"It'll be like the old times. They'll never stop us." - Olley x Biggs Darklighter & Prune Face

Back to some incidental Star Wars characters and painting up Bob Olley sculpts where they just seem to fit! Here are Biggs Darklighter (deleted Tosche Station scene) and Orrimaarko AKA Prune Face.

Painting up Biggs gave me a good excuse to have some fun with scene recreation:

Heavy Blasters - Olley Stormtrooper Fire Support

With several WIP figures from the rebellion sitting unfinished on my desk, I decided to get this pair of Olley Stormtroopers done quickly. Once again they are Kryomek Nexus SWAT troopers with ultra-fast paintjobs using mainly contrast paints.They give me a couple of extra options when building Stargrave lists or similar.

"Laugh it up, fuzzball! - Olley x Han & Chewie

On to two of my favourite Star Wars characters: Han & Chewie (once again with a Bob Olley twist!).

"Move along...move along" - Second Olley Stormtrooper Squad

These should need no introduction after my first set of stormtroopers, just another group of Kryomek Nexus SWAT troopers. These are five different sculpts, again from the hands of Bob Olley, and again still available from Scotia Grendel.

"Bounty hunters. we don't need that scum!" - Olley x More Bounty Hunters

After doing Boba Fett, the next obvious step was do to more of his peers. Doing all six of the bounty hunters from Empire Strikes Back isn't currently on the cards, but I had some decent ideas for a couple more of the motley crew.

Awaiting details of the next target.

"Blast Them!" - Olley Empire Stormtroopers

It was inevitable that after painting up Darth Tevas, there were going to be Bob Olley stormtroopers. This six-strong squad is comprised of Kryomek Nexus SWAT troopers. They are classic Bob Olley sculpts from the early 1990s and are still available from Scotia Grendel.

For the Republic! More Iron Claw Space Pirates

I spent the week painting up another small group of Bob Olley sculpts for my not-rebel commandos. This time it's another pair of late-1980s Iron Claw space pirates, plus a Kryomek alien. They're starting to look like a nice-sized strike force for destroying bunkers, comms relays and such!

Space Lizard Mercenaries from the Outer Rim

One thing that Citadel has never really done very well in 40k is to create alien modelss. Forget about the extensive list of aliens described in Rogue Trader. When you actually get down to looking at the models produced, up until around 1990, 40k aliens comprised of space elves (Eldar), space dwarfs (squats), space ogres (ogryns), space halflings (ratlings), space zoats (um, space zoats), space slann (er, space slann) and space orcs (orks). With very little imagination, GW had simply ported all of its fantasy races into the new setting; perhaps leading to references to 40k as a science fantasy rather than a science fiction game.

Look - Elf,Dwarf, Goblin, Orc...er, giant alien fishman...

Genestealer cults provided the first inkling that there might be actual aliens inhabiting the 40k universe, and the Tyranids are as alien a race as you can think of. We went back to fantasy archetypes however, with the space undead (Necrons), and it’s only latterly that the blue-skinned, Manga inspired Tau have provided anything much different.