The Strain: The Cthonian!

I'm getting near the end of new models for Sedition Wars.  This is the top of the food chain for the Strain, the Cthonian.  I think he's the only Strain unique character at the moment.  This was the first Sedition wars mini that I painted "out of order" - the only other Strain figure to come is the Phase 4 Grendlr which is a Phase 5 figure.  The Grendlr is in progress, but it's a complicated figure.

Many people have gone with a fairly monochrome colour scheme, because the mini looks pretty uniform; wires, cables and shielding all over.  Most monochrome colour schemes look great; some how mine looks plain and flat.  I'll have to come back and tart him up a bit.  I might shade the shielding on the top surface of the weapons (shoulder pads?) and ink the pine cone weapon.

I think this is the best OSL I've managed, but it is still a bit off.  I think the green need to be brighter, but whiter looks odd and it's already 90% yellow and 10% green.  I'll need to read a bit more.

I am a little disappointed with the figure.  There is a lot of shading in the metallics (4 shades, from a dark gun metal to bright silver) and 0-3 layers of smoke ink.  The blue is Tamiya weathering powder "Burnt Blue".  There's a "Burnt Red", I might try this on the shoulders.  To tie back to the other Strain, I have painted the weapon tentacle the zombie flesh colour.  Not bad, but overall not what I hoped.

The Strain: Phase 3

Progress continues to be a bit slow, but I cleaned up and primed the last of my Strain: the Brimstones from Phase 3, the Phase 4 Grendlr and the Phase 5 Cthonian.  While I painted the Brimstones, I started on the other models, so they are on their way, at least.

Like the Scythe Witch, the Brimstones have more armour than the smaller Strain.  I went with metallics on the armour and shaded some of it blue.  That make have been a little over done, but it's not too late to correct. I painted them  before assembly, and as a result, they do not sit flat on their base.  I'll need to work on that, maybe holding them flat on the base while gluing them up.

Here's the front view:

And back:

I used the hot water trick to change the pose a little.  One is raising his paw, the other is wagging, I mean, swishing his tail.  It's hard though, because the plastic is pretty chunky.

Say cheese:

The Strain: Phase Three

Here is the second Phase 2 model, the overly large Quasimodo and my first Phase 3 figure, the sleek Scythe-Witch.  I need to paint more often.  I think I am improving, but I if did a little more, I think I would improve faster.  I'm still not quite getting the results I want, although these are plenty good enough for table top play.

The Quasimodos are huge.  I had to weight the base to stop them tipping over.  Steve McVey, the game's creator, says there was a scale miss-communication between him and the sculptor.  I like the size, but a 35mm base would help.

I hoped they would be a little more green - the inside joke with the purple pants would have been more obvious.  Not much I could do with the poses here, the minis are too solid to heat and bend.

The Scythe-Witches are quite the opposite.  The spur/whip thing is pretty sturdy really, but I still managed to break all three.  There is a lot of detail on the these minis and it was too much for my eyes.  I think I'll ink them after the undercoat, just to get the details to pop.  The metal on these guys is bit smoother and shinier and I've given it a bluish cast.  All will be revealed soon.

By heating them in boiling water, I manage to pose them a little.  Out of the box, they are all exactly the same.

I'm looking forward to the final model.  Almost done now.

The Strain: Phase 2

I'm still working on our Sedition Wars forces.  Time for some Strain to even up the head count.  Phase 2 Strain are slightly strong than the Phase 1 grunts that I painted first.  There are two different types, the heavy weapon ranged Quasimodo (coming soon) and the sneaky melee Stalkers.

Out of the box, the Stalkers only have one pose, but the plastic responds very well to heating and bending.  A quick dip in hot water and one is pointing and one has his hook hand raised, ready to attack.  Just a little variation, but enough to stop them looking absolutely identical.  No fancy effects, except for a little OSL on the orange Stalkers ankle.  I like the muscle shading on the torn open bellies, but other than that, they look a little rough in these close ups.

So here one of each Strain figure I've painted so far.  There's a little variation in colour as the nano infection progresses, left to right.  The Stalkers were painted with very different paints ... I expected something a little more different.  I'll exaggerate it next time.

The Strain

Well, I’ve got a little Strain army for Sedition Wars.

I know, it looks like Thriller!

This was the first batch I painted.  Very detailed, but covered in mold lines that were very hard to remove.  I did a very quick clean up job and it shows.  These Phase 1 Necroforms have a low point value in the game, so you need loads of them.  I was really focused on pumping them through rather than doing a bang up job.  I was also testing colours for use later.  The result is somewhere between a test run and table top quality.

For the colours, I wanted a progression through all the strain from dead human -> zombie -> cyborg.  This is the first level of five, so there is no much variation.  Pinky is the freshest; his metal parts are still dark and pitted.

Split Pants and Big Arm have a slightly darker, more leathery skin tone and lighter metal.

Yup, we've all had this problem with our pants.



 

 I was pleased with muscle fibers here.

This is darkest flesh tone and brightest metal.

Overall, I’m pleased with this bunch.  I’ll get the point count up a bit, then go back and touch up a few of the errors.  The bases came out well, I think, I used a new transparent red paint, darkened up with a blue ink.  There's no OSL, but I can do that later.