Happy Monday folks! I’ve managed to get into a bit of a groove this last week, and I’ve started a new RT army project that has been on the back-burner for far too long – the rather magnificent ‘Eru-Kin’ Kickstarter from Diehard miniatures. I’m aiming to get a command squad and two basic troop squads done this side of Christmas, and then get into some fun stuff in the new year, with (hopefully) a playable army on the table in time for BOYL.

Anyway, let’s take a look at what I’ve got so far – he just happens to be the General, and is such a stonking model:

So we kind of have a Slann thing going on here, but clearly this mini is heavily influenced by the Predator, which is kinda neat given that Pred is 30 years old this year, (shit… now I feel old). Man, I absolutely love that film – in fact, I would put it down as one of my all-time favourites, along with Aliens, Terminator (1&2), Blade Runner, Mad Max, Dune and Robocop (original)… My love of science fiction has deep roots – one of my standout memories was a bunch of us in a mate’s bedroom, all huddled around a small portable TV & Betamax player, watching the Predator pick of Arnie’s team one by one in the relentless claustrophobia of the jungle. The sheer impact and visceral thrill of this film totally blew my mind… Heady days my friends, heady days. *sigh*

Anyway, in terms of paining, I took it fairly easy on this guy – muted primaries, the serviceable & cool blue-grey offset by some asymmetrical red armour plates and bright splashes of glossed yellow flesh. I tried for a bone effect on the helmet & weapons, which is nice from a colour balancing perspective, but I need to go back and tidy up the guns. I also took advantage of the ‘foot on rock’ posing of the base mini, and mounted him on a neat little base topper (I got it for free for supporting the new Ghost Archipelago game from Osprey). I’m going to add some vines and stuff to the base at some point, but I want to see how the rest of the army evolves before I commit. The whole colour scheme might look familiar to some of you, because I basically copied the scheme I used on my Colony 87 not-Slann a couple of years ago:

 

So, there we have it – the humble beginnings of a new army. I feel a strange urge to paint up some Catachans, do some jungle terrain, and shout ‘Get to da chopper!!!’  🙂