On Transports

I erred in the pursuit of making this sci-fi extranganza as portable as possible.  The terrain boards took up too much space in the box, leaving me with little left over for a figure box.  Then I found these:

Four small craft boxes at the local craft store (Ben Franklin for those of you keeping score at home) for about five bucks.  Just large enough for one faction:

 They fit snug inside the big box like so:

These have been lined with magnetic paper liberated from the local pizza joint - the magnets are 1/4 page ads with the phone number on them that you're supposed to stick on your refrigerator.  I cut them up and glue them down to give the troops a non-slick surface.

These figures are even small enough you can turn the whole thing upside down and they won't fall off.  That should save a few dings and scrapes.

New and Improved Aliens

To refresh your memory, these aliens were originally painted with a bright shaded to dark, and it really didn't work.  I hit them with a thin Devlan Mud wash, and that helped, but these critters needed another dusting of bright green highlight and bone white spine to polish them off.

These guys are starting to suffer from the dreaded "too many layers of paint" syndrome, but it seems to work.  It adds a bit of a mottled texture that looks organic.

They finally look like real threatening aliens and not just random green blobs.  Especially the babies.  Nasty little things.

Awful Green Thing Repair

It's amazing how starting to train for a marathon (told you I was a beast), finding out your wife is expecting a new baby, and getting transferred to a new office in the company that means a 20% cut in hours and pay will interfere with miniature wargaming, isn't it?  No wait, not 'amazing' - that other thing.  The opposite of amazing.

Still and all, managed to take some advice and try to patch up the !aliens tonight:

This is the results of a test batch - a smarter man would have tested the light to dark technique before using it on 30+ figures - with one untouched figure next to a figure with some thinned down black ink.  The black wash helps bring out the limbs of these guys, so we're almost there.  I'll try a light highlight on the black ink to add a little more texture, and then these guys will be done.

Baby Mommas and Babies

Just pictures of the last of the Pendraken Aaliens today:

Three lovely ladies, all painted up and ready for a
night on the town.

Ten little babies all in a row.

Action shot!

Side by side comparison of the three types of critters and
a human marine for scale.

Awful Green Things

These Pendraken alien creatures are normally painted black for reasons obvious to anyone who has ever seen the movie Alien or Aliens or so on and so forth.  Not me though - I'm a rebel. (Slight pause here for me to give a firm Barney Fife sniff and hoist up my belt buckle.)  My alien critters are green for three reasons:

1.  Green shows up really well on the reddish battlefield.

2. It gives the aliens a unique and cohesive look - I already
painted the marines black and gray, but no other
faction has green as a primary color.

3. Someday I hope to make a 3D "Awful Green Things" board using
a collection of 10mm miniatures and these are perfect for that.

The paint job looks a bit off here because I started with bright green and shaded up to dark green.  Then I lightly hit them with a dark purple and finally a dusting of bright white.  That brings out all the textures, but without clothing, they tend to look like greenish blobs.  To compensate, I painted the spines and tailbones white - that helps distinguish the ass from the elbows a bit.

The real problem here is that these guys have no real faces - just a blank slate.  That more than anything makes it hard to tell front from back.  Not a huge deal, these are aliens after all, so we're gonna roll with it.

This is three of the medium alien packs from Pendraken - I'll have queens and babies for you tomorrow along with a size comparison.

Monsters on the Prowl: Manticores

As we trundle along, merrily throwing alien after alien at the hapless human intruders, it's always nice to pause and add a little sumpin sumpin to the lists of the fantasy dungeon.  Why not some twin manticores to spice things up?

DN58 - Manticore

 These ugly mugs can be found in Pendraken's Dungeon Monster line.

They aren't that big compared to the humans, but with that uncanny valley face, they're still pretty intimidating.

Leaping Lizards

Remember the guy on the left?  Lizardman shaman?  Posted him a few months ago.  Maybe rings a bell?  

Yeah.  He's got company. This big guy is the new Lizard King.  The lizard with the skull staff becomes a shaman.

FTL17 -  Tribal lizardman hero

Don't think this one's looking to sell insurance.

 What's a king without an army?  Here the are all lined up and ready for a scrap.

FL2 - Lizardman with spear