Retro, Multipurpose SF Troopers/Robomen/Ming The Merciless' Warriors/Atlantis, Tau Etc

 One of my emerging toy soldier themes is retro SF. Some years ago some nice cheapo, grey plastic spacemen came out of China. My first paint schemes were in sand coloured uniforms. Today I completed some in brighter colours, more like Ming the Merciless' men.

   I painted the weapons in bright bronze. The Robomen minions of the Daleks also come to mind. The sand coloured versions remind me of the alien race, Tau, from the 40K universe. Basically they are useful fr any retro style SF scenario.

Here a firing line attempts to repel some fearsome alien beasts. The purple worm is from Reaper Miniatures. The other is a conversion from a bear with a spare monster head.

I based the figures on card but found that the kneeling figures needed longer bases. Usually I base modern and SF figures on round bases as they are more likely to fight in open order but these figures just needed to rank up.





                                      Here is my earlier paint scheme standing up to a bug eyed monster, in this case a Reaper Miniature meant to have a wolf head. I lost that so cut a head off a large cheapo fly and attached it.





                                               This officer is a Russian made commissar.
                           At back is an officer in more 'traditional' garb; he is a cheapo ancient Greek with GW gun. At front is a Star Wars figure.




                                        The three figures at right were featured in an earlier post and are converted from Airfix Germans. I made the weapons longer so they could represent earlier more primitive firearms for alternative history scenarios.






The dark grey bluish grey of the bases is meant to be adaptable for representing space ship floor, ash waste, buildings or just rock. Bright green and flock would look better but has limited context.

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Comments

  1. RogerSeptember 19, 2020 at 8:40 AM

    I'm really impressed by your speed to paint a lot of new modells during a limited time.....
    -I'd wish I could work with your speed, as I've got so many plans.
    Very good looking by the way, growing up in an era where we used to watch Flash Gordon with Buster Crabbe on cinama on sundays.....

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  2. QuantrilltoySeptember 19, 2020 at 10:24 AM

    My tip is to use fairly large brush to first block in the main colour; that doesn't take long. It doesn't matter if the colour goes where it is not needed because the next colour should cover it. I usually use acrylics and they dry fast. After doing five or ten (and sometimes twenty)such figures I go back and do shading and highlighting while the paint is still wet. Or, to be even faster I use Games Workshop washes and then dry brush. Dry brushing works especially well on horse tails and manes, fur etc - it is just adding white to the colour or yellow to green and orange or red. With washes I like to be a bit restrained to avoid a muddy look but if you use coloured washes rather than black (except on steel or grey) it looks more subtle. I then go back with a small brush and do the highlighted parts again while the wash is still slightly wet. (Of course not everyone bothers with shading and highlighting anyway). The most time consuming element are things like lace, eyes etc (although if they are simple black dots it doesn't take long and not everyone paints eyes). I find GW Reichland Flesh really useful for shading flesh, pale browns, sand colour and red.

    I generally have a DVD playing while I paint, preferably one which doesn't need too much looking to follow it because I might be painting for a couple of hours. From a health point of view it is good to get up every half hour or so and have a walk around - sitting is lousy for the back.

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  3. QuantrilltoySeptember 19, 2020 at 10:26 AM

    Roger, you probably do a lot of these things anyway as you do some great work with your own figures.

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