18 July 2022

Federated Territories Police

"Sir, are you classified as human?"

I've said it once and I'll say it again: DAMN YOU ETSY! I spotted these guys last week and had to get them. The Fifth Element is one of my fave movies. It's got everything: sci-fi, wisecracks, aliens, awesome costumes by Jean Paul Gaultier, the fate of the universe in the hands of muppets, great music, explosions and lots of action, not to mention Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Chris Tucker and Ian Holm. It is a bit of an incoherent mess but it's a ton of fun.

So when I saw these, it was obvious that the ATM card was going to take another hammering. They're called Federated Territories Police because New York is part of the Federated Territories. That's it, that's all I know about that.

There's 10 officers in total, so I've split them into two squads of five. Happily they were very straightforward to paint.

After priming them with black spray paint, they were given a bit of an overbrush with Black Grey to bring out the details on their unifomrs (which look very uncomfortable to wear). Easy bit over.

The metal bits are actually supposed to be more coppery in colour, but after experimenting with Vallejo Copper over Heavy Orange and realising it would take about three coats of copper to look good, I went with a basecoat of Chocolate Brown coated with Bronze. A wash with Seraphim Sepia deepened the tone a bit.

Their shoes are supposed to be silver, but I thought they looked odd so I just did the tops in Shining Silver. I gave the front bits of their helmets a Blue glaze to make them pop a bit more, and then it was time for the weapons.

The riot shields were a doddle as the primer and highlighting had already done the majority of the work. I drybrushed a small amount of Plate Metal onto them to bring out the studs and the edges a bit more, and then the yellow area was painted Averland Sunset with a couple of layers of Lamenters Yellow to brighten it. I edge-highlighted them with more Averland Sunset. They're supposed to be emblazoned with "POLICE" but that wasn't happening.

From looking at images online, the guns could be silver with blue trim or white with orange-yellow trim. I went the white route, using Off-White, Grey Wash and White, and then I added Sky Blue for the trim as I thought it looked better. 

The final task was to paint their faces, or at least the part of their faces you can see. Some of my flesh mix with Reikland Fleshshade to shade and more flesh paint to highlight worked well.

The bases are painfully basic, just Iron Warriors and Nuln Oil. I really should have come up with a base design and done them before gluing the minis on.

More fun with moths


A certain person who shall remain nameless (Alicia) left the spare room window open last night, so I snapped photos of two of the roughly 3,000 moths that got in during the hours of darkness. Great.

Season of Scenery

Holy crap, making scenery from scratch is a lot harder than painting MDF buildings. Even the billboard was easier than the sci-fi stuff I'm making at the mo. But it's moving along (a lot faster than a certain fantasy cottage) and I promise something will be up soon.

16 comments:

  1. Awesome work on the enforcers Matt, all I can say is Multi Pass ! LOL
    As for the Scratch building no one said it was quick mate, but once finished you'll have a one of a kind piece

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    1. Cheers, Dave! A post about my first scratch-built scenery will be up soon!

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  2. Damn Etsy, and blast you, Matt, LOL!!! These are on my shopping list after your recent 3D printed posting. There's some really good models out there, especially if you hunt around on price, and they're all from truly iconic films too. Great painting, and I'll be back to this one once I've got round to buying mine. :-)

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    1. Yes, my evil plan to bankrupt you is working, Simon LOL! Some of the models are amazing, and there's a lot of STL files too if you have access to a 3D printer.

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    2. I have been close to getting a 3D printer a couple of times. Even going so far as to pop the order into my Amazon cart. But I keep reading that its a hobby in itself, and I don't have enough time as it is. If it was just a case of popping some goop into the thing, downloading a file and giving it time, then that'd be fine. But its clearly not that simple with splicing etc.

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    3. Yeah, I agree, I did look into getting one but Jesus they look like a ton of hassle and time.

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  3. Great find for thoe into 'it', and the look the business too - welldone getting th black to look good, great brushwork.

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    1. Cheers, Joe! I'm not a huge fan of painting multiple figures in the same colours, hence my lack of any kind of army. I do kind of wish I'd used blue to highlight the black but it works as it is.

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  4. Oh yea, I forgot that they had that big light on the front too. Even though they are mostly black, they look really nice. Great work on them! 3000 moths, really?!

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    1. Oh hell, I forgot to mention the white light LOL! There wasn't really 3,000 moths, but it bloody seemed like it when I walked into the spare room that morning :-)

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  5. John@justneedsvarnishTuesday, July 19, 2022

    Excellent minis! :-) Just saw the picture and thought Fifth Element! Brilliant, minis and film (one of my all time favourites)! I can sympathise on the scratchbuilt scenery, since mine is also taking ages to do, but it is the season for it!

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    1. Thanks, John! The movie is one of my all-time faves too, it's just so out there :-)

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  6. Excellent work on some really lovely miniatures mate, "The fifth element" is a classic!

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Cheers, Roger! They really are great sculpts and painted up well. And it's a total classic!

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  7. The minis look great and while I'm loathe to admit it, I've never seen that movie. The troopers look like they could just as easily come from a first-person shooter video game like Doom or Gears of War to me, but then again I don't play many of those games so I could be wrong. Either way, they'll look great alongside the other minis you've been painting!

    I'm also glad you named and shamed the person who let all those moths in. That sounds like a real pain! How dare she leave that window open! You've got important things to do like painting in that room after all :)

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    1. Thanks, Jeff! You should totally give the movie a go, it's insane but a ton of fun with some really creative designs.

      Alicia has been very careful about leaving the window open since I posted this LOL!

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