The beginning of the Romulans

 It's been a while since I've posted here. In truth, time and opportunity to write has not been my friend of late but also, the concept of writing something after every completed project felt a little long-winded to me.

Therefore, I thought I'd take a que from the Hammer My Backlog blog (which I'd recently discovered) and discuss my hobby journey on a weekly (or bi-weekly) basis rather than by project.

And what better time to start than at the beginning of a new project.

About 18 months ago, I picked up Star Trek Away Missions, a tabletop miniatures skirmish game which works in a similar vein to Warhammer Underworlds. Now, the accompanying miniatures (which are all designed with this heightened reality vibe that has been controversial but I really vibe with) have all been painted, but last Christmas, I received two additional expansions, including the Romulan Expansion team.


In truth, I've been subtly working on this collection of miniatures for the past couple of projects, working to figure out which of my collection of Citadel Paints would be best to accurately paint a collection of Romulans (unfortunately, Star Trek Away Missions doesn't have a painting app like Citadel and Warhammer). However, after going through two Underworlds warbands while thinking about it, as well as looking over hours of Star Trek Romulan focused episodes (oh, what a hardship), I think I'm ready to make a start on these Vulcan variants.

  • To being, I primed the team with Chaos Black Primer.
  • I followed this up with Standard Mechanicus Grey on their trousers, before applying an Agrax Earthshade wash.
  • Once dry I applied an all over Eshin Grey Drybrush (for reasons to come later), followed by a Dawnstone Highlight to both the trousers and the (black) boots.
  • With the trousers done, I moved focus to the tunics, basing them in Dawnstone.
  • Then I washed. the mini's top halfs in Agrax Earthshade Unfortunately, this may have been a mistake as Agrax was too brown. Instead I should have used Nuln Oil.
  • Once dry, I layered all of the raised squares on the tunic as well as the colours and cuffs with more Dawn stone.
  • Then, I did the same to the lowered squares, but being careful not to cover the edges in order to allow the agrax pooled edges. This seemed to help bring the look back to a more series accurate performance while still giving the tunic depth.
  • Finally, I mixed Dawnstone with Ulthuan Grey to create an Edge Highlight (which looked better than Ulthuan alone), applying to the top edges of the raised tunic panels, collars and cuffs.
  • With time to spare and as a final addition, I painted Dawnstone over the base. This was to cover the circular divets along with the name panel, so it wasn't a perfect application, but with another colour to cover the majority, I guessed it wouldn't need to be.

With that, week one painting Commander Sela and her Romulan cohorts is done and, I have to admit, they are already giving off a accurate Romulan look. I've already planned to apply the metallics next week and, if I'm lucky, the skins, so I'm expecting it to be a quick addition to my project list.

But, so far, I'm off to a good start.

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