Mayday! Mayday! Project update

Hello folks! It's nearly the end of the month so it's time for an update on my Mayday! Mayday! miniature rescue project. I introduced the concept in my previous post, but in brief the idea is to take a half finished but stalled, damaged, or otherwise unloved project and get it going again, finishing or getting as far a long as possible by the end of the month.

This year I chose some Middlehammer era Plague Bearers, and wanted to practice my hand at copying existing paint jobs.

The state of affairs at the start of the project...

Above you can see the three PBs I wanted to keep in style with. Below you can see the finished unit of six. I'm happy with the final result, but the six are far more of a mix than I had originally envisaged.

...and at the end of the project.

I just couldn't help myself! I found myself loving the sculpts and the temptation of doing some more striking nurgley colours to offset the dark colours of the original trio was just too much. Bubonic Brown (Citadel), Bilious Brown (Coat D'arms), and Hideous Blue (Citadel) provided the base colours, and I sought to tie the unit together by redoing the swords of the original trio with a more pronounced greenish tinge. This, plus the day-glo Goblin Green bases, means they don't look like COMPLETELY different units, but I haven't achieved my original aim of emulating another painting style. You know what, I don't care. I had loads of fun painting these and I'm looking forward to an excuse to use them in my D&D campaign as some sort of super charged pus filled exploding Zombies... or something.

My three in the middle. Obvs.

Even more noticeable form the back...

Actually, I enjoyed painting them so much the Plague Bearers were finished pretty quickly into May, and I decided to pick up another stalled project, for Mayday! part 2.

Early work in progress shots. They started from black undercoat and brown bases mid way through the month

Escher gangers from Necromunda, with a couple of minor weapon conversions. Which were themselves a spin off of another, bigger project which also needed kick starting! So it was ticking all the boxes for Mayday!

Evidence of at least 6 months of neglect...

I'm pretty sure these have been on my painting table for about 8 or 9 months, undercoated, based, damaged and repaired at least once already, then recently damaged again by an over eager nerdling. You can't tell, but I know they are caught in the picture above (circled in red) from Deadcember 2016, which means they have been there for at least 6 months, and I know they had been there a bit longer than that...

Later WIP shots

The colour scheme was largely dictated by the campaign setting they are going to fit into. The dark blue leather/ flak armour/carapace used on my PDF forces, and various scavengers of ex-imperial equipment, has been carried over here, along with the bright red spot colour signifying them as gang members, the denim blue and stained white T-Shirts and vest tops also echo the fashions of other gangs they will be fighting alongside/against. The Bright colours of their hair will set them apart as their own unit, or as distinct members of a bigger gang if they team up at any point.

The weapon conversion on the full gang member (back half of an auto gun, front half of a shot gun) was as I bought it, although it needed repair after stripping. I will confess that I had not even noticed this when I bought the lot on eBay so was a bit surprised when she came out of the goop with only half a gun!

The weapon conversions on the blond juve were both necessary as she came without any. The haft of something chunky had been left in her right hand (looked like it might have been an axe, I haven't bothered to check) and she was bereft of pistol. I added a short length of resin sprue to look like a metal pipe, and the pistol I had cut from the Xenos Rogue to act as an alternate pattern auto pistol.

You can't see the pistol clearly in the final shots, so here is a close up of what I'm on about.

This was another beautiful set of sculpts to work on and I wanted to do them justice, but also exercise some discipline in stopping before-you-go-too-far-and-ruin-everything! So the one purple boot on the full gang member didn't get gold spikes. She's not supposed to be in a Slaaneshi cult after all. Although...

The gangers are just sizing up some cargo crates to break into when they hear a noise. Is it customs officials?

Wait! What was that behind them. That didn't sound like no stinking customs official!

You will have to tune in to the next instalment of my Rogue Quest project to find out what is about to befall our brightly bouffanted beauties, but for now thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to share your own Mayday! Mayday! projects on the Middlehammer Facebook group.

Cheers!