15mm Sci fi - Saturday Alien Double Feature, GZG Ixx & GZG Phalons

 Winter is Coming.

It was cold this morning.  4C.  This means only one thing: soon I will have to move my painting studio from the garage into the house.  Cold does mix with compressors or paints.  I do not have a dedicating painting area in the house, so this may slow my progress towards my 2020 miniature painting target.

However, today we have a double feature: GZG Phalons and GZG Ixx.  I painted the Phalons earlier this year, while the Ixx were done last night.  Years ago I did paint both of these ranges but sold them off.  So, consider this GZG Aliens 2.0.

The Ixx were a bit of a pain to fit together.  The legs need a lot of filing to go in correctly.  Other than that, there were no mold lines to speak of.  This was the first time I used GW Contrast Paints to finish a whole model.  The scheme was:

• Tamiya Gloss White undercoat
• GW Contrast Paint Plaguebearer Flesh on all skin
• GW Contrast Paint Creed Camo on the packs
• GW Contrast Paint Black Templar on the weapons
• GW Contrast Paint Nazrog Yellow for the underbelly 
• GW Contrast Paint Basilicumm Grey on the cans
• Matt black for dots and spots (bugs need spots...lots of spots)
• Washed in Minwax Polyshades Pecan

GZG Ixx Aliens

In my games these aliens are Vallax (from the Rifts RPG), not Ixx.  The Vallax are malevolent aliens from the 9th Dimension.  They use their master of magic and PSI Powers to enslave the multiverse, using captured aliens as Thralls.  Yellow Bug Bad!

In nature yellow and black indicate danger, Stay away, I am a dangerous bug".  Plaguebearer flesh over white gives a nice yellowish, slightly green color.  Combined with matt black it makes for a perfect insect carapace.  The Pecan Minwax wash finished it off and made the whole model softer looking and more organic.

Shake That Ass!

When magic and PSI are not enough the Vallax use antimatter pulsar weapons, blasting foes to atoms.

"Eye see you."

The Vallax are typically the commanders of either the Phalons or the Xar.  There are not many of them, but that is the nature of their life cycle.

"Submit Thrall!"

Moving on to the Phalons.  This force contains 48 of these weirdos.  That was quite by accident.  I ordered some, forgot, and ordered more.  Oh well.  The models needed little clean up.  There is a mold line on the top of each head which needs filing off and the rocket launcher is a mess, needing filing and drilling.

The range is small, like all of the older GZG lines.  Jon has no plans for the near future to expand the range.  That may change of course.  They come with a support weapon, sniper rifle and rocket launcher.  Phalons use organic technology and frankly I was stumped on how to paint the weapons.  So I used a dark grey.  Not original I know.

The scheme was very simple:

• Tamiya Green Grey (I used Tamiya JA Grey for some of them, creating slightly different skin tones)
• GW Contrast Paint Plaguebearer Flesh
• GW Green Wash on the blackpacks.
• Red Eyes with a white center dot (pain in the ass this was)
• Washed in Minwax Polyshades Pecan.
• Highlighted with Reaper Light Olive (I think)

GZG Phalons

For vehicles I pair Phalons with either Old Crow Alien Tanks/APCs or Rebel Minis Martian Walkers.

GZG Phalons

more GZG Phalons

The Minwax Pecan tone is perfect for creating shading on earthy tones, without going overboard on the dark hue.  A darker brownish tone would not work near as well as Pecan (which is basically identical to Army Painter Soft Tone BTW).  Pecan goes on kind of redish.  Dont be alarmed.  It changes color as it dries.

even more GZG Phalons

In hindsight, I am not 100% happy with the scheme.  It is a little muted and I would prefer something brighter. (plus they are very close in color to my Xar).  In the future I will likely do another batch in the same scheme (or close to it) as the Ixx, going for a yellow, or perhaps orange.  That is far off though.

That concludes alien Saturday.  My painting queue is still full (and I just hit 1600 models painted this year so far) as are all my foam trays.  Looks like I need to order more.