As you may have noticed, DotL has been very quiet lately. This is mainly due to real life stuff, such as work and doing research for my Master’s thesis (on RPG’s, no less!). This means I’ve not had the time nor the energy to work on new miniatures, so I’m going to show you something a bit older.
Ever since I could whip up the courage to watch them as a pre-teen, I’ve loved the Alien and Predator franchises. With the exception of the rather silly Alien: Resurrection and the god-awful AVP films, they’re all among my favourite scifi movies. In fact, I just recently had a solid dose of Aliens as I watched all of the four films back to back and then went to Tampere a few days later to see a wonderful H.R. Giger exhibition. All this has lead me back to an older miniatures project of mine, namely Aliens vs. Predator.
This project has been once of those that seem to last forever and not really progress a lot. I was actually doing pretty fine on it, but then I really got into zombie miniatures a lot and consequently my little critters have been gathering dust since. Maybe doing a post on these might help things to get going again? One can always hope. I’ve also been thinking about picking up the new limited edition Space Hulk, although I’d probably have to pay an arm and a leg for it. From what I’ve heard, it just might be worth it, though.
That’s enough idle chitchat, on with the minis! Sorry about the inconsistent lighting in the pics, was in a bit of a hurry.
There are different possibilities for Alien miniatures, but I ended up using what I think are hands down the best ones available: HorrorClix Aliens. While they’re now out of production, I picked up a few boxes cheaply off the ‘Nets a year or so back so I have around twenty or so. Like all HC stuff, they come pre-painted and are actually quite usable straight from the box. I wanted them a bit more black and glossy, so played around with washes and drybrushing and painted a gloss varnish over the end result. They came out lovely, I think. I used some glue to simulate the resin-like goo the creatures secrete, and liked that end result as well. The Aliens are a bit on the large side, but then so was the original creature in the first film.
Click for a larger view
For Predators I went with Copplestone Castings. While I think they’re the best stuff available at the moment (and back when I bought them), Heresy’s new Hurn is pretty tempting. And while Ainsty’s INAPs are definitely showing their age as sculpts, the idea of clear resin figures is excellent. Also, the name always brings a smile to my face, as INAP=It’s Not A Predator.
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No alien monster would be happy without heavily armed futuristic humans to decapitate, maim and/or impregnate. Again, enter Mark Copplestone and his wonderful scifi troopers available through Copplestone Castings, em4 and Mirliton. I went for a generic urban camo on the regular troopers, while the beret wearing guys in red and black are something like corporate security or special forces. Actually, they remind me for reasons unknown of the Omni Corp troopers from the classic game Laser Squad. Maybe that’s how I always imagined them.
Click for a larger version
Click for a larger version
Actually just writing this post makes me want to finish this project. And maybe buy Space Hulk.
Dawn of the Lead 
