I had some time today to work on these guys. Unfortunately I was pretty sick today which didn't do anything for my speed. I've lost track of exactly how long I've been on these guys but I'm probably not moving fast enough.
Well Vinnie was the only one without skin and hair so I started with him. I thought the blue hair would help him stand out a bit and lend to the space pirate ideas as well.
I usually work back and forth in a group. Whatever model I just finished a step on gets the next step. Vinnie got several steps and all that's really left is touchup and finishing the base which I'm going to do as a group.
Here's the whole group as they are at the moment. Vinnie is mostly done and I finished the warpaint and eyes on the others. I'm very close to being done with this group which is good since they are suppose to be speed paints. I had a hard time with the eyes on these guys. They arn't all that small but my eyes are getting bad and I just can't see them well anymore even with magnification. Oh well I guess I'm just growing old.

Well I had some extra time today as well since we had a client who didn't show. Most of the group details up to this point were finished so I started working on the individual details starting with skin and hair.

Because I intended to have variations in skin tone and hair color I did each seperately. I put down the skin tone then mixed a wash of licen purple and charred brown.
After the wash dried I highlighted the skin and did the hair.

I got four of them done to this point. I haven't done eyes because I plan to give them all matching warpaint that will run through the eye area. also I haven't done the weapons yet but they will mostly be getting some weathering with metalics and I usually save metalics for last. I didn't get to vinnie yet. I saved him for last because he's the most complicated. I've also come up with names for the rest of his crew. Left to right they are: Liza, Rod Man, Gomez, and Fabio.

Well these guys seem to be good and cursed. I didn't have to work today but I didn't get to my studio till 10:30am then I had to go to lunch at 11:30am with my wife. Then about 2:00pm the power went out and didn't come back on until 4:00pm. Then at 5:00pm I had to pick my wife up from work. I still have some major family task to do tonight as well so there goes my day of painting.

Well before lunch I managed to slap on some red paint. I often go from largest color to smallest. It makes it seem like I'm getting done faster that way. Unfortunately I managed to pick the wrong red. I was going to use vallejo scar red but instead picked up gory red. I decided just to work with it.
When I came back from lunch I started highlighting. First with bloody red mixed about 50% with gory red then with bloody red as a final. These highlights were very loose and fast. Not as random as a drybrushing but not smooth like more careful highlights. For troops this still look nice and like an impressionist painting it looks quite smooth from a proper viewing distance. Some would say that at game distance the looser highlights show up better.

Just for kicks I added a white shirt on a couple of the figs. These were highlighted up from a grey base with ivory white.

Well here's where I am at the moment. I got the black areas touched up then I mixed black with a light blue for the first highlight. Unfortunately I only got two out of three of the figures done before I had to go. Hopefully I'll be able to finish later tonight.

Well I just relized my graphic has a typo. Oh well I'm sure I'll fix it soon. Anyhow. Yes I'm suppose to be working on my Tramp Steamer project but I was starting to feel overloaded with pulp projects so I decided to take a quick break and paint a few space pirates. The first group up are a squad of Duct Rats from The Bloodborn Crew. Duct Rats are basically going to be the lowliest squad in my space pirate list. This group of Duct Rats is led by Vinnie the fellow with the mowhawk. The Bloodborn Crew colors are red and black and they have two red stripes of vertical warpaint or tatoos going down their face through their eyes.

So here's Vinnie and his Duct Rats. I cleaned the mold lines then brushed them with a soft brass brush. Then I mounted them on round bases.

After that I puttied their base slots with Elmers wood putty. I tried to keep the putty thin on top of the base.

My plan for their bases is that they will look like they are walking through a rusted out space hulk with debris strewn everywhere. I've used a bunch of plastic bits from a 1/35 scale weapons sprue from Tamya's WWII line.
I was careful not to leave a lot of recognizable bits so I used mostly the pieces of tripods and other less recognizable parts.
Vinnie got a big ammo box on the edge of his base with random bits of loot sticking out.

After I finished their bases I primed them with Duplicolor black primer.

Now it's Dinner time but I hope to return to these guys before the night is out and start painting them. My space pirate army will be painted more loosely than a lot of my more recent paintjobs. I'm hopeing to use this army to try and establish a style that will enable me to paint troops up faster than my current style does without sacraficing too much quality. The characters in this army will however still get nicer paint jobs than the rank and file.