Röknauts

 A short project today, kind of a palette cleanser before I get back to larger stuff.

I was a proud backer of Curis' Röknauts Kickstarter, which has brought Squats back to the front line in the most classic way imaginable. It is funny, I never was a big fan of Squats back in the day, and never collected them. But there was something in these minis that called my attention so bad that I had no real decision to make, I really wanted a bunch of Space Dwarfs.

Official photo shamelessly stolen from the KS web

 In terms of design they are somewhere past the Rogue Trader days and into the Red Era vibe, and maybe that's what caught my eye, as I feel quite comfortable with that stuff. Of course I wanted them to look in that fashion, so no dull colours nor earthy tones. 90's glory FTW!

The thing is that I got so excited that I forgot to take pics of the main part of the painting process!

Of course there was no point in even trying to mimic Curis' paintjob or emulate his skills, so I chose my own path. I primed them white (bold move!) and chose white for the armour and a light turquoise for the flak vest.

I first remembered to take pics when I had gone this far

White can be challenging! The shade is a mix of Ice Blue and Grey, and there are kind of seven to a thousand layers of increasing white to the mix in order to get a convincing 'false white'. Of course the pics are burnt and nothing can be seen, but I have inner peace, and that's all that counts.

I had to do the bases before I glued the minis on them!

I guess you can immediately see the problem with these. They are too white! Too empty! My horror vacui didn't allow me to leave them so immaculate. So how could I make them look like the vertically challenged space Vikings they are supposed to be?

Easy. By painting fake Viking stuff

I wanted that to be a crow's head and a symbolic lightning or something. Depending on the viewer it can be an eagle or maybe a monitor lizard. Still uncertain

I don't know a thing about runes. Lagu Ingwaz. They live next to a lake or something. Hence the turquoise

If you are wondering, yes, of course I'm making this up as I paint.

So this is taking shape

I didn't want to repeat the animal theme on the other half of the helmet, so I tried a different approach:

Yellow... stain. Not particularly taking risks, I'd say

Oh. But why. Why am I doing this to myself

Biggs Darklighter called. He wants his spare helmets back

I don't think I've ever highlighted such small checkers before, but it's not Oldhammer without them, it is law!

So here you have them finished!

The Röknauts rock!

The tattoo on the temple was also unnecessary. But you know. It was a little necessary

One side

The other

How do these fellas scale up with other minis?

Alongside the Universal Unit of Measurement

That Commissar is looking at them with some eagerness

Oh, even the Bombots are taller!!

Who would have said that I would start collecting Squats at my age! Yet here they are. I believe they are a one-shot project, at least for now. Future will tell, but now I still have many more projects calling for my attention. I hope I'll be showing some of them soon!