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  

Starfighters: Empire Remants vs. Rebels, er New Government!

    We had 7 players and a GM for our game of Starfighters, with lots of laughs heard around the table

Keith wanted to run a Starfighters game using the Wiley Games rules. We had played it once or twice before and enjoyed it, so why not? After our first game or so, I felt there was a play balance issue with X-Wings being incredibly deadly. Keith felt he had discovered a patch for this problem in online, so this game was to give it a try. The scenario was set in the Mandalorian time frame, with the Empire being reduced to remnant holdouts and the Rebels being promoted to the new government.

    The new government squadron (formerly known as Rebels) were escorting heavily-armed freighters

The New Government players (Mike W, Mike S, and Allen) each controlled a large, heavily-armed freighter and an escorting fighter. Keith had two sizes of the Millennium Falcon and a Mando Razor Crest. Two X-wings and one Y-wing completed their flotilla, with the mission of simply moving from one edge of the table to the opposite, eight feet away.

    A flotilla of Tie fighters & bombers draw a cordon across their path and attempt to turn them back

The remnant imperials job, of course, was to ambush them and stop them from crossing our patch of interstellar turf. We had four imperial players (Jenny, Joel, Tom, and myself) each controlling an identical force of three ships. We had a classic light Tie fighter, an advanced Tie Fighter, and an imperial bomber. In our previous games, the Tie Fighters had been consumed like popcorn, blowing up at an alarming rate. Keith tried to minimize this with making only 1/3 of our force light ships, the other three being classified as "Medium" and heavier armed.

    It was four remnant imperial players (12 ships) against three former Rebels (6 ships)

The biggest change, though, was the damage table when scoring a hit on an enemy. The classic Wiley Game model present throughout most of their rules was modified in one crucial area. The 9-10 on 1d10 was no longer "Out of Action". Instead, it was a single point of damage (our light Tie fighters could take three), and a score of 10 leading to a d6 roll on a separate critical hit table. Only a "6" was a kaboom, the others causing the loss of a weapon or movement or something. As it turned out, this was too much of a fix and absolutely erased the X-wings chief advantage.

    Keith had placed his foam planets and asteroids as terrain on the tabletop for ships to hide behind

In previous games, the X-wings were armed with four lasers, getting four separate rolls to hit. Each hit would make its own roll on the classic Wiley Games damage chart, with the result of every other shot or so leading to an exploded Tie fighter. Now, there was less than a 2% chance of that happening per hit instead of 20% per hit. The result was the empire drove off the former Rebels' squadron. There was a rule that if your ship had more "Pilot Shock" than remaining hits it would disengage and fly away. When we called the game, more than half of the enemy ships were in retreat and we had suffered almost no damage. 

    Jenny channels Darth Vader and closes in on Mike S's ships, 'I've got this one now...'

Keith went home that night and promptly came up with a new damage chart which we will doubtless try again some Sunday evening. It was fun to get the star fighters out on the table again, though. Of course, with our success, it was even more fun for us than them, possibly! Still, laughs were heard all around the table on both sides. I credited our victory to the leadership of our new tactical mastermind, our friend Tom, who has been attending again on Sunday. It is good to game with him regularly again, and hear his chuckle across the tabletop!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

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

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

Stormtroopers, Walkers & an Acheson Building

    A platoon of 3-D printed imperial stormtroopers, supported by some Wiley Games walkers

As part of getting ready for some Star Wars themed Sci-Fi skirmishes, I would have to paint up some stormtroopers sooner or later. A couple CincyCons back, I had bought some 3-D printed ones from JS Wargamer Printing's "Galaxy Far, Far Away" line. I decided to give them some heavy support and painted up three walkers alongside them. These were actually a figure from Wiley Games' resin line of minis called BLST3R. Painted up almost simultaneously was a large Sci-Fi building from Acheson Creations that I had purchased at Drums at the Rapids this past May.

    Painting the black accents on the white stormtrooper armor was a royal pain, I discovered!

We'll start with the stormtroopers. There were 10 figures in the pack with only a few duplicate poses, so that was nice. They came printed with a "slotta" style base, which I despise. I had recently bought a pair of sprue cutters at a hobby store and this assisted in my snipping them free from their bar of shame. I did lose part of the foot of one of the figures while doing so, but was able to recover the figure (unlike with the Mon Calamari). I glued them to plastic round bases with modeling cement and then sat back and pondered how to paint them. 

    I actually had to do a light wash on these figures to be able to SEE the detail to paint them!

As most people know, stormtroopers have white armor, but a black undersuit, as well as black accents on the armor. Do I paint them black and dry brush white heavily? I didn't think that would work. I would cover up too much of the black areas, or not get it white enough, I felt. So that meant I would have to paint them white and paint the black parts by hand. I correctly surmised that it would be a royal pain -- wait, an IMPERIAL -- pain in the butt! However, since I wasn't spray painting these 3-D figures black, it gave me a chance to try out something my friend Jason M (check out his blog) recommended for priming: artist gesso. Jason warned me it seems really thick going on, but shrink wraps around the miniature, looking better in the prepainting stage than it does while applying it. What's more, the gesso surface absolutely grabs the paint and makes it every easy to cover. One coat of brushed on white was all I needed. I was impressed and will continue to use the gesso for figures I would normally prime white. Apparently, they also make a black gesso, so I may pick up a bottle of that, too. I also feel the thickness of the gesso coat may provide similar protection against the brittleness of 3-D printed figures that my normal Krylon spray paint and 50/50 acrylic and water does.

    The stormtroopers and walkers with their coat of Gesso from Liquitex -- I like using this as primer!

    The second squad of five stormtroopers: 'What's that? You two go over and investiage..."

Painting the stormtroopers reminded me a lot of when I did the Bronze Legion awhile back. It was a similar question. Paint the armor first and then do the careful detail to pick out the black joints in the armor? Or paint it black and laboriously do the bronze over it? Both ways were a pain for those figs. Similarly, doing the back was tedious on these stormtroopers. Interestingly, when I went to paint the black, I was struggling to see the detail even under my lighted magnifying glass! It was really hard to tell where to paint the black. So, I improvised and did a very light black wash over the figures first. This pooled in the recesses enough to be able to see what I needed to paint black. After the careful black step was done, I went back and added white highlights to areas where I felt there was too much black wash. Next, were the trooper's blaster rifles (Iron Metals Steel and a full strength black wash). I am happy with how they came out. I am also happy that, considering the scale of skirmishes I am doing, this should be the only batch of stormtroopers that I have to paint!

    The Wiley Games resin walkers come in two pieces, are easy to assemble, and look good, I think

The BLST3R walkers had been assembled (upper half and lower half) and based on round, wooden bases months and months ago. They also got the gesso priming. I decided I would go with white as their base color to match the stormtroopers and give them metallic colored accents. I chose three of my favorites, a deep red, dark blue, and "Christmas Tree" green. I experimented with one first, deciding which areas should remain white and which should get the metallic color. After finishing all three, I wasn't as happy as I thought I would be. I wondered if I should have gone with non-metallic colors? Oh well...too late now! I am definitely NOT going back and painting them, again. Like the stormtroopers, these figures also had a minimum of colors to paint. I picked out a couple areas on the weapon "arms" to paint black and give colored buttons or dials accents on. All in all, I'm happy with how they turned out, too. They are not Star Wars imperial walkers, true. It is a big empire, though. Who's to say the imperial forces did not have walkers similar to these BLST3R models deployed to some planet in the galaxy far, far away? I gave them a watered down black wash to pick out some of the depth and recesses on the miniature. They'll make tough enemies for the rebels on the tabletop!

    The rear of the walkers - you can see the watered down black wash I did on them, too

Once the miniatures were done, it was time to work full time on the Acheson building. I used my favorite Chocolate Brown metallic craft paint as the base color of this interestingly shaped building. I went back and forth over what color to make the "ribs." I ended up choosing the deep, burgundy red metallic because I knew those two colors went together well. The steel plates festooned over the building were painted in Battleship Gray metallic with Pewter highlights. I added bright bronze to a few other places and made the dome a pink metallic. I went with pink because it is in the same color palette as the deep red, I felt. I finished it off with my usual black wash and was very happy at this stage. 

    Large Sci-fi building from Acheson Creations -- I really like the interesting shape and very cool door

And then something unexpected happened! When I used my clear spray coat it caused a crackling effect on the top and some other sections of the building. I had never had this happen before, and am still not sure why it happened. One possibility is that I did not completely remove Acheson's very strong mold release agent sufficiently before I primed it. I normally run it through the dishwasher on a light wash. Did I forget to run this one through? Perhaps. More likely, my decision to not use soap (and the fact that it is a different dishwasher) meant the cycle may simply not have been enough. The crackling effect looks kind of cool, though. I am worried that the bubbling up is going to eventually cause the paint to chip and peel away. We'll see.

    Three quarters view of the building -- I love how the colors all worked out on this

I'm going to try to work on terrain alongside batches of miniatures going forward. Most of the figures will be Sci-Fi, for the time being. The terrain may be a mix, but with an emphasis on Sci-Fi. Right now on my painting desk is about a dozen robots or droids from various sources. These are meant to be "civilian" types -- not war bots like I've painted in the past. In essence, I want them for eye candy or objectives on the tabletop. Stay tuned, and hopefully I'll have another update soon! 

    A close up showing the crackling effect that appeared after I sprayed it will my clear coat

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 226
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 196 

'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