Ack, Ack, Ack!

With now just seven days until the start of this years challenge, I am keen to post the last of my entries for the previous year and so I’m thrilled to finally present them here for your approval. 'Mars Attacks, the miniatures game' was to be my first dalliance into the wonderful world of crowd funding and proved to be a rather expensive introduction. I was swept away with the excitement of it all and before I knew what I had done a large amount of plastic was winging its way towards ‘Awdry Towers’ where it has sat idly – until now!

These then are the Martian grunts and boast a wonderful array of weaponry, perfect for reducing the resistance of the human race to a smouldering pile of ashes. With regards to the miniatures themselves, they are a good match for most 28mm miniatures and certainly had enough detail to keep my brush interested whilst painting. What I didn’t enjoy, however. were the mould lines and although I did remove some they proved too numerous to remove altogether. Of course what they do have, to counter this mild irritation, are their own clear plastic helmets – what an inspired addition!

There are quite a few painting tutorials online and I managed to match many of the colours used to those in my own collection with only a couple of additions like monster brown and Hydra turquoise. One site that proved to be an invaluable source of inspiration was 'Keith's Wargaming/Painting Blog'. Keith also shared a way of dealing with the embarrassing bendy weapon syndrome that these models, made from soft plastic, occasionally suffer from; wonderful for shooting around corners, but they do rather take the sheen off your nicely painted miniature! A relatively simple procedure, but I mention it hear to alert you to a potential pitfall. The idea is that you drop wobbly, weapon, wielding, warrior into a glass of nearly boiling water, remove, reshape and plunge in a cold bath before the plastic memory has time to right itself. It really is that simple, but so transfixed was I by the shapes and colours that I left mine in for far too long and then initially forgot the cold bath - they were little Martian blancmanges!

Finally they were complete and I have to say that I'm rather pleased with them.  It was rather fun working on something so different and using colours that don't normally get a run out.  Still plenty more to do, but first I must pluck up the courage to stick the helmets down!

Ack, Ack, Ack!