Creation of the Freak Wars tournament’s best painted band

Author: Ignatius.

When Israel, from Bad Roll Games, proposed me to write an article about the creation process of my own band it struck me as a great idea, the perfect way to contribute to this game’s community as fair retribution for all the inspiration I get myself from other players and friends in this hobby.

For the Punkapocalyptic tournament held within the Freak Wars event (the biggest so far) I took upon myself the challenge of creating a whole new band, fully converted and painted, for one of the factions I hadn’t yet tested: Black Blood Children.

If one single miniature was to be taken responsible for this challenge that would be Imperatrix Rabiosa. Once finished I was so happy with the result and the color scheme, that I wondered what a complete Mad Max: Fury Road inspired band would look like. But I also wanted to keep the comical look to it to respect the pimp and lethal tone which represents Punkapocalyptic.

So were born the Citadel Madmastics.

Witness!

 

With only two months ahead and the added pressure of wanting to enter the scenery contest as well with an original scratch piece, I started the process of looking for inspiration for my band tone, not only from the aforementioned movie, but also from images or fan art created with that cartoonish look I wanted.

With those ideas in mind and a miniature already painted, at this very point there was one thing crystal clear: the color scheme would focus on whites, grays and blacks wore by the War Boys, complemented by blues and oranges so present in the movie.

So now the trickiest part laid ahead, as well as the one I most enjoy: getting the miniatures to represent them. Having in mind that I made the mistake of not taking part in the Black Blood Children Kickstarter campaign and that most of that faction’s miniatures had not being released yet, things were starting to look dire.

To add more obstacles to this task, I was so in love with the Spark with bike -the only faction’s miniature I owned back then- that I wanted to create a playable list including the largest amount of bikes… That meant that almost all the miniatures would have to be equipped with basic armament (light maces or small knives) to compensate the absurd expense in vehicles.

So I started to look upon those miniatures I already had and which were susceptible of being converted for my band, as well as finding others fit for my purpose.

The first task was to buy the only Punkapocalyptic original miniature for sale which met my requirements of armament, and I used it as a test run for my color scheme. Blue tones were incorporated both to the clothes and to metals or the skin itself (which War Boys paint white prior to each battle), while oranges were limited to small details and a bright base which could create a stark contrast as we see in the movie. Lights used were yellow and bone, to integrate the whole creation. I also slightly converted this miniature by creating suspenders out of cardboard, which I thought could fit nicely in the general tone of the band.

Satisfied with my color scheme, I re-used a couple of miniatures I already had in my drawers to make two more Ashes. Both have slight modifications to adjust them to my final project. The girl’s sword (and scabbard) was sanded down to convert it into a small blade, while the boy’s crest was cut off and one of his pistols substituted by a light mace:

The next task was to find a miniature fit to be my alternative Flamekeeper, which would be (as could not be otherwise) a personal vision of Immortan Max. As the miniature I found for it didn’t have a flaming staff, I made it myself out of wire and pieces of a World War II machine gun, always following the original character as reference.

Looking for a color scheme that could identify it at once as the movie character, I painted it in similar tones (differences in clothing aside) and added orange tones to the torch reflection and blues to the facial mask and the Treasure troll hair.

And last but not least, the bikers, which I ended up calling the Moped Komando. I found some scooter-riding gangers which size was perfect for the one I already had and that I could adapt to my project with some minor modifications. Prior to that I asked the tournament creators if I could use them in the event without modifying their armament, only telling my rivals before the game started the actual weapons they were carrying. As it was not an issue for them, I decided to leave their assorted weapons instead of removing them, so they could be used in other future games with other equipment.

Although the riders color scheme would be the same as for the rest of the band, I decided to give the bikes some brighter colors to make them stand out. For consistency and added detail, I painted the Black Blood Children in their jacket’s backes.

I substituted the original miniature’s helmet rabbit ears for others I thought were more fit, which I made out of cardboard and wood glue:

And the rabbit ears cut off the previous miniature were adapted for this one, which I thought was not funny enough, as well as a brand new light mace:

I replaced the third biker’s head for another one I liked more and was closer to the band’s look:

And the last one I liked as it was out of the box, so I didn’t modify anything apart from painting the scarf in funny colors:

All in all, a really fun band to convert and a hell of a challenge to paint, as I had quite never worked with blacks and whites with this intensity. But the best part of this band is, absolutely, watching your rival’s face when you deploy four bikes in a game.