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Aliens… Flooring Done

Tonight was the HOTT competition and sadly my daughter has a chest infection so I couldn’t get there. Every cloud has a silver lining as the saying goes. This meant I could do some work on the floors.

The prisoners are all but finished, as are the Aliens. I am not too convinced about the bright cables, but they might grow on me.

In the end I went down the AP wash route. I used the Contrast black as oil or some other dark spills on the floor, not that you can really tell.

Tomorrow I will finish of ‘Bishop’ and then make a start on the Predator.

I do feel like this lot are coming together now.

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Aliens… Metal Flooring

So with not much time again tonight I just went for a straight metallic floor. I will give it an Army Painter Dark wash or a ‘watered down’ Dark Contrast. More likely the AP route but we shall see. I am still experimenting with the Contrast so it might be worth a try. If it is crap, the the AP wash will cover it.

The idea is that all the cabling and trunking will be painted different colours, so it is likely that tomorrow night will be back to painting white again.

There is still a fair bit to go on the humans, less on the Aliens but a whole lot to do in the Predator.

I am beginning to get to the ‘past the crap look part’. Once again the only paint used is Contrast apart from the metallics.

I will leave you tonight with a thoughtful quote…

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Aliens… Further Progress

Well, not the Aliens, but the prisoners got some more paint onto them this evening.

I am getting there with these, but to be honest I am not sure what colour to do the floor. I am thinking just straight forward steel with coloured conduits. I reckon too much colour on the base might detract from the miniatures. Once these are done I will carry on with the Predator.

Pete had asked me about the maps so here we have the Galaxy one…

Apologies for the poor photo. The light just kept getting in the way. I will attempt to take a better one at another time. There is also a bonus map, I had never turned this one over 🙄

A nice Corporation facility- I wonder what happens here!

On a different note, I visited my mate over the weekend, he is on the mend, but words don’t come easy, which is an absolute bugger for a writer.

To help him out Triple Ace Games have just released Necropolis into a bundle of Holding.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Necropolis

Now although I am somewhat biased, this is one of my favourite settings. It uses Savage Worlds as its base rule system. Wiggy used to write for Pinnacle before setting up TAG.

You take on the role of a warrior in the 2300’s on a holy crusade for the Church against the undead (Rephaim) on the planet Salus far from Earth.

In reality it is a military sci fi setting, with the ‘good guys’ as members of four sacred orders for a futuristic ‘Catholic-esque’ Church. The following were some of my Rephaim foot soldiers.

Doubt I will get much done Monday night as I have to give my Head Teacher’s report at the Parent Council Meeting. It won’t finish until nine. So a late night tomorrow.

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Aliens… Smidge Forward

Sadly my plan to get bucket loads done today failed miserably. Mainly through lack of motivation (aka playing on the console) and freezing my bits off (probable lack of Vitamin D) followed by the fact that we now have Netflix. I believe the technical term is Minge watching or something like that.

So my progress today resulted in skin tones and some grey shirts…

Hopefully tomorrow will be a little more productive.

On the historical Shetland story front I have a cracker, still doing a bit of research but should be out soon.

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Aliens…Splashing the Paint About

Tonight I made a start on pretty much all of the figures at once 🙄. As I had paint pots open I painted various bits as I went along.

There is pretty much more white on these than colours, but a Start is indeed a start.

Unsurprisingly I got further on with the xenomorphs… well they are all black!

I did edge highlight various bits with white over the top of my attempt at a zenithal highlight. I think I might have wasted my time as to be honest the Black seems to have gone over it with no discernible effect apart from the ridge quest on the nearest one.

Maybe as the paint dries completely I might see something more noticeable. Now as these are meant to be spitters I could add some bright green to the bulbous bits on the side of their heads, but to be honest I am in two minds.

I was going to tell you the tale of Betty tonight, but I think it will have to wait until tomorrow as I am tired and need to go to bed. The tale involves a terrible storm, a ship wreck and silver medals from Queen Victoria herself.

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Aliens, Predators and Prey

So tonight I sprayed this lot.

We have five prisoners and a ‘Bishop’ at the back (aka poor buggers in the wrong place at the wrong time). Five Xenomorphs (supposedly spitters) and then the Predator at the back.

I also have this little chap too. Bishop is trying his best Barbara Woodhouse ‘Sit!’, but this may prove ineffectual…

Looking through the various books on the actual Aliens there are no ‘Crushers’ that I can find. The Aliens versus Predator console game had one of these, probably where the idea for this miniature came from.

Now considering I am not going to buy any more figures for a good while, I do keep wishing that I had got a pack of the Weyland Commando and the Predator hounds.

I have Marines, Aliens and Predators from the First Prodos AvP game. I am kind of kicking myself that I didn’t get others before they lost the Franchise.

Regarding the miniatures above, I am going to go down the Contrast paint route with these too. I sprayed the Aliens grey with a white highlight as they are going to be black so hopefully the black Contrast paint will work better than straight over white.

I will make a start tomorrow.

On a total aside…. did you know that today is the day that the first German Bombs dropped on British soil in WW2. Rosyth had been bombed the month before but the bombs fell on vessels in the sea, with the loss of 16 sailors and 4 German aircrew. On 13th November 1939 Four Bombers hit Sullom Voe, which had two cruisers and a merchantman at anchor as well as numerous seaplanes.

Four bombs fell in the sea and four hit land (the first on land). The only casualty being a rabbit.

Up here many people believed that the Flanders and Allan ‘Run Rabbit’ song was about this, however it had been sung a month before the attack. The dead rabbit did have a knock on effect of making the song more popular. At least he/she didn’t die in vain!

It did make a rather large hole….

Needless to say the rabbit in the photo above was not the original martyr rabbit. It had been purchased from a butcher in Lerwick for the photo call.

And Finally… I hit a milestone today… this is my 100th daily post in a row. (To be honest I only know because WordPress told me I had done 99 yesterday).

Let us see what total useless information I can come up with tomorrow 🤔… in case you were wondering the bombs were dropped by Dornier Do 17.

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Ogres… Nearly Finished

So tonight I mooched around trying to find something to paint and came across these two already primed…

So a quick paint job and we got to here…

I probably spent twenty minutes on each. Once everything is dry I will sort out the strapping on the fur bracers and greaves. There are the usual bits that were missed first time round. I have come to the conclusion that it is caused by the wet paint reflecting light, therefore any actual white bits fool me into thinking ‘wet paint’ making them invisible until everything has dried. As I spent a whole while sneezing as these were drying then I decided to call it a night.

These were a ‘prize’ for taking part in the last HOTT competition. Technically one belongs to my daughter as she got one of them for attending too. They are on 40×40 bases as they are behemoth from HOTT.

Whilst mooching for miniatures to paint I cam across a whole host of part finished projects. So far, in the house, I have some 15mm FIW militia and woodland Indians, a force of based 10mm Mongols, a pile more 10mm Sudan war British and Egyptians, a tribe of 10mm Sioux. In the big shed I have all the Starship Troopers stuff as well as various printed miniatures and terrain (let’s not talk about the Aliens V Predator minis nor the Journeys in Middle Earth either).

All in all too much stuff. I didn’t make it out to my shed as that would add more to the lead and plastic mountain.

Tomorrow I shall finish the two ogres and then take stock and come up with a plan. I am not sure why as I probably won’t keep to it anyway.

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Beastmen Finished

This evening saw the end of the painting for the Beastmen. There was a bit more than I thought there would be and to be honest when I add the photo to here in a bit I am bound to see something I missed! 😂

As promised I have added both factions side by side…

I have thoroughly enjoyed painting both factions. I don’t actually know if I have got a favourite one.

My aim for this lot was to paint in only contrast paint, and to be truthful, I used some AP Dark wash for the black and a dot of blue for a wash on the severed head. The metallics were done in GW standard paint. But that is it – once the white spray was done everything after that (apart from the above) was Contrast. Some white was used to tidy up, but that took it back to the base spray colour.

So what have I learned from this…

First off, I like Contrast paint… I was really pleased with it for the 10 and 15mm minis, but this was the first time doing a full 28mm miniatures and I am chuffed with the results. These are quite textured miniatures, I might dig out my space marine scouts and see what happens to them.

Secondly, the paint on the whole does what it is meant to do, I like some other people, was sceptical. My kids got me some for my birthday. I got a few more, then a few more and a few more still. Since getting a bigger range I haven’t touched the AP paints at all. I think my initial scepticism was unfounded.

To be fair some colours work better than others. Over white, the black looks dark grey, but I reckon putting it over a grey base coat would darken things down a bit, either that or stick to going over it with the AP dark tone.

So like most things there are down sides too…

Price, these things ain’t cheap, and if you add in the ‘special’ spray cans, individual pots of matching undercoat and mixing medium then things get pricey very quickly. If you are like me, you can buy a grey and white auto spray can that costs about £4.00 and go over the top of that with the Contrast paint. I have a pot of Matt medium which, at 500ml will last me a good while.

Pot design – same crap design as usual, tall pot that easily overbalances and pours your expensive paint everywhere. I 3D printed a pot holder and so far I have been lucky when I haven’t used it. Luckily the paint is thin, so the tops are closing properly. However on some of the ones I have used a lot I have noticed a build up of residue.

Stupid bloody names. I have each pot that I own written down, so when I go into the shop as I can’t remember them, let alone spell them. When writing up my blog, if they are in front of me they get named, if they are back in the box then they are brown, blue or red paint. One day they may come up with names like Khaki shit and nipple pink, at least I would remember them.

So in short, even with the failings mentioned above, I do like them. I must, as my new GW standard paint totals about five pots and three of them are metallic!

So moving away from the miniatures for a bit

Well this has to be one of the best adverts for Remembrance I have seen in a long time…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahGRNKi8-18&feature=share

It made my a bit tearful to be honest. Not sure why. I never met my Grandad on my dad’s side he died ten years before I was born in 1956. He survived a gas attack at 3rd Ypres and after being invalided out of the army he returned to the North East of England and returned to the mines where the coal dust finished off what the gas had started. He was one of the ones that made it home at least.

I have been doing Remembrance with my class, and showed them the Reawick war memorial embedded in the cemetery wall. It has the dead split into three groups, lost at sea, killed in action and also died of illness contracted during service. I have never seen this before. The only thing I can think of in this case is that they outnumber the other two causes of loss.

Still one of the best songs out there…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDyip7SIJkQ&feature=share

Not to forget this too…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG48Ftsr3OI&feature=share

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Beastmen…Final Furlong

These are now so close to finishing, but I ran out of steam.

First up the Ungors…

Still bits and pieces to either tidy up or still to paint. Scars, beard and earring on the rear middle for starters.

As for the big two…

A similar story…

the bases had a bit of a repaint, I did the main colour then spot painted/tidied things up before painting in the bones, rock and vegetation.

Definitely on course for a finish tomorrow. I would have been able to finish today but it would seem our small freezer has given up the ghost and everything started to defrost, so rather than bin everything we have spent a long time cooking stuff and making it into things so that they can be frozen in the big freezer.

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Beastmen VIII… Metalwork

So tonight I set about doing the metalwork on these.

I decided on steel rather than a bronze colour. A few bits and bobs to do on them, then onto the bases.

I can honestly say that I have really enjoyed painting these. They were easy to paint and I think that the Contrast paint has done a good job on them. Once the bases are done I will stick them alongside the Fey for a comparison shot. There are less bushes on these and more bones as befits their character.

I probably could have got a bit more done today as I got home quite early today, but was knackered, so decided to just chill a bit. I did consider giving the painting a miss tonight, but as there wasn’t much metalwork on these then I thought I might as well do something. I mixed a bit of black contrast with the gun metal to darken it. I might go over it all with a brown (if I can be arsed) maybe they nicked it from an armoury which is why it it shiny.

The upside of coming home early is that it was still light when I headed off… nice colours on the way home (including heavy snow showers over towards where I live)…

Tomorrow I hope to get the bases finished and then who knows where I will go. I do have a lot of Middle Earth stuff to paint just now 😂