Dionne

First of my Zombie Hunters/Near future adventurers. Had these for a while and like so many other models, just did not get round to painting any of them. This little beauty took about two hours last night. Dionne is a Hasslefree figure.

Make a nice change, so will probably paint them as 'inbetweeners'. Inbetween other projects.

Rocky Outcrops

Made these over the last couple of days. Gathered a selection of stones from the garden, found some old CD's lying around the house. Stuck the stones onto the CD's then covered blank areas with sand/gravel mix and undercoated and painted. Lastly stuck on the static grass. Not a new idea I know, but something I wanted to do. My kind of terrain making.

I intend to use these with 28mm figures, for Ambush Alley, Old West and Zulu War plus others. Here's a shot of one with an Apache for an idea of scale.

Will probably make a few more soon.

Return of the 24th.

I found these three lurking in a dark corner, based and undercoated, and looking a little bit lost. So I picked them up, brushed off the dust and started painting.

I've slightly changed the colours used on these three. Used GW's Mechrite Red as a base coat for the jacket and Dheneb Stone as the base coat for anything white. This certainly speeded up the painting process. Before I had been using GW's Scab Red as the base coat, which meant applying a couple of coats over black, before highlighting. Previously the webbing, helmet etc. had been base coated with Khemri Brown and then highlighted. I first used the Dheneb Stone on the clothing for the Apache and then washed with Graveyard Earth and then highlighted up. Also boots and anything else just going to be black I drybrushed with Codex Grey rather than highlighting the black. Overall I was able to finish these three much quicker than before.

And Yes I have broken my rule not to get sidetracked onto other projects!

'You're one ugly motherf****r!'

The Predator!

This lovely sculpt is from heresyminiatures. I've been dipping in and out of the Heresy site for a while, viewed their models at Salute but even though I saw quite a few models I liked (check out the demons) never made a purchase since it was a case of 'what am I going to use it for?'. Then about two weeks ago whilst browsing saw this sculpt called a 'Hurn'. The rest is history so to speak.

This is the first model I've bought for a while which I have assembled and painted straight away (which I think speaks volumes). The figure is a multi-part kit. The body is one, but the arms are in three pieces. The arms are sculpted to the elbow and then you have the choice of either having the arm mounted blades extended or retracted. The forearm weapon mounts are are a one piece casting. The hands are separate, and you have the option of either the clenched fist (as I have used) or the right hand holding the extended spear. One of the hand options is holding a small tube which I think allows you to cut down the 'retracted' spear and mount the ends onto the hand.

The plasma gun mounted on his back also comes in three parts. The upright, swivel mount and the gun itself. The swivel mount had to be pinned to the metal arm, which was fiddly but not to difficult. (I had to use a small piece of a staple, it was all I could find at the time). When ordering you have a choice of base size options and I went for the 40mm round lipped display base. I'm glad I did the model is bigger then what I thought it would be. Next was to paint it. I had decided that I would base any colour scheme on the movie alien, but what colours to use was the issue?

The colour scheme is based (loosely) on the Predator from the the second film, the one with Danny Glover. I searched on various sites which revealed that there is no generic colour scheme, each film has added its own twist/slant/variation to the original Predator.I must admit I had not actually noticed the difference in the various movies. I also read on a couple of sites that the original colour scheme was based on a banana skin! The yellowish colour and black spots. So I decided that as long as it looked menacing, I was free to paint it how ever I liked. I had considered purchasing a sculpted resin base, like the type made by Fenris and available from hasslefreeminiatures or Fenris's own e-bay shop. But I decided against this, maybe next time?

The last photo is a comparison to give an idea of the size of the model next to a 28mm scaled human. In this case a Delta Force operative from the grippingbeast range. Who are you going to put your money on?

Overall a great model and I'm pleased with the result. I will be purchasing more of the Heresy models. I just need to find a set of rules to use the thing in.

Hopefully another variant of the Hurn will be produced, a helmeted version would be good and some Xenomorphs to battle against?

Yet More Apache!

Two more Renegades to add to my small but growing Apache warband. These models are proving quite fun to paint, and I'm limiting the colour palette to spend up the painting. This is made easier due to the fact that I can give them white shirts and trousers, historically the Apache adopted these garments following contact with the Mexicans.

I actually finished these about a week ago but have been completing another little project since then. More on that later.