Those Punks

Climbing the social ladder, from animals to cops, to outcasts and punks.

punks and skum

A mix of manufacturers, meaning a range of scales and styles, but I think they all work together as a group. This group of misfits and sods were fun as hell to paint, letting me muck about with colours (I've been using a lot of pink and green lately), as well as some experiments with skin tones and -- well, let me get into it.

ratling punks

These two ratling punks are from TTCombat, part of their Halflings in Space kickstarter from a couple years ago. I got a bunch of stuff from them, which are form various parts of vague future ideas, but these two were always intended for the 'civilian' project, which has always had a few weirdos with guns that aren't part of warbands. These two don't seem to be available at retail, which is a shame, but the casting is a bit dodgy on their knife hands, which might be why.

For these, I wanted to try out some different skin techniques. Mengel Miniatures has some great simple tutorials, and the lady on the left uses his Star Wars Clone skin tutorial. I think the lass on the right was a more usual darker skin method, starting from Bugman's Glow, but I don't quite remmeber. Even though it was only days ago.

ratling punk

I was tempted to give them tattoos, but I've never been happy with the results of tattoos at 28mm scale, so I opted against it in the end.

I did try out tartan for the first time, though! This has received very positive reviews from folks, which is very kind. I was okay with the bodginess for a crusty punk, so a good model to test on. Main lesson learned here is to start from a darker green - the green I used worked okay for a heavy cotton coat, but less so for a tartan base!

ratling punk

Her lover was simpler, though I did give her two-tone hair to make up for it. Also note that they've dyed their foot hair, although here orange wasn't the wisest choice, given the terracotta basing for my desert world.

She's also a fun of the squat punk band dauðr, and is the third model across my collection to feature their merch. (her jacket has the name in upper case; maybe it's homemade or a knock-off...)

mutant freak

This guy isn't a mohawked punk, but a mutant. He's a North Star mini, from their Stargrave range. I've done him as a Rogue Trader-like mutant rather than a Star Wars-style alien. This is partly to reduce the non-traditional one-off alien count in a collection grounded in Warhammer 40,000 but also as a challenge to see if he works. He does, and the eyes came out way creepier than expected.

As I was painting him with his green mantle, I vaguely got the sense that he was a good guy, some kind of space ranger advocating for mutant rights - his pose makes him seem defensive, but non-violent (once he's stripped of his space wizard Stargrave status). But after the buggy eyes, I think he might well be a villain. Maybe the Imperial Cult is right about his fucked-up kind after all...

Anyway, as an outcast weirdo, I'm sure the punks are willing to hang with him.

fucken punks

A bunch of James Sherriff punks, all sold via Crooked Dice. The four unarmed punks were from the fourth Colony 87 kickstarter; the other a bonus from the fifth. Sherriff sculpts thinner and more delicately than normal for this scale, which makes for a real contrast with the Prow jetbikers, below.

punk

That's definitely not a bolter, right? This gal was very fun to paint. I like to think that her local rep is that she's a former Sister of Battle, and that's where she got the bolter. Also, the scheme I gave her means that she'll probably fit just fine into Fallout or real-world apocalyptic settings, with her work pants and black leathers. I love her.

I also experimented with a little freehand, giving her an anarchist a. After I painted it, I realised it was off centre, so I added a few daubs of white to give the impression of a battle jacket.

The other four punks were experiments in skin colour and playing around with fun colours. Crooked Dice matched their knee patches to the vests, which created a real Power Ranger punks feeling, so I avoided that with everyone having white kneepads. This gal also got Blade-style red eyeglasses rather than my usual blue-tinge lenses. Maybe she has some kind of blood-drinking mutation -- she is awful pale...

(Pale skin was an experiment - Flayed One Flesh, thin Reikland wash, FO mixed with Vallejo Silver Grey, an almost pure SG on top. The wash does yellow the skin if you're trying this, so the layering has to cut close to home, but I think it worked.)

I have pink boots that are almost identical to these, by the way.

Skin colour experimentation again, this time with the Mengel 'Contrast Dark Skin', which worked great.

This was one of my own methods. A mix of Fyreslayer and Cygor contrasts (over white), and then highlighted with Dryad Brown mixed with Knight-Quaestor Flesh, then pure KQF, then glazed in Reikland. Might have been a wash of Reikland after the contrast, too. Comes up very dark, but still feels like skin to me. I went with bleached hair rather than dyed.

Oh, and he's kicking a can of IRN-BRU, but I forgot to get a better photo of it.

This guy was done with the Mengel 'Medium Skin' tutorial, although it looks pretty dark to me. Unconscious bias, probably! The hair was done with oranges and yellows applied unevenly, washes applied unevenly, and then just what feels right,, to get what's hopefully a blended effect.

Initially my least favourite sculpt, I wind up really enjoying him by the end.

bikers

Two (three?) more mounted guys. For someone who dislikes painting vehicles or vehicle-adjacent things, I sure do have a lot to paint at the moment...

Mildred the Mohawked Maniac (and George)

These two are from Diehard Miniatures, sculpted by Tim Prow. Prow sculpts his miniatures at 32mm scale, so they're absurdly out of scale with their comrades and even the Diehard judge from last time (which was sculpted by Kev White). The bike is one the same basis though, with similar engine parts.

Maybe they're ex-Marines or half-Ogryn or something. Humans come in a variety of sizes in the distant future, so I don't really mind the scale discrepancy for one-off models like this.

Fun to paint again, especially when I got to do the chipping, which really ties the thing together and grounds it in the badlands aesthetic.

Imagine telling these two that kink isn't welcome at Pride, amirite?

Lastly, we have this gal. The least punky of the lot, she's not too dissimilar from the prospector I painted back in 2022 (from the same box set, and even in 2022, these plastics had been in the pile for 'ages', yeesh). She's wearing grey-blue coveralls like a lot of my other workers, but isn't quite in uniform, and of course the bike is that Kawasaki green. The head is from Statuesque Miniatures.

I also forgot that I usually do the det charges in black/grey with the caps in yellow, but whatever. Variation in supply is likely around here.

The ribbed armour is off-white - my usual off-white ceramic method, although I found it weirdly hard to highlight, probably because I was doing it late at night and was almost done, so I was lazy. It still worked for a gritty punky outcast type.

I didn't chip the hell out of her bike, as the layers of green resulted in it already looking a bit battered, and I wanted to retain the toxic vibrant green. Pleased with her in the end!

Prospector, © Will Beck 2022

Coming up next are bunch of adventurous types, including the Colony 87 Prospector (the most respectable of the disreputable bunch). This includes another bloody jetbike, yeesh...