And Beyonder...

I finished my first Algoryn AI squad for Beyond the Gates of Antares (BTGOA) last night. I dallied on them for some time, but finished them quickly. A lot of the dallying was really dithering about what colors to paint them, etc. Now, having completed a squad, the color choices are pretty much baked. I hope that productivity will increase.

Body armor	Vallejo Game Color Steel Grey (72102)
Chest, Shoulder, Knees	Vallejo Model Color Brass (801)
Weapons	Vallejo Model Color Gunmetal Grey (70863)
Weapons Detail	Vallejo Game Color Hammered Copper (72059)
Body Armor Cables	Vallejo Model Color Oily Steel (865)

I dry-brushed two shades of highlight on the body armor and then dry-brushed a slight bit of silver to give the effect of wear. Once the main painting and shading was done, I applied an overall glaze of approximately one part of Vallejo Game Ink Black (72094) mixed with 10 parts of Liquitex Matte Medium and thinned with maybe 3 parts water. (Honestly, I just guessed about the glaze mix and was happy to see it turn out so well.)

The boys in steel gray

The bases are 1 1/4" metal washers. I used plastic sheet cut into 1" diameter pieces to cover the hole in the washer, then glued the figures on that. I applied Elmer's wood putty over that. After it dried, I sanded and smoothed it, then I applied some glue and sprinkled some model railroad ballast on it. I did all this before primering the figures so I'd have the same white substrate. I applied a heavy wash of Vallejo Model Air Mud Brown (71037). The texture of the base is perfect for this kind of thing. There's no highlighting or dry-brushing needed to finish it. I applied some splotchy bits of Woodland Scenics Earth blended turf and finished off with some tufts of Army Painter Battlefields Wasteland Tufts.

Basic bases

The left shoulder plate has a raised symbol thingy on it. I figure this will make for a good squad designation. At first I thought I'd paint the shoulder plates a different color for each squad, but the symbol thingy works as well and is less obtrusive. For this squad, I used the same Hammered Copper as the weapons highlights. Future squads will have silver, gold, metallic blue, metallic green, etc.

First squaddies

The detail on the figures is pretty crisp and rewards a wash technique. The figures looked pretty good before the wash, but the detail really popped afterwards.

Back of Beyond the Gates of Antares

I'm pretty chuffed with how this first squad turned out. The figures are very nice, even though I did have one with some casting flaws, it's hard to tell after it's been painted. The AI squad figures come as solid castings with just the heads separate. Two of them are bare-headed (no helmet) so you can see the genetically mutated heads of the Algoryns. I figure that the race is evolved from a 20th/21st c. politician named Algor.

Progenitor of his race

I stopped by The Panzer Depot after mass and breakfast today and picked up another AI squad, a command team, and a light mag weapon (basically a BTGOA version of a MMG). I hope ("hope" being the operative word here) to get these new figures done quickly. The prep takes a while, but once started, the colors go on pretty fast and furious. As soon as they're done, we'll get a game going at The Panzer Depot.