Rookies...

One of the recurring character types in Judge Dredd are the white helmeted Rookie Judges, with many stories written about their final real world test on the streets with a Senior Judge deciding whether they should receive the black helmet and full eagle, indeed Judge Dekker first appeared as a Rookie in the pages of 2000AD.

Mongoose produce three Rookie Judges but whilst not too keen on the pose of the third I love these two models. Using similar painting techniques to Dekker below, the biggest problem was researching the correct paint scheme.

Whilst the Judges uniform has undergone some variation over the years, that of the Rookie has seen a ridiculous amount of versions drawn. Sometimes the helmet has a red stripe around the visor (like the Judges helmet), sometimes the knee pads are yellow... In the end I went with the more recent look and I think it looks really good.

As miniatures go they are probably more useful than first meets the eye. Aside from final assessment test, the Rookies get sent on the Cursed Earth "Hotdog Run" as part of their training and invariably get involved in any major city threatening event such as The Apocalypse War so they are worth collecting.

I have accidentally ended up with duplicates of these miniatures as I misunderstood what was coming with the Kickstarter, but they are easy enough to convert pose wise so I will soon have another two Rookies finished, ready to hit the streets...