As I previously mentioned, while I picked Boone as my main force, the fates decided that I would start by building and painting these BLKLST mercenaries.

These models were actually my first time working with resin as opposed to plastic. My first impression was “ooooh, no mold lines”. Of course, the tradeoff is that you have to instead look for and remove supports. Ultimately, it ends up being a little less work than mold lines hunting, and I would guess less noticeable if you miss a support.

One thing that I was surprised and initially concerned by were that approximately half the models in the kit had weapons and/or appendages that were bent. Given that the majority of my experience is with plastic, I thought that this was a bigger issue than what it turned out to be.

Luckily, I reached out to Ben, who told me to heat up some water and dip the figures in them. Two minutes of microwaving water, a 20-30 seconds dip, and any bends were quickly fixed. (NOTE: the water went into the microwave in a cup by itself. I did NOT microwave the figures. I can’t imagine that would be good for them).

Since these figures came in one piece, after they were straightened out it was a simple matter of gluing them to the bases. After experimenting with multiple brands of glue, I have largely shifted to Bob Smith industries products. In this case, I used Maxi Cure. Regardless of your application, I bet you can find a glue in their product line that would work for you.

Since we were trying to get some game reps in ASAP, the next thing I needed to do was magnetize the bases for transport. I have seen a lot of different methods of magnetization, but my favorite one is to “acquisition” a cookie sheet that I totally have permission to take from the kitchen, place a sheet of wax paper on the cookie sheet, place a magnet in the base, cover it with a generous dollop of hot glue, and then to quickly flip it over onto the pan. What this does is allow the magnet to be pulled to the cookie sheet, covered with a thin film of hot glue, which prevents the magnet from coming off.

With the prep work done, the next step was priming. For my BLKOUT figures, I know that I will be doing some combination of zenithal highlighting and/or slapchop. So, black primer it is. My go to is Vallejo black primer with a bit of thinner sprayed through an airbrush. I did the whole squad, let the primer dry, and then went over it once more to touch up any spots I had missed.

I then dry-brushed Two Thin Coats carcharadon grey over all the figures using a large and/or medium drybrush.

Now that high and low points were established, I switched to Army Painter speed paints 2.0, and for the metal a small selection of Vallejo metal colors. As you see you the progression, you will realize that subconsciously, my scheme became very reminiscent of the Mandalorian before he got all his cool beskar armor.

I started out giving all my mercenaries some black pants….because every self-respecting mercenary should be wearing pants.

The rest of the painting came together in a single day. You can see reddish brown cloaks, duraluminum alloy points, and blues, browns, and greens to round out the rest of the models. Bulb oil was applied to the metal bits to increase contrast.

The bases were then done with Kraut cover- Ruins of persistence, and held in place by gorilla wood glue on the base, and Bob Smith industries instant set glue to make sure that everything was held down well .

I then finished up by adding some Vietnam pigment powder mixed with pigment fixer to the bases, to more closely align the bases with the reddish hue of ABOL.

A crispy black rim and some matte AK primer, and my first squad was table ready.