From the painting desk #3
May 10, 2010Since it’s over a year from the previous one, I figured I’d resurrect this series of posts. As I posted earlier, my inspiration for miniatures is back with a vengeance, and the results are already showing. Unsurprisingly, I’ve been painting stuff from my Aliens/Predator/Marines project, and here they are. In colour!
Click for a larger version
I’ve had these HorrorClix Aliens half finished for ages, meaning they’ve been based and sprayed black. The required very little work to finish. A couple of layers of drybrushing, some black ink, glue for Alien gunk effects, a coat of gloss varnish and what do you know, three more Xenos to fill those motion trackers. The HorrorClix Aliens are very nice for the painter. They could basically be used as is, but with a little work you can make them even nicer. They’re the only models that I don’t dull down with a matt varnish after gloss varnishing.
I also started on a new batch of Colonial Marines. I wanted to recreate the look of the troopers from Aliens, so went hunting for reference material. Turns out that the net is filled with movie stills and people that are into movie props and cosplaying, so I had a lot of stuff to work with.
Click for a larger version
Click for a larger version
"We've got movement!"
I think I nailed it pretty well, and overall I’m really satisfied with how the model turned out. I even made an effort to get the motion detector right. There’s a motion blip there, probably just a little girl. The model is sculpted by Mark Copplestone and can be found in the Copplestone Castings Future War range, in the pack FW22.
On this model I tried some simple weathering effects, so the bare metal you see on the armor is painted on to represent chipped and scratched paint.
The next marines are already on the painting desk and well on their way. Here we go again.
Dawn of the Lead 
Looking good. The camo is really nice, it looks like a lot of work but it looks just like how I think the two different camo patterens on a Colonial Marine should look.
Would you care to go into a step by step of the process involved, including colours used (so that I can rip it off wholesale)?
LikeLike
Thanks for the compliment, nice to see that all my research didn’t go to waste.
It just happens to be that I posted directions on FU-UK earlier. It’s actually pretty simple, and not too time consuming!
On the BDU:
Black basecoat followed by a coat of VGC Khaki.
Then random squiggles first in VGC Cayman Green and then GW Graveyard Earth.
On the armour:
Cayman Green over a black basecoat, followed by a thin coat of GW brown ink. Then squiggles (ah, what a word!) with Graveyard Earth and some unknown GW/Coat d’Arms dark green from the 80s/early 90s. Basically any dark green will do. I kept the camo pattern on the armour larger than on the uniform.
LikeLike