A bit over a year ago I busted open my Mars Attacks Accessory sets, and got to (slowly) working on the contents (occasionally). So far, I’ve finished the incredibly unimpressive result of 8 box stacks, from the four sets I had. Recently, I’ve finished a few other bits and pieces. Namely, the STOP signs, and the benches.

You can’t really tell here, but there’s a subtle metallic as part of the red and I tried out Warcolours Metallic White on the white sections. I did this to emulate the reflective qualities of real STOP signs, at least those located in Melbourne, where I live. I initially tried the metallic white over silver but it worked poorly, so I repainted the details in white, and then went over with the Metallic White. Even in-hand, the metallic effect needs to be pointed out with an “oh yeah, now I see it” result. A kinda generic grungy grey for the bases.

The benches. To me they seemed much more like public bus (or tram) stop-style benches than anything else. In keeping with this, I painted them in a horribly-plasticy bright orange, of the sort that would have been seen back in the 1980’s. Of course, back in the 80’s here the bus stop benches were made of concrete and wood, and painted a dark green. I dunno, I could have gone with a sleeker, more modern silver which would have been easier, but I felt that a harsh, bright colour (then dirtied a little) is a little more evocative of actual urban city streets. And the horrid orange just “feels” right for a bus stop. I used Warcolour’s Orange “One Coat”, though naturally, it took multiple coats to actually cover over the base silver spray. So much for “One” Coat…

Mars Attacks Accessory Pic from Iron Saint’s Children of the Kraken Blog – go visit!

I’m recycling this pic from the post about boxes again, to show the contents of the full sets, along with just how little I’ve actually gotten done so far. I have the rubbish bins and mailboxes sitting in a little container, sprayed silver. I wanted to salt-weather them, but haven’t gotten around to it yet, and at this rate it’ll be a long wait until next summer before I get off my arse and get them done. I want to do a similar thing with the picket fences. In my mind’s eye, they’re dirty white, with the paint peeling off (salt weathering) to reveal stained grey wood underneath.

Scale shot with thanks to a Minotaurs Space Marine and a T-800 Endoskeleton. I think these will be perfect for any modern/post apoc and even urban sci-fi battlefield that’s not too far removed from “Earth-like” environments. One day I might even paint up my Secret Weapon tiles from their Kickstarter. Seems like a Summer project…

Oh, and as an addendum. I found these yesterday. Ignore the game of Runebound in progress and note the ten(!) additional accessory packs that were inside a tub of Mars Attacks scenery when I was looking for an unassembled incomplete Imperial Bastion. That’s a hell of a lot of mould-line scraping before I can get to the easy-ish part of painting up all that scatter terrain…