The Zhodani Commando: Showcase: Infinity: Raoul Spector Special Operative

Blog discription

What will you find here? Ramblings from an aging gamer-miniature painter. When I first started out in this hobby computers were in their infancy and finding other gamers could only be done by going to conventions or as in my case bumping into somebody who happened to see me reading "Panzer Leader" on the school bus. Look how far we have come! The internet has allowed our small community to be able to connect on a level I never dreamed of when I was but a small lad. What I do hope you will find here is something interesting from one wargamer/miniature painter to another. I paint miniatures somewhat decently, so I will be posting some pictures of my work, and perhaps a review or two of games and/or miniatures. Most of all this is just about having fun and anything I post here is meant to be for that reason.

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Showcase: Infinity: Raoul Spector Special Operative

Slowly adding models to my Mercenary company called Starco. As you saw in a previous post I had painted up an Anaconda TAG and some Brawler mercenaries.

My next addition here is the character named Raoul Spector. He's an expensive (point wise) model to add to the company, but his cost is worth it with all the cool things he can do. He has two profiles, one with Combat Jump ability, and another with FTO (Fire Team Option) which makes him kind of a wildcard to add to fire teams to buff their abilities when operating as a team.

I don't know a whole lot about Raoul's background story but I wasn't sure I liked the model. I think it's his Combat Jump wings. Kind of makes him look like a vulture or something, and I can certainly tell you from being prior service that running around in the bush with those things attached is a GIANT NO GO. I probably haven't read it anywhere, but it would seem logical that once he has made his jump that those wings would fold into his gear compartment on his back, or at least quick release off so he can operate unencumbered. Here is a stock photo of him from his packaging.

See what I mean, like a vulture or bat wings. I ain't playing batman game so this setup up is out the door for me. Now I mentioned he comes with two profiles, the other is his FTO profile and with this he doesn't have Jump capability so I felt no remorse in leaving them off.

Now I normally follow the Studio paint job or their concept art. But here I had to depart. While the paint job is good (awesome compared to my ability) I simply don't like the scheme chosen. It doesn't feel right to me.

So with my limited artistic knowledge I went on a little art journey adventure and tried to paint him up like I would think he would actually operate out in the field. Being a bad ass, I am going to sneak up on you and blast you at close range, or sprinkle around those cute little drop bears (like anti personnel mines) for the enemy to set off. My first thought was since Starco is a collection of Nomads etc. I could paint him up in a theme that would allow him to fit in with what I've painted already. My thoughts turned to the Corregidor Bandit that Angel painted for Corvus Belli in his art book. So I took a little inspiration from this and went for it.

Here is what I came up with. Oh and I made my own base to fill in around models base, because of how the model was molded I didn't want to screw around with hacking bits of the base off and try and come up with something to put his upraised leg on without it looking stupid.

[Below at eye level view]