"We Didn't Leave Earth To Be Safe."

"Seal all inner doors! Mother, any additional ammo on board?"

These three 32mm scale resin "Prodos Games" miniatures of H.R. Giger's Aliens are from the company's "Alien Verses Predator: The Hunt Begins" board game, but can also be purchased separately as AVP Alien Infants. Each model comes in a number of separate pieces so as to provide numerous different poses, and resultantly caused me a little head-scratching as to which way their wonderfully-detailed tails should be attached.

The "hostile, deadly and numerous" extra-terrestrials have their tail spines protruding out of the top of their lethal appendages according to the photograph of the company's officially painted models, and this seems to fit with the motion picture versions too. However, I have also seen numerous versions of the kit where the tail has been super-glued the other way round too; a position which seems to be particularly popular with those hobbyists wanting to have the tail rearing up from behind the Alien like some sort of stabbing venomous serpent.

"What happened here?"

In the end I went with the second option, as I actually felt the resin pieces themselves literally bent far more favourably with the spines pointing down. Although even this 'safe option' didn't stop one tail from snapping in half when I was trying to re-position it in order to ensure my future handling of the figure on the tabletop was more manageable. Indeed, with hindsight I believe that one of the reasons I may well have held back from painting these miniatures for so very long was due to my concern over (mis)handling them...

I initially gave the Alien Infants an undercoat of "Citadel" Abaddon Black before simply dry-brushing each model with "Vallejo" German Grey. The Stalkers were then washed with "Citadel" Nuln Oil before I applied a second, significantly lighter dry-brush of "Vallejo" German Grey over the figures' more prominently raised surfaces. Each mouth was painted using a combination of "Vallejo" Gunmetal Grey and "Citadel" Nuln Oil, whilst their head carapaces were treated to a final thick coat of Abaddon Black.

Dungeon Wall Tile WIPs - The 3D printed piece has been primed, washed and dry-brushed

Having previously painted several "Horrorclix" versions of this iconic monster, it is clear that the "Prodos Games" sculpts are infinitely superior, if not a little less robust. This has meant that despite my application of the same recipe the "Vallejo" German Grey appears far more visible to the naked eye than it does upon the "Wizkids"models; presumably because there are significantly more ridges on the newer miniatures for the pigment to sit upon.

Lastly, on the sound recommendation of PulpCitizen ("Eclectic Gentleman Tabletop Gamer"), I have purchased a large room's worth of "Dragonlock" 3D-printed tiles from the Ebay seller "3D Horizons". These somewhat hefty 'plastic' pieces are apparently sold "under agreement from Fat Dragon Games" and will hopefully form the start of an entire dungeonscape to rival that of any produced by "Dwarven Forge" and at a significantly cheaper price; albeit I obviously have to paint my own parts up...