Knockoff Xenomorphs

A while back I bought a bag of Dinosaur Skeletons:

And then didn’t do anything with them. I had initially planned to include them in my Crusage project, however my focus shifted elsewhere. But while digging through my hobby room, looking for useful figures for my Big Deathzap project I stumbled across them again. I almost tossed them back into the drawer I’d pulled them out from, but then the little hobby voice in my head started whispering.

Xenomorphs are rather skeletal, and I’ve also been watching a lot of European Knockoffs of classic sci-fi films lately… so could I xenomorph these guys up?

So I glued the Dinos to bases, focusing on the more threatening looking of the carnivores. I added a washer under each of their feet to help with stability since the bases were probably slightly too small.

Then I primed them white and sprayed them all over with black (since I don’t have a black primer to hand). From there everything got a silver drybrush.

Then I used two of Citadel’s contrast paints, Akhelian Green and Ratling Grime in random patches, freely mixing the colours on the figures while they were still wet, to add colour and variety.

The effect is subtle, but it adds a lot to what otherwise would be a very monotone looking force.

From there I went back in and repainted the teeth to be a bright silver as that is a key feature of Xenomorphs, I based them to match my other Big Deathzap figures, and I gave them a gloss varnish for that wet look.

This might actually be a scheme worth trying on some Tyranid models, since afterall, they are knockoff Xenomorphs too.

If you have any ideas on how these guys could fit into the Deathzap universe let me know, or even just a good name… Xenomorph… Genestealer… Penny Pincher…