From Barks: Aliens (144 points)

I'm a huge fan of Aliens, and was keen to get my hands on the new boardgame from Gale Force 9. It was supposed to arrive mid-December, but didn't. Since completing my Snowlord Challenge and the Descent boardgame, I've painted everything except the marines. I really enjoyed doing the research on this deeply quotable film.

Our Lady of Survival comes in three flavours: vanilla, spicy, and hot orange. I tried to get the space Reeboks right.

The Power Loader model doesn't have all the cables the real one does, and I think I made it a little too orange. I do like the final outcome, and you know I love hazard stripes.

"A-firmative!"

The figures have their names molded on the base, which is probably useful for the obscure redshirt marines. I was going to pick them out in yellow, but left them an off-white which isn't too distracting.

"This installation has a substantial dollar value..."

"I prefer the term 'artificial person' myself."

I flicked white paint over Bishop using a brush and toothpick, and was relieved it looked OK.

"Not bad... for a human."

I 3D printed Jonesy and a base because I wanted to.

The eggs (which I had thought would be my Hatchery entry but they didn't arrive in time) come freestanding, so I printed bases (same as Jonesy).

On the open eggs I applied a bit of UHU, which looks great and I'll be using this trick in future- also see below.

The perfect organism, and a facehugger.

A touch of UHU on the mouth. Hugs and kisses!

I found the xenomorphs hard to assemble, paint and photograph! I pinned all the tails because they're not designed for strength. I drybrushed them gunmetal over a black undercoat, picked out claws and teeth in silver,  then used a black wash followed by a blue wash. Finally a satin varnish and a touch of gloss to their foreheads. It is very hard to capture the oily rubbery sheen.

Whew! I'm looking forwards to assembling and painting the marines and playing a game. I'm thinking of 3D printing an APC as well.

16x Xenomorphs: 80 points

2x mount and rider (Power Loader, Ripley and Newt!): 20 points

4x Civilians (Ripley, Bishop, Burke, Newt): 20 points

8x Eggs: 8 points

3x Small Creatures (Facehuggers and Jonesy): 6 points

1x Queen: 8 points

1x half a Bishop: 2 points

144 points gets me comfortably over my goal, with hours to spare. I'm pulling out all the stops for a truly final Skulltastic entry, then it will be Game Over, man!