Space 2021 – A Star Saga

Great, just what we need. A case of mega-crabs

With the colour scheme nailed, we went with the big guys first. Also, all of the other miniatures have an additional colour that I need to work on a contrast paint colour scheme for.

I really like these, they remind me a great deal of the mirelurks from Fallout and, if I weren’t painting these in line with the artwork I would definitely be painting them like that too.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins and Roberto Cirillo

Jesus Christ, how many of these things are there? Let’s hope they run out of bodies before we run out of bullets

These little critters are the lowest form of Nameless lifeforms in the Star Saga game and perfect for testing out my colour scheme. All the artwork and display miniatures for the game have a very simple and consistent colour scheme for the most part.  Blue flesh, purple tentacles and deep red carapace. They’re also really highly textured and are perfect for contrast paints.

I also had an idea similar to brown wash trick. After all main colours were done I used a slightly thinned purple wash over the whole model before going on to pick out details using Tesseract Glow, which is listed by GW as. “technical paint” but is really more like a lurid greed contrast paint. The purple wash really helped to cover up some of those white patches that contrast paints seem to be plagued with as well as giving a nice shade to all of the colours, especially the red.

After doing one of each and proving the colour scheme I farmed the rest off to my brother to paint.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins and Roberto Cirillo

As part of the Star Saga Pledge I also got all the Deadzone Mercenary characters with Star Saga and, with the Nameless models coming soon, I took the opportunity to paint Project Oberon using it as a test colour scheme for some of the other Nameless characters in Star Saga.

I don’t know much about this particular character but I think it’s an interesting concept. When you look at the Nameless they just look gribbly, betentacled hordes similar to the Tyranids of 40k but their lore doesn’t portray them that way. They’re a sentient race capable of reason and project Oberon seems to be an expression of that because he can be recruited as a merc in Star Saga and his Deadzone description describes him as essentially a spy who reports on the corporations that hire him.

For this I couldn’t find artwork of Project Oberon but he’s similar to the Gunslinger miniatures so I decided to use that artwork.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins and Roberto Cirillo

I don’t walk softly, but I do carry a big gun.

Sergeant Ugurik, ork commando. I have mixed views on the Orks/Marauders. Because I have been a fan of Mantic for a long time, I understand why the Marauders exist. By the same token I feel like they have expanded their universe through games like Dreadball to the point where I would like to see them start to step away from their past as a cheap 40k alternative. However I do like this model and I think it stands out from the crowd in terms of Marauders because I think it better represents what I think the Orks in the Warpath universe should look like. Unlike the Orks of 40k, the Marauders in Warpath are described as being intelligent and have superb tactical and strategic acumen to go with their martial abilities. So much so that the humans of the universe were required to invent the genetically engineered Enforcers to stop the Marauders taking over the galaxy. However the models still carry that goofy, comedic look more associated with 40k. Big, boxy and bulky armour or virtually no armour at all. They don’t have the appearance of a species that came within a gnats pube of conquering the galaxy. Whereas this guy looks professional and exhibits a level of technology that is equal to the rest of the factions whilst still having a rugged and bulky look.

Again I followed the artwork for this one and because I couldn’t find the artwork I reached out to the Star Saga community and none other than the original artist got in touch and supplied me with the character concept art (he also gave me artwork for a few others at the same time). Absolute legend.

When looking at the artwork I don’t know whether it’s deliberate or coincidence but the colour scheme is very similar to that of Ogan Helkkare, the Forge Father engineer from the core set. Which could indicate a link between the Forge Fathers and Marauders, the former supplying the latter or just between those two individuals. Thematically I think both work, the Forge Fathers have no love for the humans of the GCPS, arming and equiping a fellow enemy of their enemy would have some merits. Regardless, I really enjoyed painting it and it didn’t take too much thought or effort as I was using colours already used on a previous model.

Ugurik also marks the end of the second expansion, Retake the Blackstar Station. Next on the desk will be Terror in the Deep.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins and Roberto Cirillo

Arkoline is another one of those miniatures where I think Mantic’s universe starts to come into its own. Although she’s bipedal and humanoid, the crystalineife form is really cool. And maybe Crystaline life forms can choose to assume many different shapes and they chose bipedal humanoid, it’s a pretty versatile form to take. Anyway whatever, it’s these fringe species, many of which you can see in Dreadball – in this case the Crystallan – that give the universe its charm.

To paint it I basically used a white undercoat and then covered it with blue contrast paint. I then gave it a drybrush before popping a blue glaze on to finish. For the metal I used the Iron Warriors base colour, which is a very dark, gun metal colour with a black wash over the top. I then just did some edge highlights using Iron Breaker. After varnishing with a Satin Varnish I applied a coat of Ard Coat gloss to the blue areas to give the crystal sections a nice reflective finish.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins and Roberto Cirillo

As well as all the miniatures, Star Saga comes with a wealth of scenic elements to turn that flat board into a more 3D environment and for me no Dungeon Crawler is complete without them. As kickstarter backers we got double the amount that the retail game gets because obviously everyone needs 30 plastic doors. Anyway, as I am painting the various sets I am trying to do a scenery pieces here and there. To date I have done 15 doors and 4 terminals.  I have only taken photos of the larger doors as it was hard to get a full set of 5 into each frame and honestly, there’s not a great deal of difference, they’re just smaller. The larger doors have the most interesting designs on them.  As I go through I will do each set of 5 doors in a different colour so on a board you can almost split it into coloured zones

The terminals were a lot of fun to paint and I think it will be a consistent theme throughout the whole set. Matrix code on the screens and somewhere there will be a red and a blue button for Hackers to press.

Ha, fools. I have more children than you have bullets and they’re all more than willing to die for me, for the cause.

The Crone Mother is the second villain of the set but the method and colour scheme is exactly the same as Progenitor Thorn. However as a Villain in her own right I felt she warranted an entry all of her own.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins and Roberto Cirillo

You know why we’re here. Power. No, not political power. Real power. The power of the atom. No, I do not believe I will give your station up. 

Progenitor Thorne is the first of the villains in Retake the Blackstar Station. Much like his underlings he wears the fully enclosed metal suit and I decided that I liked the metallic effects on the minions so much that I would run with it throughout the whole set. However, to try and set the Villains apart, I didn’t leave it at the dirty, faded metal base. Colour. After the washes had dried I drybrushed them up using leadbelcher. This allows some of the highlights to show through the contrast paints and ultimately gives them slightly brighter finish than the grunts.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins and Roberto Cirillo

Veer-myn. God damned varmints. Well, at least we know the station is relatively intact. Rats normally have good sense not to stick around on sinking ships. 

A new chapter and a complete change. This time the mercs are hired to recapture the Blackstar Station from an infestation of Veer Myn. Only, these aren’t like your normal, run of the mill Veer Myn, these are something new. They have embraced strange new technologies.

Honestly I wasn’t really keen on the Veer Myn.  They’re not bad miniatures, I just don’t really like the Veer-myn all that much. However they still presented me with an opportunity to do some experiments.  Sticking with the default colour scheme, they all seem to have all metal, fully enclosed suits, presumably they act as some kind of Faraday’s Cage to protect them from all the weird energy they’re using. That made priming an obvious choice – Leadbelcher. I then gave them a black wash and an aggrax wash to give them a really grimy finish and left it at that. Then, I picked out all the green and gold trims directly over the metal base using contrast paints. This keeps an overall metallic look, like they have dyed the metal. I think that really helps maintain a slightly lower tech theme that I think should go with the Veer-myn.

Lastly I picked out some of the little details by undercoating them in white and just popping some contrast paints over them. Things like vials of liquid or blades and the like.

Now, unlike the Eiras contract, I am going to do a single post for all of the minions because I used exactly the same colour scheme for them all. There isn’t really much variation between the different units other than the weapons they’re holding. As well as saving time on writing blog posts, it also made painting them all incredibly quick, just a couple of nights work.

People like you made me what I am.  I don’t know why or how, all I know is I have lost count of the number of people I have killed trying to find out.  What’s one more?

Wrath is a member of an alien species of pacifists, the Judwan, who was kidnapped at a young age and put through some secret corporate experiments.  The result is the only Judwan that exhibits any violent tendencies and he makes up for the rest of species

This was a fun model, I had a really good time doing the armour.  I painted the turqouise armour using a regular silver metallic colour scheme – Leadbelcher, nuln oil etc.  I then used Akhelian Green contrast paint over the top like a filter.  The gold I just painted using gold paints – putting yellow contrasts over silver is a little too yellow.

Wrath also marks the end of chapter 1 – The Eiras Contract.  Chapter 2 will detail the first of the expansions, Retake the Black Star Station

Art Credits Rob Jenkins and Roberto Cirillo

I ain’t got no time for your Jibber Jabber, fool

I love this model.  I love how he’s a gnarly, grizzled, old grease monkey, an engineer, like an older, greyer and shorter BA Baracus.  I also love the depoloyable equipment that he comes with, the turrets and the shield generators – although the latter are a little small and look like they will be really easy to lose.

I pretty much stuck to the artwork with this one and tried to carry that over into the turrets.  I also had a little play with the Cryptek Armourshade released last year by GW with the Necron release.  It’s a very interesting paint and is much closer to a contrast paint than a wash and it has a slightly sticky consitency when it’s drying.  But it creates a nice oily look which combines nicely with most silver bases.

This was also a really good chance to have a go with the dark skin tone paints from the Citadel range and I have to say I am really impressed. Painting black skin used to be a bit of a pain trying to mix the right shades of brown but now, using Catachan, Blood Reaver and Knight Questor flesh tones you can get a really good result

Art Credits Rob Jenkins and Roberto Cirillo

I’ll tell you who I am.  I am Alyse, professional merc and I’m here to kick your arse and steal your stuff.  Now ask me again who the fuck is Alyse.  I dare you.

Not really sure what to say about this miniature.  I wasn’t really looking forward to painting it before I started but actually it wasn’t so bad.  I was worried that there was quite a lot of details on the model and that they might be a little soft. But that turned out not to be the case for the most part and although I don’t particularly enjoy painting black, the bits of white and pink actually look really nice against the background. It’s not my favourite miniature nor my least favourite.  Erm. Yeah.  Here’s Alyse.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins

Some men just want to watch the world burn, and I’m one of ’em.  But for now I will settle for setting your sorry arse alight

Francesco “The Devil” Selvaggio, for a board game miniature, is an really characterful model, particularly the (possibly/probably self inflicted) burns on the face.  This made for quite an interesting painting experience – not just getting the colours right but also trying to merge the two different colours.  I also wanted to make the skin darker than usual not only to give him a latin appearance but also to try and make him look dirty.  This is a man who looks like he has already lost everything and is in the game for the opportunity to burn things.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins

Beep… Bop… Boop

This is another really fun little model and I love how there’s some inspiration from WALL-E, not necessarily what you would expect.

White isn’t always the easiest colour to paint but if you use Duncan Rhodes’ advice and use thin coats you can get a nice smooth finish. Obviously I primed it white and then I gave it a dark blue wash.  I followed this with a white drybrush using the techniques shown by Artis Opus (go check out his YouTube channel). Doing this picked out most of the key areas and provided a lighter base making it really easy to then start adding layers of white paint. All in I think I did three layers.

I used contrast paints to do the glowing lights as they provided a glow effect without any real effort

The face was inspired by the white robot out of WALL-E

Art Credits Rob Jenkins

This ain’t the corps, you either win or you don’t get paid. Don’t like it? Go find another job

Captain Erika Dulinksy seems to be a leader of sorts; you don’t really have a leader really and you can play the game with any combination of mercs you like, but her character is set up to be a leader.  She’s quite a nice miniature, a really good representation of a sci-fi soldier.  Again I just stuck to the artwork for this one but she was really good fun to paint, especially adding the blue/grey tint to the dark armour.

I also darkened the skin a little over the artwork, I wanted her to look like she’s spent a lot of time outdoors

Art Credits Rob Jenkins

I don’t know who you are or who sent you, but this ends right here, right now. As do you. 

Monarch is the the arch villain of The Eiras Contract, the core set. He is an Enforcer, one of the elite soldiers of Galactic Co Prosperity Sphere. Essentially they’re the Warpath equivalent of 40k’s Space Marines or Halo’s Spartans (I would say they are more similar to the latter). Why is Monarch overseeing operations at Mazon Labs when the enforcers are supposed to be neutral, they’re a tool of the council not individual corporations. Well, you will have to play the game and find out. As will I as we haven’t actually got that far through the campaign yet.

For this one I pretty much stuck to the artwork. It’s quite fortunate that I also that the stock colour scheme is quite similar to the scheme I have designed for my Deadzone enforcers, which is themed on the Mass Effect N7 armour. The only difference is the blue trim in the armour but, as a character, I think that extra bit of customization is acceptable. I even did the logo on the shoulders.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins

…… 11011011……11101100……10111011…… 10001101……..11111101……

I deviated away from the stock colour scheme for this. I had in my mind a picture of the Hanar, which are a deep pink with a turquoise glow. Obviously making the turquoise aura wasn’t going to be doable so opted to pick spot colours out in turquoise. I also used a royal blue colour at the e very ends of each tentacles (I am not quite sure if tentacle is the word because they seem to have leaves at the end). I also used contrast paints because they provide some really vibrant tones but also make blending so much easier meaning I could get some nice transitions between the shades in a relatively short amount of time. Remember the challenge is to get the whole game painted in 2021 and there are a lot of heroes and villains for me to get through in that time so speed is of the essence.

This miniatures was a futher mucker to rebase but other than that really enjoyable. This is actually one of reasons I like the Warpath universe – it doesn’t shy away from weird looking aliens, not every thing is a bipedal humanoid and it manages that without  staying into demonology. I just wish they had made stat cards for some of the more esoteric races we see in Dreadball

Art Credits Rob Jenkins

What have you done to my beautiful children? Now I will need more subjects! Luckily I just found some…

I really liked this model, some of the details were a little soft, I have to say but that kind of goes with the territory with PVC models. However it was still really good fun to paint. The white overalls were done using contrast paints, everything else is just regular acrylic paints.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins

Where’s that security detail? What do you mean they’re dead? Jesus Christ, do I have to do everything myself? What the hell are we paying these people for?

Guard commander graves is the first of the Villains and probably the most basic. He wasn’t particularly difficult to paint, a black prime and a couple of layers of drybrush using a couple of dark grey tones. Then I just recoated the armoured areas in black as well as the boots and gave them some bright edge highlights and a coat of gloss.

Art Credits Rob Jenkins

HOLY CRAP! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT THING? Still, that explains the presence of the Black Wing Corps…

Aw man, I got some of its goop on me, do you think it’s infectious?

The Aberration was a kickstarter bonus I think, not actually sure how we ended up with one. But it’s really cool and we did get rules for it.  This model just screams out for contrast paint. I also experimented a little with a Xenith highlight but for the darker underside I used Zandri Dust and for the upper I used wraithbone. And I think it worked quite well. It didn’t provide the same shadows ad using black (but I really don’t think black and contrast paints are a great combo), it did provide deeper tones on the underside.