For round 5 of the Lead Painters' League I painted up some prawns and MNU troopers inspired by the movie District 9. I'll hit off with the troopers, who are all from EM4:
As you can see their colour scheme is very dark. The MNU uniform is completely black and so are most of the soldiers. I'm glad they had white weapons in the movie (and consequently here) as it adds at least something visually interesting. The paintjobs were pretty speedy so at least it's more models painted. I was thinking of expanding these into a proper force but I think it will simply look too dull on the table. So I don't know yet if I will expand.
Next up are the prawns. The bodies and arms are from RAFM Black Faeries made for Palladiums RIFTS RPG. I bought two blisters very cheaply on Spiel in 2001 (I think) and I could never figure out what to do with them. They are basically bipedal fly warriors with four arms and four wings, carrying a gun (in two arms), a 'knife' and a spiked club of sorts. Each blister contained two large warriors and one small warrior:
(paintjob courtesy of
http://www.miniatures-workshop.com )
As I said I could never figure out what to do with them, so I thought it was now or never. I took the bodies and filled in the holes meant for the wings and the lower pair of arms. Then I sculpted a prawn face on the warrior on the left. I copied the face for the other three models using Green Stuff moulds.
I then personalised the models and gave them arms. First two 'normal' prawns and then two 'special' ones. This one was originally given a lampshade on it's head (which one in the movie also wears) but I decided it looked too silly and I needed more 'generic' models.
This one got a spade (0.9mm wire and plasticard) and a bra (green stuff), it's based on one of the prawns in the movie.
Of course Christopher Johnsson needed to be represented as well. I sculpted on extra clothing with Green Stuff, and built his rifle from a GW Imperial Lasgun and some sprue. His arms are the original 'gun wielding' arms from the Black Faerie which made posing him a breeze.
All the prawns were drybrushed with VGC Charred Brown and Citadel Graveyard Earth (VGC Earth is miles better but it wasn't available when my bottle ran out). After this drybrush I gave them all a differently tinted drybrush to diversify their skin tones. Christopher has the greenest tint of them all and the others vary between reddish and yellowish browns. After the skin I dabbed on some of the paint which you can see the aliens exhibit throughout the movie.
Since I was one prawn short of a team I decided to rebuild their exo-suit (containing Wikus van der Merwe in the movie) in a simple and not too precise fashion. I took two plastic EM4 robots, the Enforcer (the large humanoid robot of the set) and the Street Tiger II (the even larger bipedal robot with chicken legs), to use Combat Zone jargon.
I cut the enforcer through the middle and I cut off the head of the Street Tiger, then I mounted the top half of the enforcer to the underside of the Street Tiger and filled up the gaps with MagicSculp:
The arms were even easier to make. I simply too two weapon arms, cut and filed away the hands and glued in other robot weapons:
I sprayed him black, drybrushed with greys followed by a light drybrush of VGC Mithril Silver. Then I painted on the orange and white markings and washed parts of the model with Citadel Earth.
Finally I made some group shots and won the match
16 April 2011, 03:15:15 PM