Science Fiction – Grimmleigh's Lab

2020 Secret Santa Project, Part 2

Seeing as how my friends from my local gaming group can’t get together during the pandemic, we decided to do a miniature painting based Secret Santa project.

I was chosen to paint up a Mercenary from Infinity for my friend Brock. Infinity minis are a blast to paint, and the merc he submitted is one of the best figs in the game, so I was really happy to get to work!

I have to admit to a certain crutch with Infinity models, though! I tend to want their boots and gauntlets to look like they were made from high-grade plastics or ceramics, so I often paint them white. I wanted to do something a little different with this merc, since she has a lot of earth tones, so I went with a yellow scheme with Menoth White highlights.

The red tones were Citadel Contrast paints, which were then highlighted up to a warm orange. The reds help balance out the tones established by the yellows and browns, and also contrast her hair.

The hair started out with a turquoise glaze, which was then highlighted up to near white through some soft blue tones. The turquoise base is a pretty good contrast to the red tones. Normally, I would go more green on a project like this, but just happen to live in a country where red and green are considered Christmas colors. And no-one wants a Christmas themed mercenary!

At least no-one I know directly! Who knows, maybe there’s a market for that somewhere out there?

Miniatures, Workbench

The Secret Santa Project 2020

I know the pandemic has been horrifying on so many levels. There has been a catastrophic loss of life, and the economic hardships so many people around the world have been facing is truly heartbreaking. When thinking about those issues, it’s kind of hard to feel too bad about not being able to get together with friends to roll some dice.

But DAMMIT, I miss getting together with my game crew. They’re a great bunch of people, and they really help me blow off some steam at the end of a long work week!

So, this past Holiday we decided we would do a Secret Santa within our game club, where anyone who was willing to paint a standard sized mini would also be able to get a standard sized mini painted for them by someone in the group.

I seriously love everyone in this group, so I would be happy to paint something for any single one of them! And not having to paint part of the Pile of Shame? Sign me the freak up!

Who wouldn’t want to paint a mini of this guy? Say hi to Kur Keela from Mantic’s Star Saga!

I picked a cool Mantic mini from my backlog and dropped him off at Shiv Games, and then picked up the mini I was supposed to paint. I wasn’t surprised to see that I would be painting an Infinity model, since our shop is such an Infinity intensive group. I brought my project home, got to work, and three weeks later, it was time to see who had painted my mini!

I was shocked. My friend Randon is one of the best painters I know, and he ended up getting my turtle dude to paint. Now I have a badass mini with a badass paint job from a really good friend! While we may not be able to get together to game, this whole experience was a really cool one for all of us!

Tomorrow, I’ll share pics of the mini I painted for my friend Brock!

Miniatures, Workbench

Core Space: Skylark Crew

Core Space is one of those games that checks all of the boxes when I’m looking for a game: cool setting, great minis, and terrain? Well, Core Space is from Battle Systems, so the terrain is kind of a given.

I still haven’t played a game of Core Space, and anyone who knows me is probably having a pretty good chuckle at my expense. Yes, there is a pretty good chance that I’ll never play a game of Core Space. I collect and paint miniatures with the assumption that some day I’ll play them, but I know that I’ll just buy more minis to paint.

That’s why there’s four boxes of Runewars minis showing up tomorrow, by the way.

One of the great things about Core Space is the crew boxes, which give you a crew of space traders all ready to go. Sure, you can recruit NPCs, and even put together a crew from other crew sets, too. But getting a box with a crew set to go, and fiction behind them? That’s cooooool.

Jonathan Weaver is the captain, and he’s heading down a dark path. He wants to make it big, and the jobs are getting harder to pull off. He’s running guns and fencing goods, and that’s making his crew feel a bit at odds.

Marlowe Chibueze is Weaver’s conscience, but he also has to be careful because he’s an augmented human, and potentially a living weapon.

Faye Millicent is the rookie, and learning her way through the universe. She’s wondering if maybe she should have thought things through a little before signing on to the Skylark.

MAC is a contracted mercenary, who is using his earnings to continuously upgrade his gear, but no one knows what his end game is.

This is the fist crew I have finished up, but I pretty much bought everything there is for the game, so there’s a ton more to come!