Author Topic: Mech "X" Prototype!! My painting journal.  (Read 2737 times)

Major Headcase

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Mech "X" Prototype!! My painting journal.
« on: 11 July 2020, 02:35:59 »
Howdy mech-techs!!
I was unable to sleep last night (jacked up on tea, Scottish butter cookies, and YouTube Bardcore tracks!!) so I scrounged some parts from my robot bits bins and built this..... thing..... Mech Prototype X!!!
It demonstrates my unhealthy fetish for giant rotating weaponry quite well... and my utter disregard for the realities of efficient design considerations...
I've decided to paint it in the Alshain Regulars colors from the CM Kurita book: light grey, with white and jade green trim. Just for a break from painting RED ON EVERYTHING!!   :D

I thought I should document my step by step progress on this mini? There have been lots of discussions about painting techniques so I figured I'd show my basically lazy process for making a decent tabletop quality mini. My techniques focus on methods for hiding less than perfect lines and detailing with attractive "weathering" and saturation styles. As well as some fairly simple basing techniques.
 
Okeedokee artichokee!!

First is my "construction completed" pics with my first layer on: colored primer!!  :) Rust-oleum has a huge selection of natural colors in sprayable can form that work great for primer and base color in one step! Greys, drowns, tans, reds, greens, blues, the list is long! And cheap!! I used Rust-oleum light grey Automobile Primer for this guy. I intend to wash it with a black ink which will stain the paint to a darker medium gray and then all I need to do is to highlight with a compatible light grey brush paint and the base color is done!

Major Headcase

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Re: Mech "X" Prototype!! My painting journal.
« Reply #1 on: 11 July 2020, 02:55:00 »
Step 2:
Wash and stain.
For this step you only need to be mostly awake and sober... its EASY. Super easy. Dont let washing intimidate you; if you can reliably make a mess: then you can successfully wash a mini!!  :thumbsup:
For this grey, which I intend to remain a "cold" color, I used GW Nuln Oil; a great reliable black-based wash. It has a bit of a green tint which works well for machinery.
If I wanted to "warm" the grey, I would use a very dark brown wash. Or add a medium red-brown to the Nuln Oil. This would add a warmer effect with a hint of dirtiness or even rust to the recesses of the model, which blends well with warm colors like reds, browns, earthy greens etc. Keeping it "cold" means the grey will not look dirty next to the crisp white and Jade Green I plan to trim the model with.
Applying the wash is as easy as using watercolors when you were little. Get a good thick round brush, load it with the wash, and then test it on a piece of paper!  ;D  you might need to thin your wash. If the wash spreads across the paper and absorbs quickly, with the white paper lightening the wash, then you are ready to go! If the wash stains the paper completely without lightening the tone at all, then you want to cut the wash with about 25% water (at first, keep testing and adding water until the paper test looks right).
For this, I used 100% strength Nuln Oil. I want it darker, so the highlight stands out later.
Just use the brush to "pull" the wash into all the books and crannies and etched details. If you want a stained effect like I did, make sure to evenly paint all the surfaces with the wash. Use a dry brush to soak up any big standing pools of wash on the flat surfaces of the mini or you will get "waterstains" from the puddles where it dries. I'm going to do a pretty heavy dry brush with medium grey next, so I'm not so worried about that on this guy!


Valkerie

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Re: Mech "X" Prototype!! My painting journal.
« Reply #2 on: 11 July 2020, 10:06:25 »
Fun little monster you created there.  Looks like someone gave a Hammerhands steroids.  >:D

Looking forward to seeing your take on the Alshain Regulars.  Thanks for the writeup!
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Major Headcase

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Re: Mech "X" Prototype!! My painting journal.
« Reply #3 on: 11 July 2020, 14:22:58 »
Step 3:
After sleeping off my cookie hangover, and letting the wash dry, I continued this morning with steps 3 and 4: highlight drybrushing and block painting the secondary colors.
Drybrushing is almost as easy as washing. I picked a color almost as light as my base grey spray color, Vallejo Game Color Stonewall Grey, and grabbed my medium stiff drybrush (from the pic you can see it's a fat messy bristled brush, this is good!) And did a pretty heavy drybrush since I wanted to return the majority of the model to a smooth colored finish.
The key to dry brushing is to keep brushing! If the paint goes on a little heavy or streaky at first, keep going! The brushing action will smooth out and blend in the brush strokes or heavy spots and make them a part of the color "depth" of the highlight.
Once the finish looks smooth enough, I do one last very light "dust brush" with the brush almost empty of paint and then the base highlight is done!

Major Headcase

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Re: Mech "X" Prototype!! My painting journal.
« Reply #4 on: 11 July 2020, 14:38:23 »
Step 4:
Block painting!! Here is the step that is the most difficult for me: adding the secondary colors in patterns over the finished base color...
The painting is easy, but the hard part is keeping the strong colors in thier designated areas! A good point detail brush is what I use to paint an outline of the area, so the panel lines and color boundaries are as clean as I can make them. Then I use a slightly larger pointy brush to fill in the areas I've outlined. How carefully I do this step determines how much cleanup I have to do next!!
As you can see, while the legs came out okay (especially the inside of the lower legs! Which I was certain was going to go horribly wrong...) the shoulders and head head real fixing!
First I painted all the parts that will be bare metal in a darker grey, so the metal paint will have a deeper base color and look more "steel" and less "silver".
Then I added the white, this took 3 coats of thinned Vallejo Skull White and I painted white over the sections I intend to paint Jade Green, again, for a brighter effect on the green.
The green was the tricky color to paint! It's dark, and strong, and I had to paint the borders with the white very carefully. And since it's so rich a color, cleaning up those lines with the white later will be a chore!! Then I will touch up the grey around each white/green section, which will be a lot easier!
After this dries I will repair the poor line work on the arms and shoulders and head. My hands and eyes aren't as reliable at perfect lines as they used to be!!  ;D

Major Headcase

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Re: Mech "X" Prototype!! My painting journal.
« Reply #5 on: 11 July 2020, 19:35:36 »
Step 5: cleaning up my mess!!
Okay, after I applied the white and green block colors, I stepped away and did something else for a bit. Let the tension from concentrating dissipate from my eyes, hands, and shoulders!
Then I came back and applied another surface coat to the white, to reduce some of the grey show-through I had on spots, then I used the medium grey paint to carefully clean up the edges of the white and green trim. The shoulder were simple but the head caused me some frustration, its difficult to paint a straight, even line across a sharply curved surface without the brush wanting to wander aimlessly... It's pretty easy to do with a good sharp tipped brush and thinned paint on flat panels though, It just takes some practice and a bit of holding your breath as you draw a straight line very slowly!!  ;D
Then I added the gunmetal paint to the areas I painted  medium grey.
I decided to do the panels on the outer arms in hazard striped black and dark yellow... because I hate myself sometimes... so once I finish the black stripes, I'll weather wash the green and the white to take some of the shine off and add dimension to those areas. The metal spots will get a heavy black ink wash to darken them further and make the shadows pop in those areas!!

mbear

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Re: Mech "X" Prototype!! My painting journal.
« Reply #6 on: 21 July 2020, 06:51:18 »
What would happen if you had put yellow under the green? Would it be "warmer" than the jade you have here?
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Major Headcase

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Re: Mech "X" Prototype!! My painting journal.
« Reply #7 on: 21 July 2020, 21:09:18 »
What would happen if you had put yellow under the green? Would it be "warmer" than the jade you have here?

Under the green? No I dont think so, this jade is a pretty heavy color, I dont think the yellow would make a huge difference. It keeps its color tone consistent if i paint it over white, black, or any other primer I've used. However, putting this jade on a yellow background, surrounded by it, I think would make it look more warm of a green. Next to white and light grey it looks cool and krisp and almost "minty", next to yellow, the forest shades would stand out I think. And maybe not quite as dark either?