Wednesday 18 September 2019

"I Am The Borg.”

"I am the beginning. The end. The one who is many."
This 32mm scale resin miniature of the Borg Queen is produced by “Modiphius Entertainment” and can be found inside the company's eight-figure strong Iconic Villains boxed set for “Star Trek Adventures”. Named by the Federation scientists who discovered her existence, this “central nexus for the Borg Collective” made her first appearance in the November 1996 motion picture “Star Trek: First Contact” and was played by actress Alice Krige.

Designated Species 125, the figure was initially primed using a double-coat of “Citadel” Abaddon Black, heavily dry-brushed with “Vallejo” Heavy Charcoal and ‘highlighted’ with a much lighter dry-brush of “Citadel” Ironbreaker. However, having compared the ‘look’ of this colour scheme with that of the film character’s actual costume, I realised that my normal Borg recipe contained far too much silver, and that the Queen’s (latex) bio-mechanical body suit designed by Deborah Everton was actually predominantly black with a little gold showing in places.
The Borg Queen leads an attack against a Romulan raiding party
Resultantly, I applied some watered down “Citadel” Abaddon Black over the entire model and (once again) heavily dry-brushed the female drone co-ordinator using some “Vallejo” Heavy Charcoal. I then ‘picked out’ a few of the cybernetic entity’s synthetic implants with “Vallejo” Brass and shaded them using a little Strong Tone Quickshade by “The Army Painter”. 

Despite the Borg Queen’s mottled skin-tone in the movie being quite pink in comparison to the dead-like grey of her drones, I decided to still paint her bare head in the same “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey I’ve used for the rest of my assimilating extra-terrestrials. This, along with the female humanoid’s black body suit, limbs and (gloved) hands were all later washed with “Citadel” Nuln Oil.
"Warcry" WIPs - These two Iron Golems are all having their metalwork 'picked out' and shaded
Finally, I ‘picked out’ the metallic tubing encircling the model’s head with “Citadel” Ironbreaker, and drenched them in Nuln Oil. This just left me with the conundrum as to ‘spotting’ the miniature’s eyes, and having unsuccessfully tried to dot the figure’s incredibly tiny pupils a few times without making her look cross-eyed, I settled upon them being pure “Citadel” Abaddon Black.

With the perfect “blending of the organic with synthetic” completed, I have momentarily turned my attention back to my Iron Golems for “Warcry”. Now I’ve finally settled upon an agreeable palette for the plastic warriors’ red and brass-coloured armour, I’m starting to quite quickly plough through my “Game Workshop” warband’s ranks, with both its Ogre Breacher and Dwarf Armator heading towards completion…

16 comments:

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    1. Thanks Fran. There's a lot of detail on them, but I'm hoping to get this pair done by the weekend, and then crack on with three of the less powerful Iron Golems.

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  2. Great job on the Borg Queen Simon, and progressing nicely on the warcry models

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    1. Cheers Dave. Probably my least fave "Star Trek Adventures" mini to date, but my goodness was it a lot easier to paint than these "Warcry" minis are.

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  3. she is a sexy cyborg piece of metal..flesh. yeah.
    cant wait to see ur Warcry figs finished.
    awesome job!

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    1. Cheers Mr. Martin. I can't wait for the "Warcry" minis to be finished either, as they're slowing down my painting momentum tbh.

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  4. The Queen looks perfect mate! Nice to see an easily painted effort end up looking so good.

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  5. Good choice going with the grey skin for the queen, I still ihink it's a great sculpt too btw.
    Congrats settling on a good-looking colour scheme for the golem too.

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    1. Cheers Joe. I wanted to tie her in with the rest of the Borg tbh, and felt a pinker hue would upset that. Hopefully I'll have some better progressed "Warcry" minis soon.

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  6. Really nicely done Simon, one of my favourite NG adversaries.

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    1. Thanks Michael. I think the Borg and their Queen is definitely one of the best things to come out of "Star Trek: The Next Generation".

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  7. Well I am never keen to be negative, but I don't really like that Borg Queen model. Your paint scheme is fine and it looks great with your other Borg but it doesn't look like the Borg Queen to me. Sometimes a model grabs you, other times it doesn't and it would be a boring world if we all liked the same thing. On a more positive note your Iron Golems seem to be coming along splendidly! Can't wait to see the finished models.

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    1. I'm not a fan of the pose either, Undercoat, not at all. I'd have thought she would be stood in an imperious or haughty manner as seen in "Star Trek: First Contact" or perhaps with an arm outstretched finger pointing so as to set one of her drones on a task. Not crouched into a little ball like this figure is.

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