Space Civilians and Big Red Soldiers

 Even more random space people! This time, however, they're not based on Stargrave models. 

I've always liked the idea of making civilians and passers-by, either as objectives for games or just people to have standing around. When models aren't carrying guns, you can have all sorts of interesting poses. Here we've got a weird little alien dude, who started off as a Bolt Action Russian soldier. The soldier had huge boots - I think they had extra insulation - which I removed to make him shorter. He then got arms and a drum from a Perry Miniatures Afghan sprue, and a Stargrave head. I don't know if he's an annoying alien child or some kind of little priest.

The robot (I think of her as Sassbot, owing to her pose) is a Mantic Games Dreadball referee, with a new pointing hand from a WW2 sprue. She's fairly crisp for a Mantic model, and looks pleasingly silly.

Then we've got some soldiers. A few years ago, I quickly painted some baddies for the solo game Hardwired (well worth a look). These are plastic soldiers from Warlord Games' odd sci-fi wargame Beyond the Gates of Antares. It never appealed to me as a game, but it had a few interesting sculpts. I dug them out and tidied up the painting a bit.

Anyhow, these guys have the advantage of being taller and bulkier than humans without looking like Space Marines. Ironically, the colour scheme I gave them reminds me of one of GW's marine chapters: the Blood Ravens or Doom Budgies or something like that. The painting is a bit rough and ready, but they'll make good heavily-armoured villains.

I do have a vague plan with all of these models. I've got the Stargrave rules and a one-player campaign, and I thought that I might have a go at it during the Christmas break. It looks like pretty good fun.