Ma’k Morin tried his hand at an original creation — a futuristic tank as envisioned in Popular Science in the 1930s. See his blog (link at the top of the page) for details. I was lucky enough to get one of the first out of the molds. I tend to paint a lot of my retro science fiction vehicles in metal colors like the older serials rather than primary colors like the comic strips.
The Ma'k I Space Panzer on the painting table
According to Ma’k, the guns in the sponsons have a reasonably long range, but the beam in the Martian eye from the 1953 movie version of The War of the Worlds has fires like a flame thrower.
My buddy Ma’k molded these space bugs from the old Archive Miniatures Star Rovers line. Apparently they are called Phraints. I just call them “space bugs.” For these I wanted to try something a little different.
I found this spray paint at my local Michael’s store. It is “citrus dream” glitter blast hobby paint from Krylon. I wanted the bugs to have a shiny appearance, and I was thinking about many layers of increasingly light greens. Instead, I brush painted the bugs forest green and then sprayed them with this glittery paint.
After spraying them, they definitely had a different look than I would have achieved by layers of dry brushing. I should have thought about it a little. For the glitter to be part of the paint, it sprayed on pretty thickly and gunked up some of the details. More importantly, it left the areas that weren’t skin (exoskeleton, whatever) with a rough texture that was difficult to cover. The glitter paint stuck to the figure just fine, but I sprayed them with dull coat to make sure glitter didn’t scatter everywhere.
Phraints as works in progress on the painting table
I painted the “sergeant” and “corporal” with different colors on their antennae than the troops.
I’m not sure I’ll mess with this glitter paint again, but I am happy with the effect on these bugs.
