"Attention! Group Marshal Stike Of The Ninth Sontaran Attack Group."

"Stand at ease."

This 28mm metal Sontaran model is produced by “Black Tree Design" and can be purchased from their "Doctor Who" range as code DW613 - Stike the Sontaran. Determined to defeat the Rutans in the "endless Sontaran-Rutan War", the Group Marshal worked with the mad scientist Dastari on Earth in order to build a crude prototype space-time vessel for the Ninth Sontaran Battle Group to use, and made his BBC Television debut during the February 1985 story "The Two Doctors".

The miniature was originally primed using two layers of "Citadel" Abaddon Black, and then mercilessly dry-brushed with "Vallejo" Heavy Charcoal before being thoroughly drenched in "Citadel" Nuln Oil. "The long-suffering Stike" subsequently had his knee-pads, belt and neck armour base-coated with "Vallejo" Gunmetal Grey and shaded with (more) "Citadel" Nuln Oil.

"The Nox are... elite troops who are taken from the best of the ordinary legionaries."

However, the resultant dull metallic colour was far darker than I imagined, or had achieved when using the technique upon Field Major Styre, even after I dry-brushed the areas with some additional "Vallejo" Gunmetal Grey. I therefore replaced the acrylic Model Colour paint with "Citadel" Ironbreaker, and following an application of Nuln Oil and dry-brush, attained a signifcantly lighter outcome.

Equally as problematic was the Sontaran's disconcerting hold of his infamous rheon carbine. The firearm itself was 'picked out' simply enough using some "Vallejo" Black and a combination of "White" with a splash of Pale Grey. Sadly though, the sculpt's fingers seemingly turned the clone warrior's fingers into tentacles, which curled around the hand-weapon to an astounding degree. Initially, I just painted the half of the fingers with my usual Sontaran flesh mixture of "Vallejo" Heavy Skintone and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, leaving the rest "Vallejo" Black. But in the end I felt this didn't look quite right either, so later returned to Stike and pigmented the rest of his hand in as sculpted...

Chewbacca WIPs - The Wookie has been dry-brushed repeatedly and now just needs show shading

Sticking with freshly-finished partially-painted science fiction figures, albeit in 15mm scale this time, I have also completed three more Nox from the "The Ion Age" Code AIAF001. These heavily-armoured soldiers of the Shia Khan Empire have been painted in precisely the same manner as the trio pigmented last month, and means I'm now half-way through the six bases of miniatures I want to deploy against my Prydian Army on the tabletop.

Lastly, I have sought inspiration from Dave Stone's currently "Star Wars" obsessed blog "The Game Cupboard" to help motivate me enough to try and finish an old Chewbacca model I've had sitting around since the wookie's ally pack was first released by "Fantasy Flight Games". Rather embarrassingly I did actually manage to prime, shade and dry-brush the detailed hard plastic model a little under three years ago, but haven't made any significant progress on him since...