'City in the Clouds' Project Begins - the Valkeeri Faction

    My first squad for a new Pulp Sci-Fi project and convention game -- the Valkeeri from Hydra Minis

Over the last couple years, I picked up some Pulp Sci-Fi figures from Hydra Miniatures. These are amazing looking 28mm metal sculpts that needed to get onto the tabletop. One of them had became part of my crew in my solo Five Parsecs from Home campaign. Another became a member of the Rebel Alliance in my Star Wars skirmish campaign. However, I had many more of the figures sitting unpainted, waiting for me to find a use for. At one point, I thought I could use them for games of Xenos Rampant, but we haven't really been playing that much, lately.

    Actually only 1 of the 5 (with cloak) is a 'Valkeeri' model - the rest are Hydra Minis 'Astro Angels'

One possibility was that they could be small, 4-5 man (er, woman) factions for games of Space Weirdos. I had purchased them in groups of roughly 4-5, so that would work the figures I had on hand. One evening, almost unbidden, an idea for a convention game sprang into my head. I envisioned a 4'x4' table whose ground level was clouds of various colored smoke, representing the upper surface of a gas giant. Rising out of the clouds would be clear acrylic rods, supporting a City in the Clouds. There would have to be a good support network anchoring those rods into place to support the terrain and figures atop them and keep them from being tipped over. I could work that out, though!

    I love these miniatures from the 'Retro Raygun' line - so much Pulpy character in them!

The game part would use Space Weirdos and have factions of 4-5 figures flying around on jet packs to achieve some mission -- steal a vital component from the city, kidnap an ambassador, free a prisoner -- you name it! I would base figures on clear bases and players would move them from one acrylic platform to another -- "flying" above the surface. In my mind, it sounds amazing -- at least if it ends up looking like I see it in my head! The first step -- before building the city -- is to paint up the factions themselves. I looked at my list of unpainted miniatures that I keep on my phone. I already own enough Hydra Miniatures for three of the six factions. So, here we go -- we are off and running on another project!

    To look more alien, I decided that MY Valkeeri would have green skin instead of Caucasian

Hydra Miniatures Retro Raygun line has a number of factions, one of which is the Valkeeri. Their website has painted models on display of all the packs. You really should check them out, as they were painted by my favorite miniature painter of them all, Dr. Matthias from the Lead Adventure Forum. Back in my Five Parsecs days, I stole the name of one of their factions, Valkeeri, for my crew member's race. My Valkeeri would be green skinned, rather than Caucasian, though. I painted my Star Wars rebel also with green skin. So, these green skinned ladies would be my first faction. Here's where it gets a little complex, though. For my "Valkeeri" miniatures, I used figures from another of their factions, the Astro Angels. They're another group of "hot chicks in leotards." However, for their leader, I used one of the actual Valkeeri models (Leader B). So, yeah, I'm taking Hydra Miniatures' ideas and changing their Pulp factions into my own. And I will likely use the other Valkeeri models I own as a second, as yet unnamed, faction -- keep up with me here! 

    And here she is, the leader and lone figure actually from the Valkeeri line - very sinister looking, eh?

Once I had the "Valkeeri" of my first faction assembled -- you had to glue their jet packs on -- I primed them white with Liquitex Gesso. I did their faces first, even though with their gloves and boots, that is the only part of the model showing any skin. I painted them a very bright "Parsley" green, and did a wash of a darker green to give some shading to their faces. Next, I did their one piece, skin tight leotards in a dusty purple. I dry brushed it a lighter shade and then moved on to the black. This consisted of their gloves, boots, and the leader's cloak. This got a gray dry brush to give some definition.

The most time consuming part of the figure is the metal. Their helmets, collars, guns, armor and knee joints, and their belts were all painted first in my favorite metallic, a very dark one from Iron Wind called Steel. Details were then picked out in a bright bronze with an ever brighter shade of it as highlights on the bronze. The jet packs were done in a subsequent session, identically to my previously painted Valkeeri, as were the guns, using a variety of bright metallic colors. 

    The 'girls' check out the control room of an enemy facility, looking for a secret device to steal

For their faces, I painted the eyes with a dark, bluish-green socket first, then a bright yellow for their "whites" (Hey, they're aliens!), followed by a very dark blue for their iris. I gave them medium green lips, and much to my surprise, was suddenly done. Those went much faster than I expected! I went back and forth on whether to do any kind of dark wash, finally decided to do a half strength of my normal black vehicle wash. This was mainly because I feel metallics look better with a dark black wash over them. Perhaps I thinned it down too much, as it didn't seem to make a lot of difference -- just a very small one.

I wanted to base these on clear bases -- since they'll be zooming across the sky. The only problem was that I didn't have any! Plus, in my impetuousness to get started, I failed to trim them off their metal bases first. Oops! In the end, they trimmed off pretty easy with wire cutters and an X-acto knife. A friend lent me some 1" round clear bases, so I was able to get these based up before ordering more from Litko. I'd heard that using superglue to attach figures to clear bases is problematic, as it may sometimes "fog" the plastic. So, I stuck with my tried and trusted two-part, 5-minute epoxy. I thought about drilling the bottom of their feet and inserting pins to "peg" them and get them to stay even better. Instead, I decided that I could do that on subsequent batches IF I am having problems with them popping off. So, here they are -- the first five figures for my City in the Clouds project! Hope you like them!! Note that this also brings down the gap between my Acquired vs. Painted in miniatures down to less than 40. As long as I stay disciplined and don't run off and buy stuff for a new project, I would say getting ahead is within sight.

    My prototype 'Valkeeri' (yes, another Astro Angel!) figure from my Star Wars skirmishes

What else is on my painting desk? For miniatures, I have finally begun painting up some of the Gringo 40s 28mm metal Vietnam figures I bought. First up is a batch of six V.C. female fighters. Also on the desk is loads of more scatter terrain and also a very tall minaret for my medieval town. I thought about cutting off the crescent so it wouldn't so obviously be a minaret, but figured that painting it in the same basic color scheme as my other buildings would be good enough to allow it to not look out of place. So, stay tuned for more updates soon!

MINIATURES Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026

• Miniatures acquired in 2026: 210
• Miniatures painted in 2026: 171

TERRAIN Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026

• Terrain acquired in 2026: 14
• Terrain painted in 2026: 36

SCATTER Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026

• Scatter acquired in 2026: 34
• Scatter painted in 2026: 71