PACTS: low level goons

Here is a horde of goons for my Firefly Stargrave campaign:

These will be ruffians for the PACTS faction, the Pan Asiatic Crime Tong Syndicate (the name might not stick, I think I was just desperate for an acronym). The plan is to have a couple of different factions of enemies, from scavengers to gangsters to Alliance law enforcement, which should between them cover most results that I can roll on the table of humanoid enemies.

I’d originally planned to have an alternating red and yellow colour scheme, or maybe blue to make them look like they are sponsored by Blue Sun, but settled on charcoal and red (which I like, it makes them look a little bit like they’re trying to cosplay as Harley Quinn). To try to disguise the duplication of sculpts, I mixed up the colour schemes a bit between models, so if one of a sculpt had charcoal trousers and red accessories, the other would have that flipped, or one leg of each colour. 

I like these Rezolution sculpts, but I kind of fell out of love with them a bit during the painting process - it felt like things kept going a little bit wrong, and I was spending more time correcting mistakes than making actual progress on the paintjobs, until it got to the point where it felt like done was as good as I was going to get. My original idea of adding some messages down the sides of their cloth bits got abandoned, although I did apply some shonky freehand to the head of the rocket:

I was going for a shark like look, but ended up with something that looks more like Deadpool as a cartoon dog, but I’ll take what I can get.

The Tally has also taken a hit between me starting the draft of this post and actually publishing it, as I nipped into GW on my way home to grab a pot of grey paint and also came away with this month’s freebie mini:

It’s a repeat of an older one that I missed the first time round - while I’m not overly fussed by space dwarfs, it does come with a cool female head wearing an aviatrix cap and flying goggles.

All in, the Tally now stands at:

30 vs 181 = -151

While there are several things that I should paint next (like the rest of my Stargrave crew, the orcs I need for D&D, or monsters for Warriors of Athena), over the last couple of weekends I’ve shown my kids the first two Lord of the Rings movies, and so am tempted by a family build and painting project to play some Battle Companies. And I’ve even picked up some elves for my daughter already, which don’t touch the Tally as she’s hopefully going to paint them:

If anyone has any oddments of LOTR minis knocking around in their bits boxes that need a new home, let me know before I buy Uruk Hai scouts on eBay. My wife has even said she’ll play with us if she can have hobbits, so I need to see if I have any unofficial minis that could stand in for those…

Forklift certified mid-boss

This week (well, technically last week, but I’ve been so wiped I was only able to snap a pic a full week later) we have another offering for the Firefly Stargrave project, à test model for one of the enemy factions:

He was originally a Rezolution APAC Enforcer Lieutenant (as you can probably tell from the micro crop top and tie combination), but for my purposes he’s going to be a fixer and potential bounty target that is a mid level boss for a vaguely future Asian themed crime family - I haven’t yet decided what they’re going to be called, but I vaguely recall planning (back when this project was originally planned, fifteen or so years ago) to call them something like the Pan Asiatic Crime Syndicate or Pan Asiatic Syndicate Tong (because, y’know, acronyms).

He’s a beautifully sculpted little mini, from his abs to his tiny cigarillo, and the back of his jacket also has some sculpted detail. I think it was supposed to be a dragon, but with some careful brushwork I was able to turn it into a tiny rendition of a tiger:

In order to reference the most famous jacket worn by a forklift certified individual, Ryu Hazuki from Shenmue. It’s not an exact copy, but I think is close enough in vibes:

Which brings the Tally to:

20 vs 29 = -9

What’s next? Probably painting the other dozen or so APAC mooks I have undercoated for him to boss around! Or some other low level enemies, or the rest of the crew. I finished my for research rewatch of Firefly a couple of weeks ago (very handy, as there are some law enforcement types that appear that I can paint some Grenadier cops to represent), and now this week they’ve announced that they’re going to being back Firefly as an animated series - it’s nice to be ahead of the zeitgeist curve for once, even if only accidentally!

WOMP day two

Another day, another blog post as I continue to not fail in my attempts at sticking to a plan that I have posted on the internet for all and sundry to see and judge:

I had a six foot tall lamp on my shoulder when I took this, and it's still a bit dark. Huzzah, a skeletal cyclops though! Originally a dungeons and dragons prepaint, he's a funky little sculpt - well, I say little:

He does rather loom over a 28mm type that's currently in the painting queue...

Not being content with finishing just one miniature, I actually finished... two.

A Prizefighter for Firefly, wearing Blue Sun sponsorship colours. And yes, I screwed up his left eye, so painted it swollen shut. Bam, instant fix! But what's that, three colours isn't enough?

We also have a fourth colour and some shaky freehand, which says 'fiscal wing exclamation mark' in simplified chinese.

...

Which is as close to 'wealth and glory to the winner' as my google translation skills could get (seriously, 'winner' 胜利者 just wouldn't fit). Because yes, sometimes an obscure reference to an old Japanese giant robot Playstation game is sometimes more important than grammar.

With these two finished, it brings the tally to:

4 vs 27 = -23

Currently I can see half a dozen miniatures that with only a little focus and determination I can finish tomorrow. But don't hold your breath, there's also twenty-eight miniatures next to them that are nowhere near finishing, which I will inevitably find more attractive when I come to next pick up a paintbrush...

From, not for...

Lord of the Rings, in this case:

A whole load of lovely little gobbos for the pie in the sky 'maybe one day I'll play dnd' project. I quite like the LOTR goblins, they're menacing little buggers, and there's some quite characterful metal models too -

Magic goblins (yep, including a conversion! It's not that I snapped his spearhead off in the stripping pot, it's intentional, look at the pic in the Monster Manual! Happy coincidence?), Fat goblins;

Even ninja goblins with whacking great axes. I know, my photos are worse than usual today, I blame illness (but just wait, there's more pictures to come!)

When I decided to paint these, I thought it'd be the perfect time to crack out my old, unused-in-an-almost-unreasonably-long-amount-of-time pot of Catachan Green. Wrenching the lid off, I found it had dried up completely.
'Hmm...' thinks I, 'I'm sure I bought a replacement pot...'
Much searching later, another pot is found, lid popped, and it turns out that one is even deader than the first (which was, in fact, the replacement pot). The good thing about model paint though, is that generally if you find yourself in this situation, you can fix it using only two simple, readily available ingredients from around the house.

1 - Water
(from the tap, or of the fancy bottled variety if you prefer - may depend on whether you're in a hard water area, like most anywhere)

2 - A Stick
(these literally grow on trees, although I made mine by whittling down a tongue depressor that I found on my desk. Well, whittling might be something of an over-exaggeration...)

Much stirring and grumbling about the price of paint later, and voila, good as new! Well, not quite good as new, but spreadable enough to use as a basecoat at least...

Whilst on a roll from actually finishing miniatures, I also managed to slap some paint on a couple more:

A Blasphemous Construct for Strange Aeons (I love his doofy face), that I could not seem to get a good picture of (maybe he's shy, or has self-body-image issues). All that time spent glazing washes onto his freaky-deaky arm, and you can barely tell. Hohum...

Lastly is this chap:

a rather spiffing looking Space Sheriff type (originally from Rezolution DT) who'll fit in quite nicely for Firefly. Talking of Firefly, this doubles the output completed so far for that project - that's a leap of 100%. Now, I may not be a Golden Demon standard painter, but when you break it down you can't argue with straightforward maths like that. 100% increase. That sounds like an incredible amount. Win.

Although I couldn't get a decent straightforward shot of him, I did end up capturing this in frustration:

As he looms out of the darkness, drawling 'Stop Space Police! You're nicked!' (to mix several genres...)

Which brings us to:

50 vs 160 = -110

Well, I've already painted more miniature this month than I did last month and we're only a couple of days in, but that big box of miniatures is really going to be quite the hump to get over to get back into the positives... (at this rate it'll be what, November?)