Last Night on Earth - Star Trek Theme at Halfway Point

Any miniature painting project of mine that reaches the mid-point stage always gets its own group shot. These set of Starfleet Survivors and Zombies painted using pieces from the Last Night on Earth board game are no different. So without further ado, below are photos of the class of 1966 to '69. 

Last Night on Earth survivors as Star Trek characters Chekov, Uhura, Christine and Sulu (from left to right)

In this series of photos, I tried to compose a visual story of the foursome's first encounter with fellow crew members of the USS Enterprise who had been turned into zombies. Hope you like them. 

It was a dark and stormy night ...

Now that I have had some time apart from these finished pieces, they do look like they need more contrast, especially the zombies' clothing. Things weren't helped by the fact that I had to position the lights closer to this set of miniatures when the shots were taken, likely leading to overexposure. Regardless, I'm working hard to improve contrasts when painting light colours and I'm starting to (finally) have some success in this problematic area. Hopefully the next few work-in-progress miniatures I have on display will see some minor improvement in terms of contrast on clothing. 

Look out behind you!

Oops! Too late, the zombies are upon them ...

... and things look grim for the crew of the USS Enterprise

It's poignant that this post coincides with the recent passing of Mr. Leonard Nimoy, an actor who I have come to closely associate with the Star Trek franchise. This popular sci-fi universe is one of the few (if not only) TV/Movie series that chose to depict a positive view of humanity in the future. In reality, we are sadly too busy being offended by perceived insults and ever ready to hate things which we are ignorant of, don't understand or don't agree with. Whatever happened to live and let live?

Last Night on Earth: Starfleet Survivor Pavel Chekov

Fourth in my Star Trek-themed survivors from the Last Night on Earth board game is Pavel Cheko, a young ensign aboard the USS Enterprise who also sometimes on duty at the science officer's station on the bridge. To represent Chekov I used Jake Cartwright the drifter, a board game piece that had on attire akin to Russian winter clothes. Alhough Walter Koenig the actor who plays Chekov had always denied the character's 'Russian origin', I felt his accent was a dead giveaway as to Chekov's roots. 

Starfleet survivor and ensign of the starship USS Enterprise, Pavel Chekov

Chekov was painted with a pale skin tone

For the clothes worn by Chekov, I used a colour scheme based on military attire worn by Russian soldiers in the 18th century. Due to the 'boring' nature of Chekov's clothes, I decided to concentrate more on the face and eyes as that was the most interesting part of the miniature/board game piece. As such, in terms of paint-hours, the most time was spent on the face and eyes, especially the eyes.  

Side views of the Last Night on Earth board game piece painted as Chekov, the Starfleet Survivor

Skin tone was kept pale as befitting the subject matter - a spacefaring ensign of supposedly Russian descent. Meanwhile, constant practice has allowed me to get better results when painting eyes on 28-mm to 32-mm scale miniatures. That and the use of a 6/0 Raphael Kolinsky Sable brush.

Some rust was added to the cleaver on his left hand

Back view of Pavel Chekov, Starfleet survivor

Axe on the right hand was painted in similar colours to the one carried by Uhura

Work on Chekov's weapons were fairly straight forward: The axe on his right hand was painted in a similar colour scheme to the axe wielded by Uhura (one would assume they both got the axes from the same source/location) while the cleaver on his left hand had some rust painted on to give it a little bit of character. The alternative - a shiny new metallic cleaver - seemed out of place somehow.

Walter Koenig, shown here playing Chekov in Star Trek: The Original Series

Painted figure next to a 31-mm paperclip and a five sen coin for scale comparison

At last count, I have finished painting seven zombies and four survivors. Going forward from this half-way point, I am unsure if I want to continue the Star Trek Original Series theme for the rest of the board game pieces or paint something entirely different e.g. Walking Dead. I guess that's a good reason as any to take a temporary step back from my Last Night on Earth project, muse on potential themes and await new inspiration. It also gives me an excuse to start new projects. I love this hobby!

Last Night on Earth: Starfleet Survivor Nyota Uhura

Third in my Star Trek-themed survivors from the Last Night on Earth board game is Nyota Uhura, the Communications Officer aboard the starship USS Enterprise. To represent Uhura I used Sally the High School Sweetheart, the board game piece which I felt had a similar hairstyle to the one worn by Nichelle Nichols who played the said character in Star Trek: The Original Series. 

Starfleet survivor and Communications Officer of the USS Enterprise, Nyota Uhura

Uhura naturally had a darker skin tone

Clothes colour scheme was an interplay between purple, green and yellowish brown

Painting Uhura allowed me to practice blending and layering a dark skin tone. Based on the photo reference I used (see below), her skin approximated a light chocolate hue. In the end, I was pretty happy with how close I came to accurately replicating Uhura's skin tone. Vallejo Model Color acrylic paints were used to paint the skin while Reaper Master Series (RMS) paints were used for the clothes (jacket, blouse and skirt) except for the boots which were painted using Citadel paints.   

Nichelle Nichols portrayed the character of Uhura in Star Trek: The Original Series

Side views of Nyota Uhura, the Starfleet survivor

Colour scheme for Uhura's clothes were predominantly purple (jacket), green (skirt) and ochre (boots) with neutral off-white on her blouse and jacket buttons. At times, I still struggle with chalkiness issues when using lighter hues from the RMS acrylic paint line. In this case, more work is needed on my painting technique because I had previously eliminated hard water as a possible cause. Well, sort of anyway as I had tried using distilled water to reduce chalkiness without much success.  

Bright red on the axe was actually painted in the shade of Uhura's original uniform

Back view of Starfleet survivor, Nyota Uhura

To complement her dark skin tone, I used a purple-green-ochre color scheme

Meanwhile, the weapons - specifically the axe - allowed me to add a bright colour into the mix. Red kinda works well with the rest of the colors and is definitely preferable to plain metallic grey.

Shots taken by a DSLR with macro lens can be misleading hence a scale comparison above

Next up for the Starfleet Survivors is a Star Trek character that always speaks in an accent. Actually, there are two - one Scottish and the other Russian - so it will either be Scotty or Chekov as the fourth survivor. Imagining these board game pieces as Star Trek characters is making painting them so much fun. And that's why we are in the hobby after all - to have fun. Otherwise, what's the point? 

Last Night on Earth: Starfleet Survivor Christine Chapel

Head Nurse Christine Chapel is yet another survivor who escaped the first wave of zombification together with Sulu and two other yet-to-be-named characters. I must admit I am continually and pleasantly being caught by surprise by the level of detail in these Last Night on Earth (LNoE) board game pieces. Granted that 'traditional' miniatures catered to painters are much more detailed and better sculpted, these tiny board game pieces still impressed me e.g. the hair on this Christine Chapel look alike. It was a no-brainer to use LNoE's Becky the nurse to substitute for head nurse Chapel.  

Starfleet survivor and head nurse of the USS Enterprise, Christine Chapel

With most shotguns made out of non-metal composite materials, I didn't have to use any metallic paints (yeaaa)

But Christine Chapel is blonde you scream ...

If you are a Star Trek: The Original Series enthusiast, let's get the proverbial elephant in the room out of the way first. In the 1960's TV show, Christine Chapel sported a blonde hairdo so technically if you are picky I have made a major blunder in her colour scheme. But I broke with canon and went with red hair because I felt it would make the overall colours more vivid. Actually if you observe the same character many years later in the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, you can clearly see that she now spots dark brownish hair. So Chapel would not have been adverse to sporting red hair. 

Christine Chapel was played by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry 

Orange hair made for a better combination with the blue-grey-azure dress and green satchel

Side views of Head Nurse Christine Chapel

Here is a bit of Star Trek trivia for you ... did you know that Majel Barret also portrayed Lwaxana Troi i.e. mother of Deana Troi who is a major character in the Star Trek: The Next Generation. And she is also the voice of most of the onboard computer interfaces heard throughout the TV series. 

Her hair was well sculpted and made painting it very easy

Her skin tone was painted with a rosy undertone

I felt red hair made for a better colour combo with her green satchel and blue/azure dress

For her skin tone, I referred again to online references and found a Vallejo Model Color paint recipe for rosy skin. The rosy flesh colours formed an undertone upon which lighter skin shades were painted on. I might have gone a tad overboard with the lightness of her skin but I am happy the rosy undertones still managed to show through. In such cases, it helps to paint in dilute and thin layers. 

Chapel shown next to a 31-mm paperclip and the smallest coin in the Malaysian currency

Next up in this LNoE-Star Trek project is another major character from the Original Series who speaks Klingon. If you are a fan you know who I am talking about but if you're not please stay tuned!

Last Night on Earth: Starfleet Survivor Hikaru Sulu

Based on the previously stated premise that the Starfleet survivors are garbed in 20th century Earth clothes, I proceeded to mix and match the Last Night on Earth (LNoE) survivor miniatures with Star Trek: The Original Series characters that they best portrayed. First up, I used LNoE's Johnny the high-school quarterback to respresent Mr. Hikaru Sulu, helmsman for the starship USS Enterprise.   

Starfleet survivor and USS Enterprise helmsman, Mr. Hikaru Sulu

What does SK stand for? Either Sulu Kato or the fictional Starfleet Kestrels

A combination of flesh and earth colours were used to mimic Japanese skin tone

There were some details on the miniature that made it, for me at least, suitable for use as Sulu. For example, the initials 'SK' on the jacket can actually represent the words Sulu Kato. In some Japanese versions of Star Trek, Sulu's family name was changed to Kato, so in this sense the initials take on a whole new meaning. The initials can also be used to depict a fictional 23rd century baseball team i.e. Starfleet Kestrels (non-canon and totally made up by me). Incidentally, the green-blue colour scheme used here is based on the scout patrol colours of my youth ... Kestrel Patrol. This blast from the past was dredged up from the depths of my memories when gazing upon a fellow hobbyist's Eldar.

Deprived of his fencing foil Sulu grabbed hold of the next best thing, an official Starfleet Kestrels' baseball bat

Back view of Mr. Hikaru Sulu

Moreover, the way his face was sculpted approximated Asian-like facial feature. Building on that, I used a combination of flesh and earth colours from the Vallejo Model Color range in my collection to recreate Japanese skin tone colours. The skin tone was based roughly from a paint recipe I found online but I modified the recipe to incorporate more earth colours to get the ethnic hue I wanted.  

Denim texture on Sulu's pant's turned out to be the most challenging bit

Side view showcasing more detailed work on the denim jeans

Most challenging part of painting this LNoE board game piece/miniature was the denim texture on his pants. Because I had forgotten to record the colours I used when painting the same texture on Knight Models Logan, I literally had to start from scratch when I realised I had actually also forgotten the technique I used (to a certain extent). So that meant a lot of trial and error before I achieved the denim texture results you see in the photos on this post. To accompany the predominately green-blue colour scheme arising of out the jacket and jean colours, I also added orange hues on the jacket buttons as well as stripes on both sports shoes in order to (hopefully) make all the colours 'pop' more.

Orange hues were strategically placed into the overall green-white-blue colour scheme

Mr. Sulu next to a paper clip and the smallest denomination in the Malaysian currency

For a sense of scale, I placed a 31-mm paper clip as well as a five sen coin next to the miniature as you can see in the immediate photo above. At this scale, painting his eyes were next to impossible for someone of my skill level. I spent about 5 to 6 hours straight just working on the eyes alone and I am still unhappy with the results. I tried using a magnifying lamp to help me paint the eyes but it seemed to make things worse so I ditched that and painted it using my naked eye instead. I did, however, have the help of a 6/0 Raphael Kolinsky Sable Brush to paint his eyes so it wasn't all bad I guess. In the end, I am fairly happy with how Sulu turned out, especially when considering his small scale.