“The Tiny Head Lunges Forward.”

“Comes spurting out of Kane's chest trailing a thick body.”

These 10mm scale metal miniatures of some young Xenomorphs are produced by “Pendraken Miniatures” as code SFC5 Small Creature from their Alien Creatures range, and come in packs of ten single-pose figures. The models are actually 15mm in height from base to tail-tip, and seem to show H.R. Giger’s creations during the early stages of their transition from Chestburster to adult drone.

Due to their relatively small size, the entire horde were initially super-glued onto a couple of wooden strips to help with their eventual dry-brushing. However, disaster soon struck once I had finished painting a pair of test pieces, as I discovered that the miniatures badly ‘frosted over’ when later attached to the small-sized plastic “Flames Of War” stands by “Battlefront Miniatures”. I therefore permanently stuck the remaining extra-terrestrials to their bases before starting to pigment them.

"Splatters fluids and blood in its wake."

I was also in two (or three) minds as to what colour to predominantly paint the little horrors in. Due to their evolution’s close proximity to the Chestburster, I did consider going with a yellow-orange pigment or perhaps the dark brown hue of the so-called doggomorph from “Alien 3″. But having realised I had previously used “Vallejo” Heavy Ochre on a batch of “Pendraken Miniatures” Facehuggers, I decided to simply re-tread precisely the same palette as I used on my warrior aliens by “Ground Zero Games” over seven years ago.

This lead to me priming all of the vicious extra-terrestrials with two layers of “Citadel” Abaddon Black, and subsequently dry-brushing them using a little “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey on an old, well past its prime, bushy brush. The aliens were then given one or two washes of “Citadel” Nuln Oil to help shade down their highlights and better blend them in.

"Catalyst Game Labs" WIPs - A Stormcrow, Griffin and Mongrel have all been primed and shaded

Finally, I started to give them a seal of “Citadel” Ardcoat to make them disagreeably shiny. Disconcertingly though, the curse of applying gloss varnish with a brush struck once again, and I soon returned to my pot of “Vallejo” Matt Varnish when I saw the Ardcoat was literally stripping the tiny figures back to their bare metal. Luckily, a few touch-ups with “Citadel” Abaddon Black, “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey and “Citadel” Nuln Oil soon had my latest additions to the fearsome space monsters’ gruesome life cycle ready for the tabletop.

Alongside the Small Creature sculpts I’ve been plugging away at three more “Battletech” 1:285 scale plastic models by “Catalyst Game Labs” for my Weird War Two project. These medium-sized walkers are destined to represent Germany, Italy and Japan on the battlefield, and are giving me a great opportunity to explore some of the newer colours I’ve recently added to my “Vallejo” acrylic collection…