him out, cleaned up his extensive flash and mold lines as best I could. I decided to go with a more desert look for his color scheme. Starting with a white headdress and face mask, I stepped down a shade in lightness for each layer. The cowl that covers his shoulders was done in a light tan, the tunic in a dark khaki, and the pants in a lighter brown. His boots were dark brown. I pulled out the micron pens to give him some decoration and really like how he turned out. This is probably my third favorite figure of the batch mainly because of how his color scheme turned out. 

Finally, I put together another one of the Stargrave plastic figures. I was initially thinking he would be a leader type, but now I'm not sure which figure I want to be the leader for the faction! I chose one of the heads with an interesting helmet, and then gave him a pistol in his right hand and some strange zapper looking device in the left. Once he was all assembled, I had to choose colors. I decided to go with the light olive for his tunic and gray for his pants. One thing about the Stargrave miniatures: they don't take dry brushing well. The detail is simply not deep enough, I feel. It is too smooth. I tried to give him some decoration and ornamentation a bit, but he didn't turn out quite as exciting as the others.

Still, throw in the 3-D printed Mon Calamari guy and this is going to be a pretty cool looking squad! I've very happy with how it turned out. Now, I can finally say I am truly done with painting the player's initial factions. I promise! I will still have lots of Sci-Fi terrain to work on in the upcoming weeks, but the miniature part of the project is completed. In fact, I am working on a set of three Sci-Fi buildings right now that would be quite at home on Tatooine. 

With this batch completed, I am firmly in the green on my Acquired vs. Painted. I think I can say 2024 is going to be a "Plus" year where I finished more than I bought. I like how it makes my purchases more focused and will definitely continue this next year. 

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 226
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 235  

More Droids: Floating Robots Made from Craft Store Materials

    3 Droids assembled from sparkly craft store materials with a couple Sci-Fi figs in for scale

I saw the prismatic (color shift?) miniature glass bottles that I used as the "head" on these droids at my local Hobby Lobby a few months ago. I was considering scratch-building my own droids for my Star Wars skirmishes, and couldn't resist their bright and colorful appearance. I pulled out my beads, MDF bits, and other things I use when making my own stuff and tried to imagine a way for it all to go together. The stopping point was the legs, though. I was envisioning a walker style droid with a tripod leg arrangement, thinking that would look really cool. However, I simply couldn't come up with any way to do it.

    The materials from which the 'Prism Droids' were assembled -- eventually!

So, last week I took all of the pieces, which had sat on my desk for more than a month, and put them away in their various ziploc bags. I was officially giving up. I simply couldn't figure out a way to scratch build the legs I had in mind for them. Maybe I could find something I could use at a toy store? I put that on my list of things to do -- stop by a toy store and see if I can find any inexpensive robot legs to glue to the bottom of the rest of the construct I had pictured in my mind.

    Key to solving how the droids would be put together: thrusters to float instead of legs to walk!

Two days later, I was driving home from visiting my mom and had a thought. "Why not make them floating droids?" Grogu had his little floating bassinet. The imperial probe in Empire Strikes Back floated along. Land speeders appear to be floating. The Star Wars universe is fine with floating thingies, why not my droids? And there I was, less than 48 hours after putting it all away, I was taking it all back out! Besides the prismatic jars which would be the "head" of the droid, I had two sizes of craft store gems, detailed circular bases meant for Sci-Fi figures, gold-colored decorative beads, and MDF sprockets.

    MDF sprockets to look more 'machine like' atop two 3-D printed bases (1 facing up, 1 facing down)

I stared by gluing the beads to one of the bases that what would be the underside of droid. On top of each of the four beads (or bottom, once turned right-side up) was a tiny gem representing the "thrusters." I added Tacky Glue to the base, too, just to make sure the beads stayed attached to the 3-D printed bases that I'd picked up from Diabolical Terrain. I took the other, more detailed 3-D bases and glued the MDF sprocket to it. Once dry, I glued the two bases together to form the cylindrical "body" of the droid. I painted it Iron Wind Metals Steel color, highlighting the raised bits with Pewter metallic craft paint. 

   Three brightly-colored and prismatic droids float past domed habitats on a random Sci-Fi planet

For the heads, I glued the larger craft store gem to a 20mm MDF circular bases. On the underside, I glued the prismatic jar. I painted the base Steel, as well, and made tiny marks on it in Pewter to give it a more detailed and 3-D appearance. Before gluing the upper half and bottom half together, I used a pin vice to drill through the body and the round birch wood bases the droids would be floating above. I inserted brass wire though them, snipping the bottom off to size so the bottom thruster gems were only just above the birchwood base. I reinforced all of the points where the brass wire exited or entered the body or base with Tacky Glue. 

    Material for the glass bottles refracts light, so the color changes as they spin or your angle changes

All that was left was to glue the two halves together, once again with Tacky Glue (and an extra amount inside the "jar" so gravity would pull it down and give it a wider area of connection to the MDF sprocket). I put a few rocks for texture on the bases to break up their flat appearance. I flocked the bases with my standard Sci-Fi method of Fine Blended Gray Ballast with a black vehicle wash and light gray dry brush. Add four tufts each and my craft store floating droids were finally done!

    Close up of one of the floating droids from above

What's up next? My random batch of seven 28mm civilian miniatures are almost done. The Bad Goblin Games Water Tower is still primed, but not begun, yet. I decided to make room for it on my painting desk by clearing off these two batches. So, hopefully by the next update, I will have started the actual painting of the 28mm monstrosity!

    In hindsight, maybe I should have gone with silver beads of that style rather than gold?

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 226
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 223 

Star Wars Skirmish: 'Rebel Scum!' (and more barricades)

    Rebel scum! Six figs from the Stargrave 'Crew' & 'Crew II' boxes that I will use as Star Wars rebels

I'm back from my 10-day vacation in Morocco. It was an amazing time. To read about it, and see lots of photos, check out my Worldwidemike Travellerspoint blog. Which means those of you who were thinking, "Ahh-HA! He finally burnt out a little and slowed down a little..." were wrong...ha, ha! In fact, I had this batch almost done when I left and it only needed a session or two to complete.

I've talked about my upcoming Star Wars themed skirmish games, and this is the final faction to be painted up: the Rebels. Since I didn't really have figures that I felt would work for generic resistance to the Empire forces, at Advance the Colors 2024 I bought two of the Stargrave plastic box sets from Shieldwall Gaming Club. I'd looked through what Jeff Gatlin had available and felt the "Crew" and "Crew II" sets seemed to fit best. In general, I try to "buy local" when I can, and Jeff has been an amazing, loyal vendor at our HMGS Great Lakes and area conventions.

    I envision the gray-haired guy as the leader, but didn't go with a specific color scheme for this cell

I picked out three female and three male figures, matching up the heads and arm/weapon combinations that I liked best. I screwed up on aligning only one of them, though, so I am getting better at putting these plastic figures together! Try as I might, I couldn't get the left arm of one of the men to line up and support the weapon he was holding in the right. I gave up and set it down at his side so that he is firing one-handed, "Rambo-style." It is actually getting to the point that I feel comfortable enough putting these together that I was looking at what else Jeff had on sale when he announced his clearance sale (for restructuring -- thankfully, he doesn't appear to be closing down shop altogether!). My trip ended up coming up too quickly before I made a decision, so I missed out on picking up some more stuff at his reduced prices.

    I like how the lady in the burnt orange jumpsuit came out -- especially the ballcap & sunglasses

I decided not to go with a uniform color scheme for the figures. I mean, by definition, the rebels have to stay hidden from the imperial forces trying to hunt them down, right? Uniforms would make the Empire's job too easy! Of course, the fact the torsos in these two Stargrave sets have similar clothing styles made me go for more variety in my color choices. Otherwise, they would all end up looking too similar. I did try to go with a palette of lighter or paler colors, for the most part.

    The final two figures - I made the Rebels relatively heavily armed with only the leader having a pistol

I think the head choices have a lot of character in these two sets. My favorite is the ball cap wearing woman in sunglasses. One advantage of choosing the heads with sunglasses or helmets -- no eyes to paint, ha, ha! Actually, I was really pleased with the three pairs of eyes I did paint on this batch. Sometimes they come out good, I find, sometimes not nearly as well. Of course, some miniatures make it easier to paint the eyes when there is nothing obstructing your brushtip getting at them. These were all in the "Easy" category, for sure. I like how the Rebels came out. They're not as wild and characterful as the Criminal Syndicate figures that I painted in my previous batch. They're just solid and relatively generic figures that will blend in as they seek to overthrow the Evil Empire.

    The Rebels await the onslaught of Stormtroopers, sheltering behind Star Wars Legion barricades

As you may have noticed, in the background and foreground of some of the pictures are more of the Star Wars Legion barricades. I painted up my second (and final) set of them at the same time. I tried to do them identically to the first batch, so feel free to click on the link if you want to know how I did them.

So, what's next, now that I am back from vacation? I decided to get a little more organized and am now keeping a list on my desk of what I want to get done sooner rather than later for both terrain and miniatures. The other night when the Rebels were finished, I admit I was kind of at a loss what to paint. So, what I pulled out to paint is going to seem kind of random! In addition, yesterday I finally came up with an idea how to construct some scratch-build droids that the craft store parts have been sitting on my desk for weeks and weeks. Now that I have a recipe in mind, they're coming together quickly and may be finished before the minis I was referring to...! True to my commitment, there is also a piece of terrain being worked on simultaneously. Remember the giant, 3-D printed water tower I bought at Historicon 2024 from Bad Goblin Games? It is assembled and primed and looming over everything else on my desk right now. So, stay tuned to see which gets done first...!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 226
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 220 

New Batch of Sci-Fi Figs - Criminal Syndicate?

    Six new Sci-Fi minis from a variety of sources intended for my upcoming Star Wars skirmishes

In my upcoming Sci-Fi skirmish games, I plan to have my players take on the role of various factions in the Star Wars universe. I recently painted my Imperial Stormtroopers, and have plenty of miniatures I can use as either "Corporate Security" or "Mercenaries." However, nothing I have painted up jumps out at me as usable for a "Criminal Syndicate." for this faction, I'm envisioning a half dozen or so individuals with no uniforms, similar armament, or even race. So, I dug through my unpainted miniatures and found a half dozen that I thought might fit.

    Closeup of the riding beast of one of the Wiley Games resin miniatures, 'Rall'

Three of them are from Wiley Games resin miniatures line -- Lord Ordus, Slugrr, and Rall. One of the others was a freebie convention figure from Badger Games -- a very cool looking alien with an elongated head and three-toe, claw-like feet. The other two were also freebie convention figs, but "Pig-man" miniatures from my Cincycon attendance through the years. I think one is supposed to be a superhero Iron Man type, while the other is a 40K-ish pig-man in heavy armor. In the end, there's a chance some of these may end up being used for other factions or even not at all. Still, I want my players to have some variety to select from.

    This Wiley Games fig is very 'Dark Side of the Force' looking to me, and is one of my favorites

One of my favorite figures in this batch of six is the Lord Ordus from Wiley Games. I will probably kidnap him for the Empire, though, as he definitely has the air of the Dark Side about him. His opaque metallic mask, bright green bolts of energy building up in his hands, and dramatic cloak seems to just say "evil" to me. I painted him in suitably sinister colors. I gave him a dark red cloak with orange and yellow trim and decorations. His body suit underneath the robes is a dark, cherry brown. I painted his helmet the darkest metallic I had -- Iron Wind Metals Steel -- with dark metallic red trim. I'm not sure what the apparatus protruding from his back is supposed to be, but I painted it in sinister steel and bronze to match the rest of the figure. As I mentioned, Lord Ordus may end up being a leader for the Empire instead of a criminal, but we shall see...!

    At first I didn't like this 'Jabba the Hut' looking figure, but now I'm happy with how he turned out

Slugrr is an unusual, snail-like alien. The lower half of his body has a very "Jabba the Hut" slimey snail look about it. I painted his flesh a salmon color with pink highlighting. He had more equipment festooned onto him than any of the other miniatures. So, I decided to go with a desert military palette with khaki, tan, and olive drab. I like how Slugrr turned out, though I admit that after I bought him I was thinking to myself, "I will never paint this figure up...!" The pictures on their website don't show the lower half of the body (the snail or slug part). I honestly don't know what the rectangular boxlike thing slung over his shoulder is supposed to be. Maybe some sort of rocket or missile launcher? The four holes in the top look like exit ports for projectiles or missiles. All in all, I think he'll make a suitably...should I say it? Slimy character for the criminal syndicate!

    Too big to be a player character in a skirmish game? Maybe...but still a neat miniature

Rall is one I may never actually use a character for a player. Instead, he may simply be placed on the board as "eye candy." Doesn't just about every Star Wars film have some grotesque creature being ridden through the streets? This boar-like riding beast certainly fits the bill. Its heavy flaps of skin, horns and tusks protruding, and tiny piglike eyes fit the Star Wars creature look, I think. The alien riding him also looks sinister. His goblin-like pointed ears and bizarre goat-like legs make the opposite of "warm and cuddly." No Ewoks here! One of the things I regularly struggle with for my Sci-Fi games is deciding what color to make the skins for the aliens. I want them to be distinctive from each other -- not all green, blue, or whatever. Thus, Rall's almost "Avatar" blue skin, Slugrr's salmon, my Five Parsecs character Cephvarx Hul's lavendar, and the Valkeeri green. I really like how Rall's blue skin turned out, accentuating his goblin features, but not making him look like he is a fantasy character that wandered onto the wrong movie set! Anyway, this is a great model, if very large and somewhat impractical to use as character in a Sci-Fi skirmish. Hmm...if I'm kidnapping Lord Ordus for the Empire and jettisoning Rall to be simply an "eye candy" extra, that leaves me with only four figs from this batch to use as the syndicate. I may have to draft my Five Parsecs crew for criminals after all! 

    Quiddo is a freebie convention fig from Badger Games -- I really like his color scheme & alien look

The Badger Games alien figure (nicknamed 'Quiddo') is very nice, and I'm glad I finally got a chance to paint it up. I really don't remember which convention I was attending when I received the figure. It is a Sci-Fi figure, so I can't imagine it was Historicon. However, that's the only place I tend to see Badger Games have a booth. Anyway, I chose to paint the alien's skin reddish brown and dry brush it Middle East Flesh from Howard Hues. I decided to paint his jumpsuit light blue, then figured it might be cool to use my Turquoise Metallic Paint for the reinforced metal portions. I really like how the color combination worked out and will have to remember that pairing. There were some trim pieces done in various other colors, but all in all, I like how this alien trooper looks. I have to come up with a name for him, otherwise my friends will give him something like "Moe" or "Darrel"...!

    Foxhurst was a Cincycon freebie fig that I modified with a laser pistol and chest gem

The final two figures that were part of this batch were freebie figures I picked up at Cincycon. Some of the Cincinnati group that hosts the convention were (or are still?) part of Ral Partha Miniatures. So, they know sculptors who each year design a new pig-man figure for them. The pig has been the emblem of Cincycon, through the years, so why not a pig-man miniature as a freebie? This is quite possibly the first two pig-men that I have painted up from all those years of freebies, though! I believe the first one is supposed to be an Iron Man style, superhero pig-man. His armor looks very futuristic, of course. It is very cleanly cast with great definition. You can see where each piece connects to its neighbor and was a snap to paint up. I did the entire figure in Iron Wind Metals Steel, then painted each piece metallic Chocolate Brown. I left the seams between the pieces Steel, though. Next, I added a bright gold highlight to each piece of armor. Once I put the black wash over it all, the blending of the three metallic colors looked great, I feel. I ended up going with a yellowish-tan skin color for his head (the only place you can see the skin). I gave him green eyes, black gloves, and once I was completely done flocking and sealing it, I glued on the yellow craft store gem onto his chest armor. One other modification to the figure was I added a laser pistol in his hand from one of my Stargrave sets. 

    'Trooper Rimlee' is a very 40K looking freebie figure from Cincycon who finally got painted up

The final pig-man is probably my least favorite figure of the batch. He was easy to paint up in his 40K-ish armor. I gave him a base of Iron Wind Metals steel and highlights of bright bronze. I think one reason I don't like him much is because I have never caught that 40K Imperial Space Marine bug. Too much like Mechs, maybe -- ha, ha! Anyway, he will definitely work for a heavily armored bad guy for the criminal syndicate. I guess I need to name him, otherwise he'll become "Trunk Monkey" or something like that...!

Final look at this batch of 6 Sci-Fi figs that puts me 12 away from evening up my Painted vs. Acquired

With the criminal syndicate completed, there's only one faction left to paint. The Rebels! Can't have a rebellion with the rebels, right? This morning, I took six figures from the Stargrave Crew and Crew II boxes and assembled them. They were primed this evening, and they'll be the next batch of figures I paint up. Stay tuned to see how they turn out!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 226
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 214

Hopefully, These are the Droids I'm Looking For...

    A dozen droids from various manufacturers, including a few scratch-built from scatter terrain

As I gear up for running Star Wars themed skirmish games, there was one thing I was certainly lacking: droids. Not war bots and military stuff like that -- I had painted up a good number of those already. I'm talking about the civilian type ones like C3PO or R2D2. They didn't have to be copies of those two. Any unarmed, robot or droid-like figures would work. Remember the scene inside the Jawas vehicle when those two were captured during the first Star Wars movie? There were LOTS of different sizes and shapes, so I felt I had a relatively free hand.

    Remember the 'Walking Trash Can' droid from Star Wars? Here's my version of 'Gonk'

One source was the Retro Raygun line from Hydra Miniatures. On our trip up to the Michigan Toy Soldier & Figure Company, I snatched up three types there. I also picked up some from RRB. Minis & More from the venerable Reviresco 28mm line. And finally, while painting up some of my 3-D printed scatter from Diabolical Terrain, I noticed some of the cylindrical pieces looked very droid-like. They would needed treads or something to give them mobility to be attached underneath, though. Rich Brown of RRB came to my rescue and pointed out stuff in his catalog that would work. 

So, once assembled, I had a very large batch of miniatures to paint at once. I prefer to work on about a half dozen or so at a time, but this was twice that size -- 12 figures. I started out with putting them together. My friend Jason had told me a trick to use with superglue -- have a light dusting of baking soda on one of the halves to be joined together. According to him, it would cause the glue to cure superfast. Since I am so untalented with superglue, I figured superfast superglue might be easier to use. I tried it out when assembling the various arms, heads, etc., together. I did seem to work much faster and hold strong. Thanks for another modeling or painting tip, Jason!

    I took pieces of scatter terrain that looked vaguely like R2D2 and gave them treads

I began with the Diabolical Terrain scatter pieces. I chose the smallest size of three different types of cylinders I'd purchased back at DayCon 2024 in April. I used my hobby saw to separate the bottom quarter or so from the rest of the piece. Only one cut went awry or uneven, but I hoped I could hide it with the RRB treads I would be gluing to the bottom of them. I cleaned up the treads and they were perfect size. They came from three of their Sci-Fi vehicles -- two tank-like ones and one "Jungle Bot." The hardest part was setting them upright for the cylinder to rest upon. Afterwards, I thought "Duh!" I should have glued the treads to the base first! I didn't use superglue for this, I used modeling cement that I have been using for assembling multipart plastic figures. They came out pretty good -- one or two has a gap if you look closely, but all in all, I was happy with how they came together. 

    Good view of the treads which I scavenged from Reviresco bots I bought from RBB Minis & More

I primed them with white artist's Gesso (another Jason tip), because I wanted the main color for most of the droids to be white. It seemed to be a predominant color in the Jawas collection in the movie, at least. Once drying overnight, I gave it a coat of white. I chose to do one accent color on each droid, doing red, blue, and green ones. I also painted the little rectangular panels black and gave them glowing buttons like I did my scatter pieces. I went back and forth whether to give these a wash to dull them up (they were really bright white), and finally decided to go with a dusty brown. After they dried, I gave them a spray clear coat. Upon examining them, I felt they were too dirty, and did a very light white dry brush over the darker parts to brighten them up, again. I know the droids were probably sitting there thinking, "Make up your mind...!"

    Two 'Simon 6' robots from Hydra Miniatures' 'Retro Raygun' line that I liked

Next up were the Retro Raygun robots, Blocko the Squarebot and Simon 6. While assembling these miniatures, I had noticed that the torso and legs of Block looked quite a bit like Gonk, aka the "Walking Trash Can" droid from Star Wars. So, I decided to not glue on the arms or head and have him be my take on Gonk. The others were put together correctly and primed with gesson and given a white base coat. I did the two Simons first, giving one of the red trim on a white body. The next, I left the trim white and repainted the body blue. This reversing of colors has a nice effect, I thought. I gave them a glowing green power indicator in their chest and red eyes. Otherwise, they're painted to be similar in theme to the scatter droids I did first.

    'Blocko the Squarebot' as envisioned by Retro Raygun and then re-imagined as a Star Wars 'Gonk'

Blocko I wasn't sure how to paint. I decided to go with a dull yellow as his basecoat. I painted the arms and legs a pale blue. I guess I decided to depart from the white and trim color theme here because I wanted it to look different than the two Simon robots. I gave him some dark blue metallic trim that I think sets him off a bit. He got the usual lighted yellow, green, blue, red, and white lighted buttons and dials, too. As I was painting him, I felt he looked so retro as to be almost cartoonish. However, once he was done, I was more pleased. After all, C3PO has theose shocked eyes and mouth, too.

    One of the easiest droids to paint up, two of Retro Raygun's 'Hoverbots'

Finally, it was on to the little ones. From Retro Raygun, I picked up a pack of five Hoverbots. Since this batch was so big already, I decided to paint just two of the five. To pick up trash on the ground, I bought a pack of three Reviresco Monowheel Scavengers from RRB Minis. These are pretty cool looking figures, being built around a single wheel, with metallic cover and body. Attached are two robot arms. What really sets them off is their wide open jaw with metal teeth at the front of the robot. I figured these guys buzz around the streets picking up trash and depositing in their mechanical mouths.

    3 'Monowheels' from Reviresco -- I imagine them as rolling garbage collectors scooping up trash

I wasn't sure how to paint them, so did a little bit each time. I began with a gesso and then white base coast. Next, I did the wheel a dark gray rubber. I made the metallic cover for the wheel Iron Wind Steel. I finally decided to use a color for the various trim pieces like I did with Simon 6. I decided the trim would be in normal flat acrylics, but the wheel color would be in a matching metallic color. From being unenthused about them initially, I'm pretty happy with how they came out. Strangely, though, I managed to have one of the blue one's arms come off and have yet to find it! So, I painted over the socket and I have one Mark I version and two Mark II's...ha, ha!

All of the droids and robots got my new Sci-Fi flocking. Rather than putting on Blended Gray fine ballast and then giving it a dark wash, I decided recently to buy a fine black ballast from the local model train supply store. I then dry brush this gray, cutting out a couple steps and using less of my black wash. Add in some brownish tufts and an occasional large patch of stones, and they're done. 

    Another looks at the back of 'Blocko the Squarebot' and my modification of it for 'Gonk'

This batch of 12 took a long time to paint up. I did it in stages, as I mentioned. I'm happy with how they look, though. Will a dozen civilian droids be enough for my games? Wellll, I do have two more Reviresco models I bought, and there are three more Hoverbots. Oh, and I have three more of those Diabolical scatter pieces I turned into droids. We'll see. I'm hoping, as the title of this entry suggests, that these are the droids I've been looking for, though!

What's up next? I am finished with two batches of Acheson scatter pieces. They are barricades made of stacks of tires and oil drums and also tall concrete barricades. As soon as I finish the flocking and take pictures of them, I will put them up here. As far as miniatures go, I'm thinking that the next minis I paint may well be the 'Criminal' faction for my Star Wars skirmishes. Stay tuned to find out!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 226
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 208

More Aliens, Star Wars barricades, & Sci-Fi Container

    My staged scene to show off a dozen Aliens, 8 Star Wars barricades, and 1 Sci-Fi container

This blog post covers several painting updates, two of terrain/scatter and one of miniatures. They're all Sci-Fi, so I decided to stage a scene to hopefully show off each of the three. All of them went very quickly, I am happy to say. And I'm more than satisfied with how they all turned out.

    Closeup of three of the poses in the packs of 3-D printed aliens from JS Wargamer Printing

Let's start with the Aliens creatures. I bought two more packs of six Aliens from John at JS Wargamer Printing. I ordered them almost immediately after painting my first batch. I think I said in that blog post they were quite simply the easiest and quickest thing I'd ever painted. These went equally fast. I joked that the flocking on the base takes longer than the painting of the 3-D printed miniature. Spray black, go over it with a 50/50 mixture of acrylic black paint and water, and then dry brush it metallic battleship gray and you're done! Truly amazing how something painted up so quickly looks so effective.

    The insides of the Star Wars Legion barricades, which also painted up quickly and I think look great

The next thing I want to talk about are the Star Wars Legion barricades. I picked up a batch of these back when I was thinking I would need walls for Space Station Zero. Unfortunately, I got in only one game of that in before I moved on to another project. My friend Mike S knew I was going to paint some, so found another pack at clearance somewhere and gave them to me. I seem to be surrounded by generous friends who gift me things I can use! I went back and forth about how I wanted to paint them. I even did a Google Image search to see how others had done them.

    "Outside" of the barricades (which lean at a slight angle) - showing the gray and dull orange look

I decided to go with a dirty and worn gray look. They got the same start as the Aliens with spray and 50/50. Next, I did a medium gray dry brush over them, and a light gray after that. Next, I took a very light gray, almost white, and did a line at the top of each section of the barricade. Finally, I took a craft color called "Georgia Clay" and wet brushed it into the spaces between each section of the barricade. I finished it off by painting the keypads on the insides of the barricades black. Once dry, I added in bright color buttons and screens. I did only one pack of them this time, but will do the other pack of eight barricade sections soon. As I said, I am very happy with how they turned out!

    The 'bright side' of the Sci-Fi container from A Critical Hit - you can see at the top the shifting effect

The next thing I completed in this update was another piece of Sci-Fi scatter from A Critical Hit (that I purchased at Cincycon 2024). I called it "Sci-Fi Container," and it looks like they used a similar material to the Alien Nodule. However, rather than one that changes color to different tones, this one flashes between black and a yellowish-green. It reminds me of the color shift paint called "Black Flash" that I painted another piece of scatter with awhile back. Unlike the nodule, one side seems to stay mostly dark while the other is more bright. I have no idea what is at work here, maybe different colors were added to different parts of the print?

    The 'dark side' of the container showing the silver metallic bands and the glowing panels

Since the main part of this piece came "painted," there wasn't really much to do on this. I painted the metallic bands arcing over the container Iron Wind Metals steel, and then highlighted it Pewter. I also did the same with metallic D-shaped "tie downs" securing the container to the floor. The floor was painted last, all Steel. Before that, though, I painted the recessed panels black and then added in glowing buttons of green, red, yellow, and white. I think it is a pretty cool looking piece for as little time as it took!

    Desperate times for the Bronze Legion as they defend the barricades from alien xenomorphs!

I continue to make good progress on getting things painted up and ready for the tabletop. I am working on a vehicle for my Zombie RV games (hint as to what the vehicle is...). Otherwise, it is pretty much Sci-Fi things that I want to work on for awhile. The aliens and this terrain has actually been done for a couple days (well, except for the final spray sealant on the aliens). So, I am well into my next batch! Advance the Colors is this next weekend, though. You know what that means, right? More purchases! And just as my Painted vs. Acquired was looking good again...!!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024 (Next year, I want to tally terrain and scatter, too. If anyone has any ideas how to do that, I'd love to hear!)

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 170
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 183
  

    Aliens closing in! Is one of the Bronze Legion whining, "Game over, man!"??

'It's a Trap!' More Sci-Fi Figures - Mon Calamari from Star Wars

   'Fishman Troopers' that I purchased from JS Wargamer Printing at Cincycon & painted up recently

The more I paint JS Wargamer Printing 3-D miniatures, the more I am liking them. Here's another batch I recently painted up for my Sci-Fi games. They could be either a unit for Xenos Rampant, a couple squads for Wiley Games' Galactic Heroes, or an enemy force for Five Parsecs from Home. All Star Wars fans know Admiral Ackbar, the squid-faced, fleet commander famous for his line, "It's a trap!" Well, apparently his home world is a water one named Mon Cala. And his people are -- you guessed it -- Mon Calamari! 

    Go ahead, say it...you know you want to mimic Admiral Ackbar's voice and declare, "It's a trap!"

What's more, according to Wookiepedia (yes, that is the Star Wars fan site's name), there are various skin colors for the natives of the planet. So, this "fact" let me inject a little variety into this squad besides Ackbar's reddish tones. HMGS Great Lakes member John Leahy runs JS Wargamer Printing, and his prints were fairly clean and had none of the lines you sometimes see in 3-D printed models (especially terrain). I've been pleased with everything I've purchased from him so far, so I recommend his company highly. These figures came on "slotta" style bars, which I snipped off and cemented their feet directly to the base. I've always hated slotta bases. There are 10 "Fishman Troopers" in the pack, but I was careless in snipping off the slot and snapped one poor Mon Calamari's foot off. So, perhaps it was a trap!

    Two Fishman troopers, green and blue-skinned, armed with a light saber and blaster

As I do with 3-D printed figures, I primed them with Krylon Fusion acrylic black. Then I go over it with a 50/50 mix of acrylic black paint and water. I feel this gives it an extra shell to strengthen any fragile parts. I chose five different base skin colors, which I then dry brushed in lighter tones: blue, green, dark orange, red-brown, and salmon. I really liked how the dry brushing brought out the detail on the face -- especially the wattles or whatever the skin flaps under the mouth are called. As I looked over each one, I had to fight off the temptation to say, "It's a trap!" Still, I couldn't help myself sometimes. So, for the heck of it, I decided to keep track of how many times I said it during the painting process!

   Three more Mon Calamari, front and back, showing the subtle differences in color I used for variety

The outfits I decided were two basic garmants. The first was for the shirt/poncho that went down to the elbows and below the waist, and was slitted up on the sides. The "pants" I decided were actually a one-piece outfit that was worn underneath the shirt poncho. In addition, I screwed up and thought it also extended beneath the folded sleeves. I was wrong. Upon closer look, I saw that it was the trooper's skin beneath the folded sleeves -- not the underall and gloves. So, I had to go back and redo the skin on the forearms and hands of each Fishman trooper. I used pastel colors -- a light gray, light green, and dun yellows -- for the shirts. The pants were done in grays, tans, and dun yellows. I regularly referred to Google Image searches of Admiral Ackbar and Mon Calamari on the internet to get inspiration for colors. I didn't want them to be completely uniform, but I wanted them to have a relatively common look.

    I liked the varieties of poses, too, in this pack of 'Fishman Troopers' from JS Wargamer Printing

I did the same for the belts and shoes, switching it up and trying to make each as individually different from the others as possible. For example, for the three figures with the light gray shirt, I would give one gray pants, one khaki, and one yellow. I have been doing things like this on miniatures for decades to give an irregular but unified look to armies. The eyes I painted a dark brown first. I then did a yellow arc and tiny point to do my best to replicate the Mon Calamari's almost cat-like eyes. In the movies, Ackbar's eyes are very shiny and wet looking. So, when the final spray coat was done, I went back and brushed on clear gloss over the eyes.

    If you are a Star Wars fan, I recommend picking up this bag of Fishman Troopers!

The blasters were done in Gunmetal Gray with Pewter highlights. The nose cone of gun I painted metallic red, for the fun of it. The light sabers were done in metallic chocolate brown with gold highlights. Brown and black washes were done over the colors, depending on which would look better. Tans and yellows tend to get the brown, while the blues, greens, grays, etc., get black. Weapons get the full strength black wash. I flocked them up like I have been doing for my space forces, and was done. Overall, the Fishman troopers painted up very quickly and will make a nice addition to my Sci-Fi forces. Oh? How many times did I say, "It's a trap!" during the process. I counted eight -- which I felt was very reserved. I wanted to say it many more times...ha, ha!

    One final look at the Mon Calamari on my space station boards with Sci-Fi scatter terrain

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 104
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 120