Terminator!

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a sprue of the T800 Endo skeletons for upcoming Terminator Genisys miniatures game developed by gaming legend Allesio Cavatore.












These figures are very, very simple to put together, and are fantastically detailed. I've always loved the Terminator films, and I'd probably put them as my favourite movie franchise of all time.
As such I wanted to do something a bit special with painting mine, so I did some light conversion work on both to make them look as if they are striding through the post nuclear war zone seen in the movies, as well as giving them that classical chrome look.

Simply using a silver paint wouldn't quite cut it, so I went back to m scale modelling stash and dug out some Alclad II Chrome lacquer. This stuff isn't for the faint hearted as it requires a truly immense amount of preparation work, but is well worth it. I've been asked a few times for a step by step, so here it is. I only have these two figures at the moment so can't do a stage by stage with photos...

1. Assemble the figures, prime with grey primer. Leave to dry for about 12 hours. I use a cheapish primer from my local hardware shop.
2. Spray the model with gloss grey paint (In future I'll use black as it gives a richer colour). Alclad II is a lacquer rather than a paint reacts with whatever is under neath. using a matt paint or a primer will give a dull finish, whereas a gloss base will give a shiny finish, which is what we want for Skynets finest. There is a TON of information on the net about using Alclad, so I'll not go too into it. 
3. After leaving the gloss layer to dry for a minimum of 24 hours spray it with your Alclad Chrome. Alclad can only be applied using an airbrush, and you spray it on by misting on layers and letting the metal effect build up slowly. The lacquer is pre diluted so you just have to spray it through the airbrush, it's quite a delicate finish until it hardens too, so take a bit of care how you handle the models. 
4. Cleaning the airbrush is worth it's own step as it's so important with Alclad. To clean the airbrush after you will need some cellulose thinners, and you'll need to give the airbrush a serious strip down and clean. Mines been in an ultrasonic bath for about 2 hours. after having a good soak in cellulose thinners and it's just about clean now. It's also worth getting a respirator mask when working with any airbrush, but especially so when working with Alclad.
5. Whilst you've been cleaning the airbrush your Terminator will be dry enough for the next stage. First up I paint army painter dark tone into the darkest resesses of the figure, as well as picking out the teeth in white, the eyes in red, and the plasma rifle in black grey, then leave this to dry. 
6. Mix some pledge multi-surface wax with some army painter soft tone to make a thin, but glossy glaze, and paint this over the entire Terminator to accentuate the detail, but retain the chrome finish.
7. After the glaze has dried, pick out the eyes with some bright scarlet paint, and paint the vents on the weapon white. 
8. Paint purple ink from the Army Painter over the vents of the weapon
9. Paint white dots along the center of the weapon vents, center of the eyes, and teeth, and your done. No need to varnish as between the Alcad  and the glaze the paint finish is now extremely tough.

You can check out more of Terminator Genisys Miniatures game at the River Horse Website, the game is being distributed by Warlord Games And as ever you can see more of my work at Volley Fire Painting. Alclad paints and even airbrushes and respirators can be purchased from SNM Stuff