28mm Sci-Fi “on the cheap” (part 8)

Wow what a week! I am shattered; as is everyone else at work thankfully we only have one more week to go until we’re off for a week.  But first I have to get through a dreaded week of nights with overtime each night. But anyway enough whinging and on to the figures, well they’re finished! (Hooray!!), I’m even reasonably happy with the end result. In a moment of madness I decided to paint all ten at once, though by the middle of the week I was thinking about pushing five off to the side and concentrating on the other five, but in the end I decided this wasn’t going to save mw that much time so carried on with all ten hence the lateness of this post. I used another of Myles’s Ork building as backdrops to the photo’s, sorry about the quality of some of these (pictures not buildings).

I decided that the best way to make the figures multi-usage (and because I promised Blaxcleric) was to paint them in a blue/grey camo pattern with pale grey armour over the top, this way they could be used as either a futuristic SWAT team, urban military uniformed troops or the afore mentioned combat arm of SHIELD’s (JAVELIN) anti “supervillian” squad.

The figures were first spray undercoated black, and dry-brushed chain mail over the metal bits, then light grey was applied to the armoured areas and blue-grey to the under suit. The camo splodges were added in royal blue and white. The gaiters and wrist bands were done in dark grey with light grey highlights; the flesh was painted either dark flesh tone, medium flesh tone or chocolate brown and highlighted in the same colour lightened with a touch of white. The armour was then highlighted with a light grey/ white mix. Their shoulder badges were painted in a three piece pie design of red white and blue. All the lights on their helmets and guns were painted a day-glow light green.

Once this was all completely dry the figures were given a coat of mid-tone army painter quickshade, and once this was dry (which seem like forever!!) the bases were painted up in my normal colours of chocolate brown, with khaki and coffee dry-brushing, then some areas painted grass green and flocked. The whole lot were then sprayed with a coat of matt varnish and they were done (and so for that matter was I!).

So now that all twenty EM-4 plastic minis are finished what conclusion have I reached? Well I think the figures have generally turned out better than I originally thought they would, and if you are prepared to put in a little effort I would heartily recommend them to anyone who wants to field some interesting and individual looking figures on a budget, I have thoroughly enjoyed messing about with them (most of the time anyway), for more inspiration on doing your own conversions check out the “Combat zone Chronicles” at…. http://combatzonechronicles.net/

I have no idea what I’m going to do next, something simple probably, I might try and clear some of the numerous figures I’ve bought over the years and never painted.

Cheers Roger.