A love letter to Early Sci-fi

[RuneCaster_Aris]

They came from ANOTHER TIME!

EVIL from the DISTANT STARS

Did they come for our women? Our children? OUR PLANET?

The truth will be revealed, when humanity faces...






INVADERS FROM BEYOND DIMENSION PLANET X





STAT CARDS COMING TO A FORUM NEAR YOU!!!

[RuneCaster_Aris]

Just a quick back ground on the project and models.

This time of year is the perfect time to whip out the old 1950's corny as all get-out technicolor sci fi movies. The Blob, Forbidden Planet, etc. Taking from the latter, I decided I wanted to make a couple models for a two man merc group that would be heavily themed on those early sci-fi pics.

The first thing I would like to note about this project was that no 'name brand' paints were used, all paints and washes were/made from Anitia's Acrylics from Hobby Lobby, ($0.69 per 8oz).

I opt to go with a reverse of my usual painting, and do a vibrant, iridescent terrain with more drab and earth-toned models. I chose a purple terrain, because when I grew up, all the pictures of Venus were purple in my school books. It made sense to me to paint the ground purple. the alien foliage is Penne pasta, painted neon orange, washed with dark red, and retouched with neon orange. In spite of the more realistic khaki colors of the Invaders, I opt to go with the classic overly-exuberant bright red ray guns, (done with a base coat of 5:1 Red:White, washed in dark red). Though hard to see (the best camera I have is my phone) the eye slit is a layered red (from 1:0 Red:White, to 1:1 Red: White over four layers). The gun also has a layering on the energy bar which is royal blue, layered up with white until I was satisfied. Models are currently sealed in Gloss, but I am planning to Matte the model to remove the shine.

[Mr. Harold]

Very nice! Great concept, sounds like a fun project!

[godsgopher]

While I happen to be a big fan of early sci-fi such as this Island Earth, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and 'Doc' E. Smith's Lensman series I think your going to have trouble finding miniatures for this project. The overly clean lines of 50's Sci-fi are hard to find in both 15mm and 28mm scale.

However do take a look at Hydra Miniatures.
www.hydraminiatures.com/

[RuneCaster_Aris]

This was the project, these two minis.

They've been sitting in my box since Planet Fall, and I finally said "lets do it". Right now I really don't know what I want to 'do' next. I have four complete Gruntz armies at the 150pt range, and two at the 400+pt range. So I'm just doing Merc forces here and there. The only thing I MIGHT do is take these guys to an extreme and make each one a 50ish point specialist and add a UFO or Rocket from Hydra's line to bring the group to 150pts as a very extreme example of Quality over Quantity.

[RuneCaster_Aris]

Notes:

I made these with extremes in mind, one very defensive, the other heavy attack. I kept these more in line with the Planet Fall 2013 errata as far as weapons go. Why? Because it's fun to rename weapons, and adding that little [E], (P), [M], or [F] can really change play conditions and flavor without changing any base stats. Even if I kept the weapons the same name, it gives a definitive definition of what type of weapon it is for special rules.

My goal was to make each model an equal number of points for easy calculation into an army list, and at 40pts a pop, I think it's very reasonable for what is coming to the table.

Enjoy!

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[stroezie]

While I happen to be a big fan of early sci-fi such as this Island Earth, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and 'Doc' E. Smith's Lensman series I think your going to have trouble finding miniatures for this project. The overly clean lines of 50's Sci-fi are hard to find in both 15mm and 28mm scale.

While I agree this is true in 28mm, in 15mm I find that, with the right paintscheme, you would be surprised how retro-scifi some of the sculpts out there look.
Although, that being said, I wouldn't mind seeing a few more dedicated 15mm retro-scifi ranges.