unjust still

 Look at that. A second post.

the new villagers

You are not machines, you are not cattle - you are men!

there's power in a union

 Just some lads.

lads lads lads

yeah just headed to the space-pub for a space-schnitty

I randomly decided to make one chap a football fan because why not. The meaty bloke on the right is into the same punk band as one of my squats:

we ain't dead! say it a-fucken-gain!

bleep-blorp

Finally, we have the non-sentient P0-N3 bot, 'Bill', from Skull & Crown's Space Scrappers line. An absolute treat to paint up!

 A civilian painted a little while ago!

make sure your helmet is polarised against radiation, kids

There are still loads more civilians in my pile of inspiration or whatever we're calling them these days, but I really need to get cracking on their terrain.

Yeah, I'm gonna take my horse / to the old town road

Slann trading contingent, feat. Ometeotl the Outrider

wastelander horseman

Once again, these are hardly civilians, despite the fact that I continue to group these miniatures together under that tag. I suppose I will eventually call this setting something else - maybe if I finally paint any of the terrain I'm accumulating.

These two are mounted scouts; the one a baseline human, riding his actual horse across the desert sands. The other is as far as we can get from that, being a space frog riding a space velociraptor. 

 A handful more critters for the desert.

small local fauna

armadillo analogues

lizard analogues

thingies

some kind of heated-rock monster?

 A collection of local guns.

not exactly civilians

Today we have a handful of armed figures for the civilian project. At this rate, I'm basically recreating Gorkamorka (and yes, that is a spoiler for something planned soon), albeit with fewer orks.

scout

A classic Rogue Trader adventurer sculpt and as such as been done by many many others, which is part of why I wanted to buy him. He's been on my table for ages, as I wasn't sure how I wanted him to come out. Some of the off-whites came off a bit too close, so I'm not totally happy with him, but still - he looks pretty good to me.

I like to think of him as the best of the scouts for hire, preferring to keep to himself in the deep desert. His use of a shuriken pistol and apparently uncanny insight into the trackless wastes gives him a reputation as half-Eldar, despite the genetics making that impossible. Right?

old bandit

Another RT adventurer! Jason has also painted him up, but I've gone for a weather-beaten old raider style for him and his weird pistol.

I think of him as old friends with the scout - not as good at guiding clients through the wastes, but way more vicious in a melee with the mutie raiders and slaver tribes that might waylay a caravan winding through the cacti-spheres.

Madeline and Maximillian

These sculpts were from a Facebook group and I was able to get some of the initial run a little while back - but thankfully they're now available at Crooked Dice as the Mannix Twins. Real joys to paint, and a lovely classic vibe.

Lastly, and finished only a few minutes ago, we have Ms Lovely Day.

Ms Lovely Day

No need to point out her inspiration! You can also get her via Crooked Dice (can you tell I did an order recently?). I've painted her up as roughly inspired by her origin, but she fits in with the rest of these gunslingers although slimmer, possibly teenaged.

It's a beautiful sculpt and fun to paint.

I undercoated some more civilians today, but also go back to work tomorrow, so we'll see if my painting time shrinks substantially. Stay tuned, desert wanderers!

 Just a couple of perfectly ordinary civilians...

Magos Biologis, Mechanicus

Heretek, poss. former Mechanicus

 Another set of miniatures done a few months ago (August!) but which I've not posted here.

grim ol' One-Eye and his rot sheep

 I've had these finished for a while, intending to do a larger post with them. But I haven't updated since June, so let's do them now.

the Mechanicus has many tools

 Here, at the end of all things the Colony 87 miniatures.

Julius Samarkan and his living goods behind some electro-barriers

 Psychic feline-analogues from beyond the stars.

or, put another way: space kitties!

 No desert setting is complete without them.

Pash Grolin brings a train of goods into town from the wasteland

 Not the eldest.

Eldar trading contingent

Some really old-school sculpts here! The fellow with all the tubes is the Dark Elf Space Trooper from the March 1987 flyer; one of the very first Rogue Trader sculpts. It's a weird sculpt and pretty rare, but not as popular as the cool Piscean Warrior, so I was able to get it for a pretty reasonable price from an ebay oldhammer trader.

The master is the Eldar Trader from the famous Rogue Trader Adventurers from a few years later. Rogue Heresy has been going through the lot over the past few years; check out his take on the Eldar Trader here (he also did the Dark Elf, here). Others include Sho3box and Dale Hurst. 

It took me a while to decide on what to do with these two. The Dark Elf almost wound up part of my Dark Eldar project, the Kabal of the Sun Betrayed, but after deciding that the Slann traders would get an armed bodyguard, it made the most sense here.

Anyway, more photos below the cut.

Known for their hospitality, the O. tyrannus.

Narthoks, water vendor and bartender

Here he is! Look at his smug face.

 Space frogs: in space.

ready to drop some fresh tracks

 The average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.

by the sweat on their brow is an empire built

A few months ago, most of these weren't even on my list for this civilian project.  I had vaguely conceived of the water carrier (a Wave One Colony 87 sculpt) as a merchant, so I painted him with the last group, but after the paint hit the miniature, I realised that he was a labourer, not the capitalist.

The dwarf sculpt came in with a Kickstarter delivery, and I already have a duplicate of the sculpt earmarked for my Squats project, so he got folded into the project. I then managed to acquire the Bob Olley servitor sculpts from eBay, and before I knew it I had another four workers to go with the last two groups. 

Under the cut for more photos and conversation about the paint schemes.

Even a failing colony has a middle class.

get yer $small_good here

It feels like everyone else has entered a quarantine work-from-home hellscape that, while stressful, has at least allowed a lot more time to paint. In contrast, I have had a lot less time to paint or do basically any kind of hobby work.

It doesn't help that I have a new contract, which involves supervising my old team for the next twelve months and a lot more tedious meetings.

Anyway, I have finished these four members of Colony 87's limited middle class. Why don't we pop below the cut for a longer conversation...