Vault Dweller #1 / The Figure /

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"War. War never changes. 

    The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower.

    But war never changes.

    In the 21st century, war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: Petroleum and Uranium. For these resources, China would invade Alaska, the US would annex Canada, and the European Commonwealth would dissolve into quarreling, bickering nation-states, bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth.

    In 2077, the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. And from the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization would struggle to arise.

    A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large underground Vaults. Your family was part of that group that entered Vault 13.

    Imprisoned safely behind the large Vault door, under a mountain of stone, a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world.

    Life in the Vault is about to change."

Fallout 1 intro, *** graphics from the game.

Atomic age began just after Second World War, when USA and Soviet Union engaged in Cold War. Constant threat put billions of lives in immediate danger, no matter the distance. New rockets with nuclear warheads could cause death of the planet, luckily enough it did not happen, atomic clock stopped just before 12 (final escalation at Cuban Crisis). Possibility of such occurrence was vastly explored in movies (A boy and his dog, Mad Max trilogy, Book of Eli) and series of role-playing games titled Fallout (also, from different point of view, in First Person Shooter - Stalker). Fallout 1 was based on Mad Max movies & game called The Wastelands (which is now remade to Wasteland 2) released in second half of the 90's, very quickly winning hearts of million gamers around the world. It evolved and expanded with Fallout 2, then Fallout Tactics, becoming one of the most popular titles with Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. This project is based upon first Fallout game, featuring lone wanderer called The Vault Dweller (or Vault Dwellerette in this case) emerging from Vault 13 to find replacement for failing water chip. The story is well worth exploring, even more than few times... The figure - Lady Gregorian - comes from War Griffon, supposedly in 1:32 scale. In fact, it is only 50mm tall (does the base count? don't think so), being rather 1:35 scale. Little conversion was required, weird pattern was removed from jacket, weapon cut out from right hand to be replaced with Grease Gun, PipBoy, wrist bound device, was also added. Resin turned out to be great material to work with, scraping/removing all unwanted details was easy & painless.  

Painting process started with white undercoat, this time I decided to use Tamiya White Primer instead of my regular Games Workshops Skull White spray. This little change almost ended up as disaster, as final result was extremely chalky!  I am wondering if it was my own doing, sprayed either from too far away or too short distance or else? Thanks to super fine sanding pad most of chalky outcome was removed, leaving surface of the model still undercoated & silky smooth.  Planning the build ahead I decided to go with flesh first, as it would be the smallest & easiest area to mask off (keeping it light is important).  As first layer I airbrushed Tamiya XF15, Flat Flesh on. 

When dried, face & hands were masked off & Tamiya X14 Sky Blue, with X23 Clear Blue & XF3 Flat Yellow airbrushed on to represent iconic vault jumpsuit colors. Mad Max like leather jacket (also available in the game) was painted using XF63, German Grey. At this stage I put away the airbrush and carried on with fine paintbrush (currently testing Humbrol's brushes, comparing to Citadel's I have to say it's way cheaper, but quality is worse). Corset was painted using Citadel's Scorched Brown, with thin layer of Bestial Brown applied only to raised areas. All recesses of the jumpsuit were toned down with Citadel's Asurmen Blue (still using old Citadel range - these paints seem to last very long, due to brush only application) and creases, edges highlighted with Ice Blue. Hair was painted using Bestial Brown mixed with Blazing Orange and raised areas highlighted using pure Orange. Final highlights and definition of eyes, PipBoy, and additional equipment are still to follow. Big, yellow '13' indicating occupancy of  Vault 13 (to be visited in F1 & F2), is to be also painted on back of the jacket.