I picked up one box of Star Trek Adventures Miniatures: Borg Collective from Modiphius when they first came out and I acquired a second box as part of a trade I made for some packs of Middle Earth Cards but I didn’t get around to painting them until recently. There were two main reasons for this.
First, they are all basically the same, and primarily black other than a bit of grey on the faces and hands and a couple spots of colour.
Second, none of the adventures I was planning on running had Borg in them. Then I created an adventure that needed them, which I’ll describe in a separate post, and I was suddenly motivated to get them all done within two weeks.
Like all of the miniatures from Modiphius, the Borg are 32mm scale and are nicely detailed.
I had been hearing a lot about the new Contrast paints from Citadel recently and thought that they might work well on the Borg miniatures. I decided to try it on one of the miniatures and see how it worked out.
For the test miniature, I started with my usual primer, Tamiya Fine Surface Primer in Light Grey. I find it does a good job of priming most miniatures without obscuring the details.
Then I applied the Black Templar Contrast Paint. It initially looked quite dark.
Once it dried, it lightened up quite a bit
At this point I didn’t think there was enough contrast between the high points and the low points, so I decided to apply another coat, hoping it would settle into the low points and leave the high points lighter. That didn’t really work, it just made the whole miniature dark with less contrast than before.
One thing that I thought could be part of the problem was the primer. Citadel does make a set of primers that are designed specifically to work with the Contrast paints, so I thought I would give their primer a try. It went on quite nicely, and similar to the Tamiya primer, it left the details intact. The base colour was also very similar.
I chose the same type of Borg to do my second test, I primed it then realized I hadn’t removed some of the flash. I’ve gotten used to the Modiphius miniatures having very little and didn’t think to check. It came off easily enough after priming without causing any problems.
I did an initial coat of the Contrast paint, and it turned out virtually the same as the first miniature. This time I didn’t do a second coat, I just touched up a few spots.
I used my usual paints, Vallejo Model color, mixing the Flat Flesh with White Grey for the flesh tone, dry brushing with the Medium Sea Grey to bring out the raised areas, and a bit of red for the eye and part of the gun.
I ended up repainting the face later, using primarily the White Grey with just a touch of the Flat Flesh added in.
I was happy enough with the way that the Citadel Primer and Contrast paint worked that I went ahead and primed the rest of the Borg, including the Borg Queen and Locutus from the Iconic Villains set.
Painted the flesh areas.
Added a bit of colour here and there, mostly on the left hands and some eyes and other bits.
Dry brushed with some grey.
Painted the bases Steel, did a bit of a dark wash on the flesh tone areas and the bases, an application of Testors Dull coat and called them done!
I’m not sure why each set came with four of these female Borg but only one or two of the other females. I was a little inconsistent in which areas of the back of the head should be flesh tone.
These two are actually the same, I just ended up gluing the arms on at different angles.
The photo for the Borg Queen and Locutus don’t really do them justice, although I am thinking of doing a little more work on the Queen. Maybe some gloss varnish in a few areas.
Loaded into their case and ready to Adventure! It’s an Essential Oil Kit I got through Amazon if you are interested.
Overall, I’m pleased with the way they turned out, and the players in my campaign seemed impressed/scared by them too when I pulled them out and started dropping them on the map.
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