SG-13: Third Time’s the Charm

It’s only been 8 years since the Stargate campaign folded, and I’ve already almost finished painting the figures!

Left to Right: Major Kastra (Giulia), S/Sgt Stoner (NPC), Dr Nathan Matthews (Anna), Topah (Esther), the General (NPC), Lt Jack Mendoza (NPC).

Actually, Mendoza is for another campaign entirely, but he was in the same painting batch.

All of them except To’pah are from the Copplestone Castings Future Wars range, which are my favourite science fiction miniatures in 28mm. I’m not sure who made To’pah’s mini, I bought him off eBay already painted with a group of colleagues. I love Copplestone Castings SF figures; I like the poses, the level of detail is excellent, and they are more realistically-proportioned than GW figures. They paint up nicely, too, as long as you don’t change your mind about the colour scheme too often while you’re painting them.

They’re mostly painted using Tamiya acrylics, those being what I could find on New Year’s Eve: X1 Black, X2 White, XF10 Flat Brown, XF55 Deck Tan, XF67 NATO Green, XF7 Flat Red, Reaper MSP Flesh (a sample bottle I got with my last order of Legendary Encounters). I mention this mostly so I have the colour scheme written down somewhere in case I need to match it later.

Stoner’s beret really ought to be maroon, since he is a pararescueman, but I didn’t feel like mixing that up – I always need more, and I can never match the shade. The idea behind using the same colours on the clothing and armour was that I could pass off any errant splodges as part of the camouflage scheme. The camo scheme wouldn’t be much use as actual camouflage, but the purpose of camo on my figures is to exude military cool at arm’s length; realistic camo schemes make it hard to see details at any distance, and hard to see the figures on equally realistic terrain – that is, after all, the whole point. The scheme is inspired by the USCM uniforms in the movie Aliens, one of my all-time favourites.

I said almost finished, because the wash, dip, base and varnish stage went horribly wrong, and they’re back in the stripping jar. I swear, those painting services look more attractive every year.

I like the paint scheme though, so I think I’ll just paint them like this again. Except this time I’ll miss out the wash/dip stage and go straight to varnish; if I can get back to this state again I’ll be happy with them.

Third time’s the charm, right?