New Gang: The Santanas

The leader of my Hispanic street gang, Julio, proudly sporting his gang jacket emblazoned with The Santanas' logo

Even though I had painted up nine street gangs as part of my Mean Streets project, something was missing. I'd recently done punk rockers (Indianola Mohawks). I had a martial arts gang (Linden Daos), an African-American gang (Eastmoor Kings), motorcycle gang (Sons of Thor), and a West-side working class white gang (Hilltop Highlanders). However, I had no Italian or Hispanic, leather jacket wearing, "classic" TV gang.

Cruz has tattooed the gang's "S" onto his ample beer belly and keeps his leather jacket unzipped to show it off

So, as I sat looking at the remaining eight figs from my purchase from Casting Room Miniatures, I noticed most had obvious leather jackets. My original plan had been for them to be a heavy metal gang and call them the Head Bangers. However, the chance to do a classic gang with their logo emblazoned on the backs of their brown leather jacket was too good to pass up. I decided to go with a Hispanic theme, and remembering my high school days that rock guitarist Carlos Santana was popular, I decided to go with the gang name, The Santanas!

Margarita looks like she's been around the block once or twice, and "packs heat" to deal with those who give her grief

Once that decision was made, I realized I had a problem. Back when I began painting the Indianola Mohawks, I decided to be efficient and do the flesh tone on both gangs. I did them in a mix of Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic. Oops. They needed to be ALL Hispanic. So, the first project was to darken up the Caucasians and lighten up the African-Americans. There are a range of skin tones with Hispanic people in the United States, of course, just like any other ethnicity. So, I actually liked how the skin palette, so to speak, turned out.

Intimidating-looking El Lobo carries his bat with him everywhere, always ready for a rumble

Next up, I made the decision to go with brown leather jackets over black ones. The Warriors in the movie of that name have brown ones, as (I believe) do the The Wanderers in the more light-hearted movie of the same name. What symbol, though? I Googled Carlos+Santana+symbol and scanned through the hits. There was the musician's trademark, swirly capital "S." There was also a few Hippie-trippy wings in the drawings, too. So, I sketched out Santana's swirly S with wings on it, and liked how it looked. Even more importantly, I was really pleased with how it came out on the back of the jackets!

Ramona takes no crap from anybody, and needs no weapons. She'll wallop you upside your head with her meaty fists!

I had an epiphany, of sorts, while painting The Santanas. And that is I HAVE to use my lighted magnifier when I paint details. I'd always been irked with how the tops of my paint brushed clanked against the mirror as I was painting. In a fit of anger, I snapped off the top half of my tiny, detail brush and was like..."Heyyyy...this works!" So, I think the logo turned out as good as it did because I am using my magnifier religiously on detail work, now.

Mańana's figure began life as a hippie protestor, but I turned him into something more menacing with jewelry chain

Two of the seven figures I was painting did not have leather jackets, though. One of them appeared to have a sleeveless "wife beater" -- sometimes called a muscle shirt. I used paint to turn that into a leather vest, instead. The other was too obviously a t-shirt to do anything with. So, on of the gang members isn't wearing his leather jacket. So, I painted the logo on the back of the shirt, instead. I was tempted, for a moment, to paint Santanas on the front. Then I realized that I am not that skilled to do so. Not even close! The figure has a Rastafarian style haircut, headband, and actually turned out to be one of my favorites from the gang.

Jeffe's sleeveless t-shirt was morphed into a leather vets, and I added a knife to turn the peace sign into V for Victory!

I haven't talked about the actual REAL first step, yet -- silly me! Modifying the figures from Tedious Hippie Scum (one of the packs I bought) or Leather Gals and Boys (the other) into a mostly-armed street gang. The Leather dudes I didn't have to do anything to at all -- bare-bellied Cruz already had a chain, El Lobo carried a baseball bat, Margarita concealed her pistol, and Ramona and Julio brandished their fists. The two hippies needed modification, though. Jeffe was given a knife in his right hand (I guess the two fingers doesn't mean peace, it is "V" for Victory!). I modified Mańana by giving him a length of jewelry chain between his outstretched hands. I was very happy with how it turned out.

In fact, I was incredibly happy with how The Santanas turned out. This will be my last gang for awhile. I now have ten, which is more than enough for the games I'll be running (whenever we get to meet in person to run games again!). Hope you enjoyed The Santanas!