+ Catachan Sergeant 'Ripper' Jackson +

+ They make 'em tough on Catachan +

+ I finished painting Sergeant 'Ripper' Jackson and Colonel 'Definitely-not' Carl Weathers a few weeks back – and they've been here been sitting patiently (lying in ambush?) ready to go up on the blog. +

+ Both are absolutely wonderful models; just the right mix of comic-book exaggeration and fluid realism that I think sums up GW at their best. I collected the original Catachan Jungle Fighter models on release (long since gone on to a better place), but rather fell out of love with the range when the plastics replaced the superbly characterful metals. +

+ Time hasn't aged the infantry kit well (though even at the time it had a muted reception), but the command squad and heavy weapon teams are actually pretty good, in my opinion. The release of new characters gives me some hope that we will one day see a new Catachan range, but I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, I'll pick up fantastic models like this, and hope that one day they'll have some soldiers to boss around. +

+ Since we saw the Catachan Colonel near-enough finished in an earlier inload [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], we'll concentrate on Jackson here. Painting camouflaged soldiers is a tricky balance. Make the camouflage too realistic and effective, and it'll do its job – leaving your model looking bland or boring. Adding too obvious a contrast can appear jarring. That can work – particularly where the camouflage is heraldic, as on (say) Executioners Space Marines  but here I've tried to strike a balance between a couple of eye-catching areas on contrast and a generally muted tone. +

+ Here, the bandana and light t-shirt frame the face and create patches of tonal and colour contrast with the jacket and skin. The flat area of cloth was given a sense of texture and age with the addition of a touch of yellow ochre (Iyanden Darksun). The same yellow was used for the bandana and also in the first layers of highlighting on the skin, creating a cohesive and warm palette. +

+ Insofar as anyone in the Imperium is a 'goodie', I've always thought the Catachans have a fairly appealing culture of community support, humour in the face of danger and an adventurous spirit. Bringing warmth into the palette by avoiding cold hues except where necessary (metallics, for example) or for intentional accents (green lenses for 'pop'), creates an attractive palette that invites further viewing. +

+ The camouflage patches – Zamesi Desert, Gretchin Green and uh... Battle Green? Or whatever the modern equivalent is – are added over a Halfords brown spray undercoat (from their Camouflage spray range). The pattern matches that used on the Colonel, providing uniformity that makes it clear Jackson's a soldier – even if her veteran status and Catachan demeanour afford her a little personalisation to her kit. +

+ The sword is nicknamed 'amiga' – a little nod to the likely inspiration of the hispanic infantrywoman Jenette Vasquez from Aliens, played by Jenette Goldstein. I very nearly went with an hispanic skintone, but enjoyed painting the warm dark skintone on the colonel (and Inquisitrix Barbari Kills) so much that I decided to use something similar here, too. Imperial Guard are a wonderful place to explore painting different skintones; and the goes doubly for Catachans, with so much muscle on display! +

+ If I find another for a reasonable price, I'll probably work up a conversion – perhaps an homage to Michael Perry and Mike McVey's 54mm Catachan that turned up in Golden Demon years back. +

+ The boltgun and chainsword received the same dull mid-green used in the camouflage patches, and I've highlighted these cleanly to add some harder lines that contrast with the softer blending used on her musculature. +

+ The bionic leg is treated exactly as a piece of military equipment, with the same dull mid-green. I really love the relatively low-tech look. It's a functional replacement for a warrior. + 

+ The dead tyranid on the base was painted red and blue to evoke the hivefleets of the rest of the PCRC, which mostly use these colours. I haven't tried to match any one specifically as they're all done in a lovely vivid, classic 'Eavy Metal style, which would clash with this muted look. To mute things, I added a spot of red to the blue, and a spot of blue to the red. +

+ Lovely sculpt, great model – I can only hope the God-Emperor sees fit to share more lovely Catachan sculpts with us soon! +