Tag Archives: Imperial Guard

Colonel Schaeffer’s Last Chancers – “Grease Monkey” and “Hero”

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Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Grease Monkey" and "Hero"

Another pair of Last Chancers up today for July, and we have another pair of models that couldn’t possibly offend anyone at all, ever. “Grease Monkey”, who is a vehicle driver guy, and “Hero”, who for some reason I always thought was some sort of disgraced Commissar type, as he’s always painted in a black outfit. So when I started working on this pair, as with all “individual” models, I started looking closely at Grease Monkey, deciding what colours to paint and where and when doing so, I began to notice details… his hat has a bit of a familiar style, with the roundel badge, and then the Y-harness on his back. Yes, this model is (loosely) based on a WWII German tanker.

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Grease Monkey" and "Hero"

So with that realisation, I decided to give him an overall scheme that fit in with my 15mm Afrika Korps. So with that, he got little details like dark pink Waffenfarbe piping on his collar and crusher cap, brown leather accoutrements, a 15th Panzer Division icon on his shoulder along with a tank IS number, and the overall uniform colour being appropriate for DAK tank crew. A paler European-looking flesh rather than a tanned flesh to represent him mostly being inside tanks – not exactly realistic for someone wearing the uniform of a desert force, but as I’ve said previously – I want to have a diversity of flesh tones in this little group.

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Grease Monkey" and "Hero"

“Hero” on the other hand… I feel like he may be more correctly called “Hiro”. I noticed while looking hard at the model that his facial characteristics looked Asian. That made sense, given how the other models in this set had elements of different nationalities. The sheathed Katana now had a more specific ken to it. Now I’m not nearly as familiar with WWII Japanese Uniforms as many others, but again, a little googling showed that many of the elements looked quite familiar when looked at through this specific lens – so with this in mind, I now had my colour scheme. This also informed my choice of flesh tone – looking for a warmer tanned tone, I used Vallejo Game Colour Elf Skintone as the base. Of course, the official ‘eavy Metal paintjobs of the day had the entire unit painted as Whitey McWhiteface – as was the style of the time.

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Grease Monkey" and "Hero"

I decided I didn’t need to add a bunch of bloodstains to Grease Monkey’s bandages, though I do have the option of doing that down the line if I change my mind (or paint another one of these down the line!) The german tank numbers worked out surprisingly well on the model, so that’s also something I might keep in my back pocket for other 40k models of different kinds down the line. Hiro’s weapon furniture was painted in a basic rifle “wood” brown to fit in with the IJA theme, while Monkey’s pistol didn’t really need the same attention, though I would likely have painted his weapon differently if it were a rifle.

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Grease Monkey" and "Hero"

So yeah, it ws quite surprising to me when I looked much more closely at these two to see that they’re actually both based on WWII Axis troops. I’m pretty sure that the remainder are all more generic, with the exception of one who I think is meant to be an Aussie – though I haven’t looked closely at the Colonel himself – and given the fact that he doesn’t look anything like Ahnold – he may turn out to be another xx-inspired model once I take that closer look – but that cap does look like it could be German!

Colonel Schaeffer’s Last Chancers – “Demolition Man” and “Animal”

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Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Demolition Man" and "Animal"

Today’s post features my final model from June as well as one of my early completions from July. After my little rant as part of my previous Last Chancers post, it’s good to see that there’s nothing here that could possibly offend any… oh.

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Demolition Man" and "Animal"

I kind-of jest here. “Demolition Man” is obviously partly-based on some Russian and Soviet stereotypes, but there’s a little more to it than that. While his headgear is a Ushanka, (as also worn by the Valhallan Guard), and his Lasgun has a long, sickle-style magazine, reminiscent of Kalashnakov rifles, the cut and style of his pants look to be based on Cossack pants, so he’s really much more of a 40k-style composite of tropes and elements – kind of like the Space Wolves who are Scots-Irish Viking Celts covered in Wolfskins. Still, I went with those feels and painted his lasgun in the orangey-plastic colours of the “traditional” AK, and the fine lines on his shirt to turn it into a telnyashka – though in my research it turns out that a lot of other countries in the Post-Soviet region wore in their militaries as well.

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Demolition Man" and "Animal"

“Animal” has much more of a Pentinent Legion feel to his sculpt, though I’m not sure why you’d gove someone like that a chainsword and a meltagun. The chainsword looks way oversized, and that’s because the sculptor appears to have simply slapped a plastic Astartes chainsword onto the green’s back – and did the same with the Auspex scanner tucked under his right arm, resulting in his gear looking comically oversized, which is a key reason I painted them dark – to make them a little more understated than if I’d painted them in bright ’90’s yellow – as was one of my first thoughts. Since Animal also has that (explosive) collar, I decided to paint his pants in a “prison orange” which again serves to draw the eye away (at least a little) from his Space Marine-sized accessories. I also gave his melta-barrel the old heat treatment by putting it onto the stovetop until it discoloured. Possibly.

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Demolition Man" and "Animal"

The reason Animal wasn’t completed for June was because I wanted to add some serious tribal tattooing to him – in the style of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. It just seemed to fit, but then when I got ill, painting those fine details just wasn’t going to happen. I also wanted to continue with the subtle variations of skin tones that I started with Warrior Woman and continued with on Brains and Shiv, so I went a little more ruddy with Animal using my old hex-pot-era Citadel Dwarf Flesh, to give him a more sunburned look. It’s really become apparent at this point that attempting to paint in the whites and pupils of these models’ eyes is a fool’s errand, as most of them have only sculpted slits for their eyes rather than the more usual sculpted eyeballs. They do have some nice eyelids, to be fair, and the models still work very well.

I’ve really been enjoying the painting of these models quite a bit, as their status as (now-classic?) unique characterfully-individual sculpts really lends them to taking more time than I would with mass-army models.