From SimonM - "Crooked Dice Game Design Studio" - Federated Security (25 Points)

These five 28mm Federated Security models are by “Crooked Dice Design Game Studio” and are ‘dead-ringers’ for the dastardly black-clad henchmen of the Federation from the BBC science fiction television series “Blake’s Seven”. Three of the miniatures, which are slightly thinner than ‘heroic 28mm’ scale and are somewhat sedentary, have been sculpted by “Crooked Dice” regular Ian Mountain. Whilst the more dynamically posed and slightly thicker-set Federation goons are by Martin Buck. All of the models came with separate heads.

Each figure was initially given a double undercoat of “Citadel” Abaddon Black before they were all rather roughly dry-brushed with “Vallejo” Heavy Charcoal. This is a new paint to me, although I have owned it for quite a while as it came as part of a larger set of dropper bottles, so I wasn’t entirely sure what effect it would actually have on the models. Needless to say I’ll be using it in the future to highlight all of my predominantly black coloured figures as it really brought out the detail of each model’s sculpting. However I did feel the need to tone down its contrast to the undercoat somewhat so I applied the first of three eventual washes of the “Citadel” Shade Nuln Oil over each miniature.

Once dry I painted each helmet’s green trim with a combination of “Vallejo” Heavy Khakhi and “Citadel” Thrakka Green, and all of the figures’ visors with “Vallejo” Heavy Red. Finally their belt buckles and Federation rifles were painted with “Citadel” Boltgun Metal and their key chains with “Mithril Silver”. All of these areas, except the helmet trim, were then given two coats of Nuln Oil to tie them all together.

From Curt:Very cool! These fellows have that armed minion look down pat. I really like the addition of the green trim - it brings some visual interest to otherwise very dark figures.  My curiosity is piqued regarding your experience with the Vallejo 'Heavy Charcoal'. I'll have to nab a bottle and give it a whirl as I'm always on the lookout for alternate ways to shade dark tones.  

Great work Simon.