Alienation

 Coming back to this game from this post (April?? Seriously? Man , I have a problem). I have painted the Aliens, which seemed the easiest way to move forward on this project. Sure, thery were a lot (my pal's game and my own), but they are the easiest to paint, compared to the rest of the minis.

I'm showing the basic steps I took. I'm using the Drones as an example for my technique.

I have an issue with those tails

The minis are great. The sculpt is wonderful and are pretty nicely casted. BUT the tails are quite a pain in the ass. They come separated, so you have to glue them. No need to say it's a tricky thing, having just one single, tiny anchor point. Besides, the tails I was provided with were as you see above, quite unrolled. A couple of attempts of bending a tail with hot water ended in broken pieces, so I didn't insist and glued them as they were. As you can see, the effect is... well, odd.

Whatever, I'll show you the thre easy steps to paint these.

Black priming (Oh, you don't say)

Highlights using Boltgun Metal (or whatever it's called nowadays)

A final generous wash of Nuln Oil, but the glossy variant

 This was quite a random discovery. I had never used Nuln before, and I was curious about it. But I made a mistake when I got it, and bought the glossy one. I wasn't satisfied, but then this project popped up and I knew these minis were perfect. I mean, the metallic highlights were not enough, but a gloss varnish would have been too much. However, this Nuln thing has quite an oily finish that is simply fantastic for the Aliens.

My pal got some 3D printed bases. At first I thought of wonderful Sulaco bases by Fenris Games, but Brexit issues and stuff made it quite... unadvisable. Fuck Brexit.

So my pal provided me all the bases we both were needing for the whole game. I left any other thing I was doing and painted them. Trust me, quite a tedious, repetitive  thing to do (and it means something coming from me; remember, I'm the guy who painted three Firefly games at a time, for example: Part 1 Part 2). Here you can make an idea of the size of this project.

OK, that's easy, isn't it? Just prime and ink them...

 Well, not exactly. You know me. Please look closer...

32, 40 and 80mm bases

Of course they all have hazard stripes, warning signs (generic warning, high tension or flammable signs) and the pipes underneath are coloured in red, green or yellow, so they have that industrial vibe from the movies. Once again the Nuln Oil proved to be great, I like that oily effect on the floors.

So just to complete the WIP pics series

 There are three kind of basic Aliens:

Drones, Warriors, Stalkers

 My pal's and mines:

Drones

Warriors

Stalkers

Once again you can confirm I cannot take decent pics for the sake of my life. Take my word, the minis in the group pics are just the same than in the individual examples you've just seen.

Sigh.

The special features:

The Royal Guard

Predalien

Crusher (that's a 80mm base!)

Of course, the Queen

 These are the two hives combined:

Buuuugs! Ehm, oops, that's from another movie

These are not all the Aliens in the project, but certainly most of them. I have a few more, but they are special minis from the Kickstarter campaign or stuff like that, i.e., minis with their own bases. I only painted those which needed these 3D printed ones. I think I'll leave those special ones for the end and I'll be painting the basic models, both the Predators and the Colonial Marines. I hope I can show them anytime soon!