I have spent a couple weeks without painting much. Time to continue chipping away at the Bobbybox. Now we come to the The Mars Attacks! Martians.

My eyesight is not what it once was, and I found I struggled mightly with the smaller details such as eyes on these. In the end I gave up trying to correct an eye for the umpteenth time, so some of the faces are not really good. Sigh.

I already have the DreadBall team painted up for DreadBall from earlier, so I chose to base this Martian DreadBall team as normal minis instead. They work quite well, seeing as several of them are armed, holding knives or rayguns behind their backs.

 

If their clear dome-like helmets seem a bit wonky, it is because I just slapped them on without glue for the sake of taking picures. You can see that some of them are not properly in place, leaving gaps and whatnot. I will glue them on after I get some varnish on the minis come springtime.

Two of them are not wearing helmets, as they are Special Forces that have breathing apparatuses in their high collars and don’t use helmets.

 

     

The alternate pose General Tor. How I know he is a Hero? He has one foot up on a (admittedly small) rock! (Which I promptly hid in the undergrowth.)

There are some signs of stepping (little lines from the original master minis’ 3D printing process) apparent in his cloak…did Mantic rush these minis?

 

  

We come in peace Ack Ack Ack!

The Supreme Leader. You know, I could have sworn I had painted the front bluish bits properly, but the close up cam belies that. I will have to go over those bits again.

Also the eyes. OMG I tried and tried. I simply am not able to see properly anymore and therefore control where the brush goes when the bit to be painted is smaller than half a mm. I mean, I had no problems doing the white eyeballs, but then the smaller red dots with even smaller black dots inside. No. Just no. Sigh again.

At any rate, Mantic seems to not have bothered to do the prepwork on their 3D print before casting the masters. Look at those stepping lines on this cloak! Damn.

 

   

The Martian zombie. He seems to have A Case of The Stubborns, refusing to lie down when deceased. I would have loved to have an extra clear helmet I could chop a massive crack in and put on his head.

 

 

Someone once said “The only good Martian is a dead Martian”. Here are three good Martians.

The two amputees are casualties from the DreadBall Team, while the one with a leaky brain is also to be found in the “Civilian Slaughter” expansion pack where also the Flaming Cows are to be had, together with a couple human soldier casualties and some civilians.

 

Painting:

The Martians are actually really rather quick and easy to paint.

Over a black basecoat I do the entire uniform in old Citadel Swooping Hawk Turquoise, with gloves and boots in Citadel Averland Sunset or Army Painter Goblin Green respectively. Then I do the chest details and hoses in black. The air canisters I do in Citadel Mephiston Red with a second coat of Army Painter Dragon Red. Metal bits, weapons and piping in Army Painter Shining Silver. Then a wash of Army Painter Dark quickshade ink (the matt dropper bottle one that dries in an hour or to, not the stinky shiny tin one that dries in a day or two.)  The head I painted in Reaper Vampiric Skin and gave the top of the head a wash with Old Citadel Purple Glaze, and again when dry to get the desired definition and depth of colour.

Tidying up the faces with some Reaper Creamy Ivory, eyesockets and nasal cavities in black and then the eyeballs and teeth in Reaper Vampiric Highlight (offwhite). A dot of AP Dragon Red in the eyes followed by a dot of black (at least, that was the intent. The eyes did not really turn out well for most of the minis.). Scale75 Toxic Waste Green for the Martian blood.

The heroes were taken a step further with some more highlighting.

 

 

The Tally so far:

Finished from the Bobby Box: 69  / 126   (+10 / 13 casualties, small animals etc)

Just 57 left to do!