I’m running a space opera campaign in GURPS with my wife and a couple of our friends. This is a painting blog more than a TTRPG blog, so I won’t lore dump, but there’s plenty of alien species and transhumans to pick from. Our heroes are involuntary crewmembers of the Red Company mercenary group, variously shanghaied and blackmailed into serving for a brief period against a pirate incursion. They recently finished their tour and have opted to join as paid auxiliaries, working mostly independently but taking missions from their old boss. This is the crew of the RCS Flared Base; Geirolf Maormer the feral dog-man, his old friend from SPECOPS Roscoe Fitz, the orc hacker Vasker Bonecracker, and dwarven power armour enthusiast Balder Grimmforge.
Maormer is the first time I’ve tried to paint fur texture on a smooth surface. Not entirely successful but highly educational and looks okay for a first try. Thin stripes of light and dark grey, plus brown. The colours could have been closer to each other. The strokes would have looked better closer together, or if I’d used a more mid grey or the brown as the base. This is one of the models where my tools (specifically brushes) started to limit my technique. It’s fantastic I’ve gotten “good” enough that my tools rather than my skills are the barrier, but it did cost me $150 to experiment and find the brushes I needed. Enragingly, 70% of that cost is because that anal wart Putin started a war; Kolinsky sable brushes come from Russia, and $10 brushes are now $50. I’d prefer an option that’s less cruel than Kolinsky, I bought them only because I need to understand what sort of properties I need to match, and in the future I’ll be moving to something else. Alternatives in the running are Monument for synthetics (which I distrust and dislike but am willing to try out), ethical weasel or squirrel, or Perla for ethical semi-natural.
Anyway, Fitz and Bonecracker are both some early forays into kitbashing with 3d prints; I replaced their heads to match character descriptions. I’m going to learn how to hide seam lines in the future. Fitz’ mottled black was a happy accident after a first sloppy layer and I decided to leave it as-is. This is also among the last times I fuckin’ bothered painting boots, belts, and pouches without speedpaint. I love having the details, the realism really pleases me, but fuck painting my thousandth belt. I got 5 bottles of various Vallejo Xpress paints (now that the strike is over) and will probably pick up a few more.
Baldur was actually the first project of the bunch. I was inspired by some collar OSL I saw elminiaturista do on insta, so I tried my hand at it. Much of the detail was obscured when I glued the helmet in place (which itself didn’t get enough glow on the sides), but I like what I did and how I did it. My BattleTech friends always want their mechs freshly painted so I never get to weather or chip anything, so I spent too much time having fun with Baldur’s gun and scratching the worn-enamel itch.