Aliens

I received the awkwardly named Aliens: Another glorious day in the corps boardgame earlier this year. I wasn't terribly impressed with Gale Force Nine's customer service, but at least I have my toys now. Here are the titular xenomorphs:

In space, no one can hear you in space.

The miniatures are nicely proportioned and detailed hard plastic, but have very little surface area or tabs for gluing, particularly tails-to-torsos and feet-to-bases. My overcomplicated solution to the tail situation was to drill out a 1mm wide cavity in the tail and torso, and to pin it with 1mm styrene rod. I used plastic cement. None of mine have snapped off.

I also used a heat gun to twist the tails into some exciting shapes- do this with caution, some of mine are a little melted!

Drill out the tail- easier than you would think

Glue in rod

Cut to length

Drill that xenobutt

Glue tail, then heatgun to form interesting shapes

Painting was similarly overcomplicated. I drybrushed them gunmetal over a black undercoat, picked out claws and teeth in silver,  then used a black wash followed by a blue wash. Finally a satin varnish and a touch of gloss to their foreheads. It is very hard to capture (and photograph!) the oily rubbery sheen.

I also picked up some expansion packs:

Free hugs!

I used some UHU adhesive for the mucus on the eggs and the queen's mouth- it was really easy and I think it brings these models up a notch.

The eggs don't have bases; I 3D printed some.