Okay, before reading on, listen to this for some mood music.
The first miniature finished for 2016 is a Martian Assault Tripod from All Quiet on the Martian Front. I love War of the Worlds, so when this appeared I was all over it. It's a very tall model, it's about 6" or so, on an 80mm base. It was easy enough to assemble, but those reaper tentacles at the front are spindly and require care when snipping them off the sprue, and pretty much whenever you're doing anything with them. It'll be fun to transport.
I used a Gladius Game Arts base for this guy, and added a bicycle from a Sgts' Mess bits pack. The burned skeleton is from another All Quiet model. as for painting, a can of silver spray is a bit of a must. I used the Army Painter spray as a base over a black undercoat. Some folks use the army painter sprays as undercoats too, but I've heard the adhesion isn't what it should be.
After a wash of thinned Nuln Oil, I used mostly recess washes and glazes to work up the model. Painting larger models requires less contrast than smaller models, so again, I used acrylic medium to thin the glazes. Then basing. I had to do a little research for the burnt patch of ground under the skeleton. As the model is mostly neutral colours, I could get away with more vibrant base colours, hence the dirt road has a richer tone than I would normally use.
There are two more weapon variants on the assault tripod sprue, a black smoke projector and a green gas launcher. I'll be doing a tripod with each in time to finish a pod of three tripods. Then maybe some scout tripods or a harvester.
As Alien Dungeon, the maker's of All Quiet seem to have vanished without trace just before Christmas, all models for the game are currently OOP. A shame for the backers of the kickstarter, but hopefully someone will pick up the game in time.