Painting the Dark future
The Dark Future game is stacked with goodies, from the rulebook, road sections and tokens, but the pièce de résistance is the plastic cars. They do not really stand up to modern models, but they have a definite aesthetic that ticks all the boxes for me.
I had not done much to them since I bought the game in 1988; only one car had any paint on it. I am not sure when that happened, but it was probably at some point in the 1990s. The cars needed a few repairs: some of the wheels were broken, and the plastic struts on the Renegades had all snapped, but they were all fairly quick fixes. I decided to take the cars apart so that I could paint each one separately and because it would make adding drivers a lot easier. Luckily, I had not used much glue when I originally put them together, so they came apart really easily. In a fit of inspiration, or perhaps madness, I decided to magnetise all of the weapon hardpoints on the cars. This was not that difficult, but the plastic was quite brittle in places, so I had to take it slowly.
If I thought that putting magnets into the cars took a little work, it was nothing compared to trying to get the North Star Military Figures Gaslands drivers into the cars. They seemed a bit too big for the Dark Future vehicles, so I ended up having to shave quite a lot from the bottoms of the figures to make them fit. The Interceptors were particularly difficult because the windscreens reduced the amount of space beneath the roof. I am glad that I persevered with them, though.
I probably spent too long painting the interiors of the cars; once I put them back together, you can barely see what is inside. This is particularly true of the Renegades because I added some mesh to the windscreen area. They looked like death traps without it. The mesh certainly makes the vehicles look more Mad Max-esque, but it does obscure the view of the drivers. I may have to hit up eBay at some point and pick up a couple more that I will leave open.
Painting the bodies of the cars was not much of a chore once I had decided on the paint schemes. I wanted to go for a dark, grimy look with the Renegades, so I started with black, dry-brushed several layers of grey over it, and finished everything off with an Agrax wash. The transfers came from a small-scale Maschinen Krieger kit that I got from a gacha machine. The skulls came courtesy of the GW Box of Skulls. I thought that a Bloodletter skull and a Plaguebearer skull suited these hooded scavenger drivers rather well.
Most games of Dark Future seem to be asymmetric, with one Interceptor taking on two Renegades, so I decided to paint the Interceptors in different liveries. The only thing that ties them together is the semi-gloss varnish I used on them. This makes them look sleeker and cleaner than the Renegades, which were given a matt varnish.
The first car has a police theme, as that matched the driver. Getting the white right took a few layers, but as I seem to paint a lot of figures in white, I am getting the hang of it. I am not sure why I keep giving myself that cross to bear. I guess I am just a sucker for punishment.
The paint scheme for the second Interceptor was inspired by two things. The first was Nigel Mansell in his days with Ferrari. Not that I am a follower of Formula One, but as a child in the 1980s it was hard to escape his name. The second, and more important, inspiration was the parody of Nigel Mansell, Steve Pising, in the short-run series Man to Man with Dean Learner from 2006. I really like the series and thought that the reference was obscure enough that most people would not get it, but it would make me smile each time the car hit the tarmac. Is the car perfect, no it`s not, if you look closely you can see that the p on the front number plate is a bit wonky, but it is good enough for my table, for now, at least.
Is the car perfect? No, it is not. If you look closely, you can see that the “P” on the front number plate is a bit wonky, but it is good enough for my table, for now, at least.
The next things that I should paint for Dark Future are some of the weapons that I magnetised, but I would like to finish the major components from the game first. So, I will probably slap some paint on the motorcycles that came with the game. I am going to paint two of them in the same scheme as the Renegades, while the other two will be painted to match the Interceptors. I will probably put some skulls on the bikes that will be joining the Renegades to help them fit in better and to add a little detail to these somewhat crude sculpts.
Are they my favourite figures? Far from it, but they deserve to get some gaming time.
I may have also made a smallish eBay purchase of some of the metal motorbikes from back in the day, but they will have to join the painting queue, as I have other figures that need painting. My poor 20mm Zulu project has been waiting for four years to be restarted. That being said, I should probably strike while the iron is hot and plough through the Dark Future stuff. It is definitely something to ponder.
