Crusties!

I mentioned in my Reading Warfare blog post that I was impressed with the GZG 15mm figures I saw, and I picked up a starter pack of Crusties, their District-9 inspired alien race. You get an awful lot of figures for £36, which presents the first challenge - how to prime them? After a wash in soapy water to remove any mould release agent, a water rinse to remove any soap residue, and a spell on tissue to dry them, I tacked them to a plank of wood with a tiny bit of superglue. This way I could prime the entire set without them falling over and getting paint-stuck to the wood, each other and generally causing an horrific mess!

These are just the infantry! The walkers I didn't tack down, but primed them in their componetn parts so they couldn't fall over etc. It meant a bit more fiddling around turning parts after they were dry, but was still very quick.

So now I had a bunch of white-primed figures, and as you can see above, it's difficult to see any detail (especially in flash-washed photos). The answer to this, of course, is to use a wash (like those cooked up from my last blog post) to pull out all the detail. I was a bit time-lmited for this, as I knew I was only going to be able to go a single squad, so I used diluted Vallejo ink in this case;

Much better! Using this wash as a pre-shade, I can now use a very thin paint to essentially "stain" the figure, and still retain shading. I'll see how this works out - I'll also paint some in base colours and wash them to see which is easier. The benefit of doing it this way is that the detail is much easier to see for painting.

The next thing I'm going to be after are some squad bases (possibly magnetic) and then a decent ruleset to use them with. Suggestions, anyone?