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This is a figure that I painted during a 'Sophie says' at Reapercon last year. It was a fairly decent paint job that didn't take too much time to clean up, so I did. I'll be using him as a flunky for various different gangs/crews/whatever. Just look at his face; he very obviously has no idea what he's gotten himself wrapped up in.

I finished Ape-X this evening, I figure he'll go well with the mad scientist group of figures that I'm slowly working on. His base was warped pretty badly, and even boiling it didn't help, so I chopped it off and rebased him on a resin base that looks like a wrecked lab. Like most of my stuff, he's painted for tabletop; I hope you like him.

If any of you have looked at the Hero forge interesting creature builds you may recall me posting some pictures of a squad of commandos called Crusader squad. Let’s just say I succumbed to the temptation to get the stls for my printer. Currently I only have four printed off. I’ll do the rest when I get them supported. Bombedier Shadow, I didn’t get his arms supported right so I’ll try to do some repairs to them. If it works I don’t think I’ll print a replacement. Thunderhead Max Monova. I really didn’t like his original stance so I redid it and gave him two pistols instead of a pistol and gauntlet blade. Primer Added some black green and some blue to Monova’s pauldron. Thanks for looking!

So in addition to the standard carafe of Tropicana orange juice with the oh-so-handy cylindrical lid with gothic arches all around that we all know about, Tropicana makes a sort of pitcher of orange juice with a pop-top lid: A lid that can do ... THIS: Woo!

This rulebook looks like it would scratch the sci fi campaign itch for some fellow forumites. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/346620204/zone-raiders-a-miniatures-campaign-skirmish-game?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=zone raiders

Can't seem to find these guys. It says they're from Bones 3.

Hasslefree has some fun sci fi characters, including quite a few space dwarves. This is HG405, Pilot Hayden. I'm not entirely sure, but I think she might be a tribute to Starbuck on the "Battlestar Galactica" remake. She has a cigar and a complex gun. It's the first time I've painted a gun where I'm reasonably happy at how the shiny look turned out.

These are from the old Grenadier set #1502 Robo Hunters from the Future Warriors range, sculpted by Mark Copplestone, a vision of the future from the 1980s. I wanted to paint up some PoC figures. The Grace Jones lookalike was an obvious choice, as was the glowering dude in dreadlocks. The teenager fits too. There's also a guy with some ludicrous hair but I didn't paint him this time. All paints used are Golden Matte Fluid Acrylics. Color mixes are (usually) noted, but not exact ratios. Questions are welcomed and I will try to answer them. Critiques are appreciated. This is the way I usually start miniature figures: Lightly primed with Titanium White, then when that is dry, washing it over with Burnt Umber. Burnt Umber is a dark, transparent pigment that settles into crannies when thinned down and shows the details very well. It also gives a nice warm undertone to later paint layers.

https://locusmag.com/2018/05/gardner-dozois-1947-2018/ Gardner Dozois, science fiction legend, has died unexpectedly at the age of 70. His last review column was posted yesterday: https://locusmag.com/2018/05/gardner-dozois-reviews-short-fiction-10/ The Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author collaborated with George Alec Effinger, George R. R. Martin, Daniel Abraham, and Michael Swanwick, among others. He was editor of "Asimov's Science Fiction" for twenty years and had compiled and edited the Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies since they were created in 1984. He was one of PingosHusband's teachers, which makes this personal.

This was my second entry for the Painter's category at ReaperCon 2017. He is Tarko from Scale 75's Fallen Frontiers line. He was a challenge for me as I have not painted many sci fi minis and I was testing the Scale 75 Fantasy and Games paints on him. I knew I wanted to do a red/orange/yellow armor accented with blue and it ended up pretty close to what I had imagined. He ended up not being the entry that was judged but he was mainly a "lets try this idea out" mini so I know there are some areas that need work. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Right, so I finally decided to do a WiP on this guy, mainly in the hopes to get some good feedback on the painting process. This will be one of my Reapercon (in the Open category, being as it is a scratchbuild). First off, some older pics going back a few months, showing where I started from. I started by sculpting a few faces and picked one that I thought would do the job. Then I built a basic armature, established a pose and then began fleshing it out. I'm afraid I didn't get any more WiP shots of the sculpting after this, so on to the finished figure (pre painting that is). Here is the final figure prior to painting, complete with scenic base. And because I really would like to show off all the work that went into it, here are a lot of detail shots of the various elements. The discarded helmet was a little bit of a trick, as I wanted it to actually be hollow. I dealt with it by sculpting the basic shape on the end of another tool, then carefully pulling it off and carving out the face plate and widening the rest of the interior. The backpack and pistol frame were stacked sheet styrene, with added details in greenstuff and wire. The base was just a couple of cutup corks with greenstuff textured over it. Next up is painting. Digging around online for inspiration I came across this image, which is supposedly of a 1950s era US Navy pressure suit. I liked the olive drab and beige combination (though I may skip the white helmet), and decided I would go with something similar, but with warmer colors. The palette I wound up choosing for the basic flight suit is below. For some reason the special edition colors have become some of my favorites. Carnival Purple was a special edition paint for Reapercon '13 (I think), and has become one of my go to colors for shadowing, while Pumpkin Orange has become another one of my mainstays. Here is the figure after the first round of painting. I went in with the intention of giving the suit a much ruddier look that was the case in the prototype (hence the Pumpkin Orange), but tn the end the orange really dominated the palette (which doesn't really bother me, so long as the end result looks good), The figure was primarily bascoated with black primer, while the head was done in white. I don't recall exactly how much time it took me to get from there to what you see below, but I think it was close to two hours or so. Whatcha' think so far? I've always been better with a hobby knife than a paint brush, and this year I'm really anxious to up my game a bit. Any and all input is welcome!

Continuing on with my Imperial Assault posts. I was really pleased with these Trandoshan. The method from Sorastro really worked well for the skin of these reptilians. All of the skin was painted the same. Then, all 4 had different washes with either a little more blue, green, brown, or sepia than the other. It really shows in the blue and sepia Trandoshan. I will try it out on some of the metal and Bones Reaper Lizardmen I have. I didn't want to paint one of these as Bossk, since Fantasy Flight Games released a Bossk expansion figure. So, I gave one of them a "salvaged" Rebel Fighter Pilot Flight Suit. I was least pleased with the colors of it. It comes out a little to stark in my mind. I also tried to give one a desert camo, and another a snow camo or urban camo. I was most pleased with the outcome of the blue one, so I am giving the detail shots of him. C&C Welcome.

Continuing on with my Imperial Assault posts, here is Chewbacca. Again, I have been following Sorastro's guides. This figure was new for me in the use of multiple layers of dark wash over and over. It was about 5 layers. The pictures show this sort of granular/peculiar highlight. I checked on the model, and it is areas that picked up drybrushing that never toned down well with wash. It's all good. I painted Chewie very quickly. C&C Welcome.

Here is another of my Imperial Assault figures. IG-88. I followed the Sorastro guide, which involved drybrushing, washes, drybrushing, etc. 4 or 5 cycles. Then painting on some forced highlights, then a blue wash on one side and a red one on the other. This was fast, and a little sloppy. But fast. C&C Welcome.

To break up your F5's for the Bones IV Kickstarter... Allow me to present another installment of my Imperial Assault work. I have been following the suggestions from the Sorastro Youtube Guides, but with Reaper Paints. Gideon Argus is a field general. It took a few tries to get a skin tone I was happy with, but I am pleased now. Not too sold on the dust effect on the jacket, but it is what it is. C&C welcome.

Here is another batch of figures from my work on my Wave 1 Imperial Assault collection. These are a little more recent, having finished them in late May. It also represents my second real attempt at a non-caucasian human skin tone. One of the figures is a more tanned skin color, and the third is more of an African skin color. I was very pleased how they came out, especially compared to my first attempt. I followed Sorastro's tutorials, but with Reaper paints. My favorite part of these aside from the skin was the blending I accomplished on the pants. C&C Welcomed. Colors under spoiler

Here is another upload of what I have been working on for the last 18 months: Imperial Assault Core Game. Here is Diala Passil, the Padawan Light Saber wielder of the core 6 heroes in the game. My color scheme follows the character art and Sorastro guide, but with Reaper and Vallejo Game Color paints. The camera makes the cloak look a lot more bright red than it really is. It ended up a sort of brick red in-hand. Overall, the saber blade was my least favorite part of this mini. Colors are under spoiler

Here is another figure from Imperial Assault Core Game, by Fantasy Flight Games. Darth Vader. At once simple but difficult. Trying to achieve dull black and shiny black on the same figure was not easy. I followed Sorastro's guides, but with Reaper Paint. I think this was the first figure I broke out my then newly acquired Citadel shades for the OSL. The black was Black with varying amounts of Snow Shadow for highlights, and then a small dab of a Reaper Sample that is somewhere between ghost white and snow shadow. The camera flash definitely grayed it up, but when I took the pics with just the light box, it was too dark. It has some gloss varnish on the helmet and shoulder armor. Let me know what you think. Thanks for looking.

This is Patrick Keith's 50246: Marie, She-Bot, famous from the old Fritz Lang movie "Metropolis," and two other robots Johnny Lauck sold adjacent to his sci fi Salvage Crew. I painted them up in less than an hour. WIP thread here.

Hi everyone. In an attempt to put some non Bones 3 items on the forums, I present some Storm Troopers. It's been a while since I've posted my own pics. I've been working diligently for the last 15 months trying to finish the first set of Imperial Assault miniatures. I'd previously posted my Probe Droids and Imperial Officers. Below are my Storm Troopers. I did follow the Sorastro guides. If anyone doesn't know about those, it is a well produced set of You Tube videos worth checking out. These storm troopers almost killed the desire to do the whole project. I have been using almost exclusively Reaper paint, despite the tutorials using GW paint. This means I sprayed the troopers with white primer, then slathered on a bunch of Reaper Black Wash. It took 3-6 layers of paint to get them reasonably white. You can't tell too much in the pics, but there are areas which were left less white in shadowed areas like under the calf. By the time I was happy with them, I didn't want to add any battle damage or dirty feet, but I did it anyway in the spirit of following the tutorial. I think the gloss coat really makes these fit the full nostalgic effect. Let me know what you think.

To continue my Imperial Assault posts, here is the figure I photographed that had the best light. I'll have to re-take pictures of everyone else. Fenn Signis is a sniper hero in the game. I did follow the Sorastro Guides, but with Reaper paints. The hardest part of this figure was trying to paint in purple sunglasses, when they are not part of the sculpt. Oh, that and BLACK! The pic is a little out of focus on that one, because the camera chose to put the tip of the gun in best focus there. I was happy with how the rebel insignia on his shoulder came out. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

So my husband is running a game this Saturday and he asked "Do you have any robot figures?" and I said "Ummm, let me get back to you." Happily, I had on hand a copy of Patrick Keith's 50246, "Marie She-Bot" familiar to film aficionados from Fritz Lang's seminal "Metropolis". I also had a handful of little robots from Johnny Lauck's Salvage Crew. So I glued them together and primed them and painted them very simply with metallic paints. The whole thing took less than an hour. For metallics I use the principles I learned for gilding: Everything has a color underneath it, usually a rust-red for gold and a black or grey for silver (or aluminum or palladium -- I never could bring myself to gild with something that could decay as fast as silver leaf). I originally planned to paint the Metropolis robot gold, so I primed her with Red Iron Oxide. Then I did the same with a little monkey-robot from Johnny Lauck (ignore the two little guys to the right; I didn't get further than this with them and I plan to paint them like plastic anyway, if I get to them before Saturday). Then my husband pointed out that if I painted the Metropolis robot silver she could stand in for a Moonsilver Alchemical later on. D'oh! ... Okay, so now I was going to see what silver paint looks like over brick red. For science! I washed over the two red robots with dark paint to bring out the details: Burnt Umber on the little monkeybot, as is normal for under a warm color like gold. But then I used straight Carbon Black on Maria She-Bot since she was going to be cold silver, and black generally looks cold under other colors. I notice that she looks just like the Chinese lacquer sculptures I've seen around, a point worth remembering to try some other time, perhaps. I also painted black primer on the servo on the left, another Johnny Lauck 'bot. I had to glue that one to a fender washer as it had a tendency to topple over to its left; otherwise its base had been the same size as the other Lauck robots. That's also why it appears now; its glue was setting while I was priming the others. (Once again, ignore the two on the right.) I then took my good #2 Winsor and Newton series 7 brush and drybrushed silver metallic paint onto the armed servo Lauck 'bot and Marie, She-Bot. ... I find using good brushes helps give a lot of control and evenness, even for this. This wasn't the really scrabbly kind of drybrushing anyway, more like stroking tiny amounts of unthinned paint over the high points of a countoured surface. Anyhow, you can see the different color effects based on what went under the silver paint, black on the left and brick red on the right. You can also see the detail level difference between Johnny Lauck's sculpt and Patrick Keith's. Then I did the same thing, only using gold metallic paint, to the Johnny Lauck monkey robot. I painted their bases solid black. Normally I like a base with at least a neutral grey with shadows, but I was in a hurry and the black contrasted better with their metallic shininess. I also added a few details, red eyes on the Lauck robots and a glowing yellow inside the armed Lauck bot's gun barrel (Which I see I didn't take pictures of. Need to fix that for the Show Off thread). And there you have it. Really really fast quick and dirty robot painting. Total painting time: About forty minutes. (With prep time, work time is probably an hour, or a smidgen more)

This thread is more or less for recommending professional quality online fiction, mostly short, mostly sci fi and fantasy, to help people find enjoyable things to read. From Clarkesworld Magazine here's a sweet and tragic near-future story of an epidemic as told by a food blogger: "So Much Cooking," by Naomi Kritzer From Kaleidotrope, here's "Monkey King, Faerie Queen," by Zen Cho, an amusing story of what happens when a Chinese mythic figure wanders well out of his pantheon.

These are two Zygons, classic shape-shifting monsters from the British cult TV show "Doctor Who". They are genuine, licensed by the BBC, official, NOT knock-offs from Black Tree Designs: DW424 (Zygon Advancing) and DW405 (with raised hand). Zygons have appeared both in classic Who ("Terror of the Zygons", 1975) and in new Who ("The Day of the Doctor", 2013, and "The Zygon Invasion" / "The Zygon Inversion", 2015). Black Tree's sculpts are all old, dating to the '90s, and only cover the earlier period of the show pre-hiatus. These Zygons are based on the rather rubber-suity original series versions. First I primed them white, washed them with Burnt Umber, and mixed an unattractive flesh color for them, with a redder version over their suckers ... or whatever those are. IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT BLACK TREE DESIGNS: They have a line of 25mm "Doctor Who" minis covering the classic old years of the show, from the first through the eighth Doctors. They are not too bad -- except for the female companions -- and they have a lot of classic monsters. HOWEVER ... Every time I have ordered from them the order took ages to reach me and every order that arrived was botched. If you don't mind the risk of having to chase things down for several months, it is nice to be able to get genuine Daleks, Cybermen, etc.

My husband gave me some birthday minis from Crooked Dice, which specializes in British TV and movie homages. This is a set (also available individually) of the "Doctor Who" characters Madame Vastra, a Silurian (reptile) warrior, Jenny, her human wife, and Strax, her Sontaran (sort of a potato-head alien) butler. Pix here: http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/doctor-who-the-snowmen-christmas-pics-4.jpg https://whopix.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/doctor-capaldi-and-the-paternoster-gang.jpg http://pa1.narvii.com/5704/791b803116d02377cad782133ef2dae592fb2bd2_hq.gif It's ... a very silly show, and I adore it. I don't think these are official miniatures. They are called "Time Lost Investigators" in Crooked Dice's catalogue. Madame Vastra has an alternate head of a Victorian human woman if you're looking for a Victorian lady wielding a katana, and Strax has an alternate head of a bulldoggish butler with big sideburns, if you're looking for a solid, somewhat short butler. I did my usual prep on these: Remove flash, epoxy to bases, prime white, wash with Burnt Umber. Then I began painting. I did fairly complete jobs of Strax and Jenny's faces. Madame Vastra's head is only blocked in. I mixed this green out of Hansa Yellow, a bright lemon yellow, and a tiny dab of Carbon Black; it's one of my favorite unexpected green recipes. Here's a shot of the group together. Jenny looks a little tall, but maybe it's because Madame Vastra is lunging.