I got a set of the Biker Gang on Motorcycles from Rebel Minis a few weeks back. Although I started on them right away, life kept getting in the way of completing them. Well, finally last night I put on the last little touches and got some pictures take this morning.
Link to the minis from Rebel: link
Link to my Painted Bikers: link
How and why I painted them as I did . . .
I know most people seem to want a Hells Angels type of biker gang, but I thought that would be rather drab looking in 15mm with little detail since everything would be mostly black. Since I plan to use my bikers for Zombie games and maybe post apocalyptic games, I wanted my bikers to look more like ragtag survivors than an organized gang wearing "colors".
1. Starting out, I must say that getting the handle bars and riders assembled is a little troublesome and would suggest you just be patient and you will get the bikes assembled fine. Don't rush it, do it right the first time by dry fitting the parts and finding the best combination for you.
2. Once the bikes were assembled, I glued them to popsicle sticks wih PVA and primed them in light gray. I like the gray since it does not tone down colors as much as black and it shows up less if you miss a spot than white.
3. Now, where to start painting? After much debate with myself, I finally decided I would do the bikes first and then work on the riders since if I worked in the other direction I would be forced to be very careful not to mess-up the paint job on the rider and because until I knew how the bike would look, I could not decide how each rider should look.
4. I painted all the metal parts on the bike that I wanted to have a metallic color. I started using different colors such as Silver, Oily Steel, Chainmail etc, but soon realized they all looked pretty much the same when they were placed near each other. After that, I mainly used Oily Steel.
5. Once the metal parts were done, I did the color on the parts of the bikes I wanted to be painted rather than bare metal. I decided not to do any of the bikes in Black since that would hide the details and since I planned to do the tires in black as well, it would have made for a very colorless group of minis.
6. Now that the major part of the bikes were done, I started on the riders. The first step was painting all the flesh tones on the riders (if you did not glue the hands to the handle bars, you can bend the handles away to make it easier to paint both them and the hands). I then moved on to each rider's clothing and blocked in the major colors.
7. Once the major colors were done on the bikes and the riders, I then went back and started working on details on the bikes and did any necessary touch-ups. Once the bikes were completed I did the rider details and touched up any errors. Finally, everything was painted.
8. As with most of my 15mm stuff, I used Army Painter Strong Tone to "Dip" each of the bikers to help supply some depth and detail. I always brush the dip on and after getting all the parts covered, I go back over the minis again with the brush, frequently wiping the brush on a paper towel, to remove excess varnish and to make sure it does not puddle anywhere.
9. After the Army Painter has had at least 12 hours to dry, I used several light coats of Testor's Dullcoat to kill the glossy shine. Make sure the mini is completely dry before using the Dullcoat or it may crackle on the mini as it dries.
10. After the Dullcoat I used some GW Washes, Brown and Black, to bring out a few more details and to breakup the brown color on the bases.
11. I thought about trying to "clean up" the bikes some as CPT Jake suggested on TMP (since guys that love their bikes take care of them) by brushing on some Gloss Varnish on main parts of the red bike, but after drying it was to shiny and I ended up hitting it with a little Dullcoat to bring it back down. I did not try on any of the other bikes. I also used the gloss varnish on the headlights to make them a little shinier on the lenses.
Overall, I think they came out ok with a fair bit of color and a little personality. My wife has taken to calling the blond with the chainsaw and red headband "Hulk Hogan" and the gray haired fellow with the chain has been referred to as "Einstein". At least she took the time to look at them! The pictures are not my best and I may redo them when I have time, but they are fine for now. I may also redo the bases to add a metal base that will hold these firmly in my magnet lined boxes. Now I just need to get these riders and my 70's style Zombie hunter gangers together for a game of ATZ.
Hope you enjoyed the pictures and best of luck on your bikes. I am waiting to see your pictures.
Jeff
