“Kremmen, V, the Daleks”

No not a battle report (sorry Simon! 😜) but instead this time I have a mixed bag of stuff for you, two loosely attached to “franchises”, but never directly appearing in them, and one based on an actual character, but painted by me as something else, confused…yep me too! But we’ll see if it makes more sense by the end of this post (probably not).

So what have we got, well I mentioned a few weeks back that I had another of the “three wheeled” cars I’d picked up from “Kore” at the “Phalanx” wargames show, and looking at this one I couldn’t help but feel it was the perfect conveyance for the “Captain Kremmen” figure I’d made back for “Forgotten Heroes” this year so I’ve dug it out and added a “K” insignia to the front in greenstuff. Talking of the “stuff of green” I also used a little on my second couple of figures. These are “not-Daleks” from Etsy (I think) and were “part of the very kind gift from Simon” (see I said we’d be seeing that sentence crop up!), that arrived last week, these 3D prints just needed the eye piece and rings adding to their eye stalks to make them a bit more “Dalek’y” I also drilled a hole in the bottoms of them so I could mount them on a bit of wire and have them “floating”, I’m going to call them “Dalek drones”. Lastly I have a “not-Mike Donovan” figure from the original mini-series “V” (see that’s where the V in the title comes from! I don’t just throw this together you know!). Another member of the “Kind gift from Simon club”, this is from the now defunct company “Nexus Miniatures”, but just to be awkward I’m not going to paint him up as “Gooder” Donovan but instead as a more generic Sci/Fi character, as I’m sort of half tempted to do something…or perhaps not, I’m not sure yet, but either way you can blame “Matt” for it!

We’ll start with the car or “Kremmobile”, this had the usual coat of matt black before I realised that white would have been better, great start! Anyway this did mean that I could get straight into painting the silver bits like the wheels, grill, headlights and trims before going in with the coffee, cream and white layers over the cockpit shroud, rear detail and the “K” insignia. Royal blue was next (I basically used the same colours I had on the Kremmen figure itself!), and this was highlighted with bright blue. The front wheel arched came next these were first painted ruby red then (several) layers of bright red were painted over this, then it was just a case of adding the indicators in orange, the brake light in more bright red, and of course the inner bit of the “K” insignia in citrus orange. Well I say all, actually that wasn’t all at all, as I still had the bloody glass “bubble” to add! Now as you may recall last time I used a tutorial from “Youtube” to do this, so with this and a reference picture that “Dave Stone” had sent me of the reflections on a spherical object (I think this just confused matters if I’m honest, sorry Dave I am easily confused 😵) I set to work with the navy blue, royal blue, ocean blue, blue grey/porcelain blue mix, mid grey, and white and….I don’t know what happened, but it doesn’t work for me at all! I think I was trying to be too clever (never a good look for me!) and it just came out wrong. Still at least I’ve learnt never to buy cars with “bubble” canopies again 😒. This was then given a coat of “Quickshade” (light tone) and once dry I lightly dry-brushed the bottom half with some khaki, for road dirt. I left it shiny with the Quickshade, as I thought at least this gives some reflection to the screens.

Next up I have the “Not-Daleks” or “Noleks” if you prefer (you don’t, suit yourselves!), I first saw these on Simons blog a while back and instantly thought they were great, so when I saw these two in the “box of surprise treats” I had to paint them ASAP. Now when it came to colour, I went back and forth across all the Dalek colours from the “year dot” to the present, I nearly went black, but as the bottom “vents” were going to be black I eventually decided on red, so after a base of dark red was applied several coats of bright red went over this to cover it (I think I’ll have to buy a new bright red!). The sensor “balls” were next, always a total joy to paint these (not!), the best technique I’ve found is to work round the figure painting the left hand sides of all the balls, then work back in the opposite direction doing the other side, so that’s what I did using bronze. I then went back round just adding a small highlight in bright gold, and then again with the bright red touching up. Their eye stalks were next, so after the actual rod parts were painted in chainmail, I added the rings in bright blue with highlights of porcelain blue. The front of the “eye” was then painted white, with a black dot, and then this and the bottom “vents” were highlighted with a little dark grey. Lastly the dome lights were dotted with some orange. These too were then treated to a covering of “light tone” Quickshade.

Lastly this time I have “Donovan”, now rather than use him as the erstwhile hero of the resistance to a certain Alien” invasion, I thought he’d make a rather good “technician” figure, however it’s always useful to have a gun to hand, so I decided to use the “gun holding hand” rather than the video camera the alternative arm had (because you would wouldn’t you). Also this meant I could add a toolbox to his conveniently posed left hand too. This entailed drilling a hole through his fist and poking a length of florists wire through it. Then I had to find a convenient shaped item to use as the “box” itself, I considered a few things from “Grahams big box of crap”, from cut down Ork guns to hammer heads, but just when I thought I was going to have to build it from scratch with greenstuff my eyes alighted on the edge of a plastic sprue, two lengths of that glued back to back, then cut to length and shaped at the ends might do. So that’s what you see here, once cut to size it was just a case of bending the wire down into an upside-down “U” shape drilling a couple of holes in the box and gluing it all together. Again working from a black base, I dry-brushed his gun and toolbox handle in chainmail, then I added his shirt in coffee and cream. His jacket was next, dark red with pink burgundy highlights was used for that, and his “chino’s” were then added in Eurasian flesh, highlighted with more of the same mixed with a little coffee. Flesh was my usual recipe of European flesh and after the eyes were added the highlights were the same with a touch of pale flesh thrown in. The collar and cuffs of his jacket along with the rest of his toolbox was then painted dark grey with mid grey highlights. That just left his boots and hair, chocolate brown went on both, leather highlighting the boots and saddle on the “barnet”. He also got the Quickshade treatment, though he went for the “strong tone” variety, then both he and the “Noleks” (still no? OK I’ll let it drop), were based in my usual fashion, and sprayed with matt varnish. I rather like him he’s generic enough to be either a minor hero, or a complete nobody, if it wasn’t for the “laser gun” he’s holding he’d fit into a modern day scenario too (luckily I don’t play many of those anyway 😉).

So that’s it my last post for “anything goes” month, back to the challenges next, and it’s a “two for one” month, as what I have planned will fit into bother Zom’tober and Dave Stone’s Apocalypse Me challenges, (shame they won’t fit into Ork’tober as well, but never mind it’s not the “End of the world”….Oh wait, yes it is!), so till then.

Cheers Roger.

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