We are frequently astounded to see the quality and variety of paint schemes amongst the armies shown on the Antares Facebook Page. Bill Tegeler’s Isorians were particularly interesting as he tried to mix in his spider-inspired scheme with some really colourful custom built terrain. We asked, and he kindly gave us a step-by-step.
Bill: I first learned about Antares while listening to a gaming podcast, the D6 Generation (ep 181), and an interview with Rick Priestley about Antares. I was immediately interested in the story of the universe and the hard science fiction approach so I bought the rule book and was drawn to two factions, the Ghar and the Isorian Senatex. As soon as the Isorians became available, I bought the army deal and started in.
The army has a very organic feel, one that leans towards insects, so I started searching online for colourful insect pictures. From there I moved onto green spiders and realised a lot of the pictures had yellow/pink either on the spider or in their surroundings, especially the green lynx spider from the oxyopidae family: I had a paint scheme and a theme! From the studio scheme I took the white/bone face plate as it seemed to fit particularly well with the other colours.
For interest, here is my colour scheme and method. I’m sure some of the Vallejo paints I used could be substituted for Army Painter equivalents.
- Base Color – Vallejo Sick Green
- Gun, grenades, ear pieces – Vallejo Black Grey
- Wash entire model in 50/50 Dark Tone and Water
- Highlight green areas with 50/50 Vallejo Sick Green and Vallejo Scorpy Green
- Face Mask – Vallejo Ivory
- Suit “vents”, power areas – Vallejo Squid Pink
- Wash face mask with Soft Tone
- Wash pink areas with Purple Tone
I was delighted with the result and wanted to make some terrain to match. Having recently acquired some unpainted “alien” terrain, I set to matching the terrain to my Isorian shard. After selecting some oh-so-useful plastic aquarium plants to match the colour scheme, I snipped them to size and shape, then affixed to the terrain piece using a hot glue gun: the attachment points were disguised under appropriately sized and coloured ‘shrubs’.
When I play a miniature war game, I want the scene in front of me to pull me in like a movie, so having great looking models and terrain is important to me. Matching the table to the models and retaining a common theme immediately meant the army just naturally blends in to the table and scenery, something I find very fitting for the Isorians and their phase armour! Antares, and the way it looks and plays, really helps creating that aesthetic, too. Sure, I get to paint a lot more than I get to play, but it’s cathartic and there’s a great sense of accomplishments when finishing a themed army and its matching terrain. Playing is just the cherry on top.
The shard is named Oxyo after the green lynx spider (oxyopidae) from which I originally received my inspiration.
Since the original post, Bill has added a Mahran Vesh Combat Drone to his army and we couldn’t resist adding the photo’s in, too!
Antares Nexus 
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