Predators

When I saw these little chaps, I just had to have them - they're so cute! OK, that's perhaps not the most important criterion when you're after some figures to represent fearsome headhunting aliens, but I don't care!

These are LKM/QRF pack SF08 Skullhunters - or Predators to you and me. For your £2.25 (about $1.50?) you get 8 figures, all different poses. Some poses aren't as good as others, and the sculpting is fairly basic in places (they all tend to have hands like bunches of bananas), but for value for money they're fantastic! I'd say that the good poses definitely outweigh the poor. They come equipped with a variety of weapons as seen in Predator and Predator 2. Most have the shoulder-mounted plasma caster, a couple have the extending spears, 2 have their helmets off to reveal their cute little roaring faces. They required very little cleaning up, virtually no flash and only very small mould-lines. The bases were nicely rounded and pretty smooth underneath, so no need to re-mount them on washers.

This skull-gripping, roaring guy has to be my favourite. OK, the hand gripping the skull is the most banana-like of the lot, but he has so much character!

This one has a nice extending spear, and you can see his shoulder-mounted plasma caster.

Not too sure about this pose. It looks like he's queueing for a bus.

Another of the not-quite-so-good poses. I assume he's in combat, but could just be closing a door.

I think this might be the boss. He looks very cool and collected, contemptuous of the pitiful humans that he is about to hunt...

It's a nice touch to have one using his wrist-comp. Perhaps he's re-setting his camouflage field...

This one might be aiming his plasma-caster. The helmet isn't quite as good as some of the others (very large nose!?) and he's a bit club-handed on his right side. This looks like a minor casting problem rather than poor sculpting though, and it isn't very noticeable. It's a pity that there isn't a pose lunging the other way with extending wrist blades out.

This is a great pose too, the plasma-caster is very prominent, and the whole figure is very aggressive.

Painting notes: After a black base coat, I painted the flesh first, as I knew it would be pretty messy. Humbrol 93 desert yellow provided the base, followed by a wash of Vallejo 72.091 sepia ink, drybrush of Humbrol 93, then a final highlight of Vallejo 72.034 bonewhite. Armour and helmets were painted with a mix of GW chainmail and Humbrol matt75 bronze green to give a fairly dark finish. This was followed by a highlight of chainmail/mithril silver. Their hair was painted with Vallejo 72.045 charred brown. Those with their helmets off received a dab of white on the end of their teeth, and a tiny dab of watered down red in their mouths.

Overall grade for these figures: B+

A good range of figures with more hits than misses. Sculting isn't as impressive as some manufacturers, but clean casting gives a good result when painted, and value for money is fantastic.