Liam's Ghost Gallery! Spookily inept painting!

[Valkerie]

Nice work sir.  The new camera continues to do your minis justice. 8) :thumbsup:

[Daryk]

Much better pictures indeed!  Love the Awesomes!  :thumbsup:

[Liam's Ghost]

Cleaning off my desk continues!

First a healthy assortment of battle armor, plus a pair of mechs. The fireball is missing a piece, but otherwise came out great. I actually had five points of elementals, but there was an accident with one of them involving super glue and craft sand, so now they look a bit like falcon guards and I'm not sure if I can still do anything with them. That Marauder suit still desperately wants to be a protomech...

Speaking of protomechs, here's two points I've had for a while but just got around to.

Finally, a Beak star from the Jade Falcons' Vau Galaxy. Execution turned out a little uneaven, but I'd like to blame that partly on the age of the two summoners, as well as the numerous times they've been painted and stripped. And yes, only some of the mechs are supposed to have gold trim, as that's a privilege of blood named warriors.

[Dave Talley]

removing the super glue to get the sand off isnt difficult,
but would require repainting afterwards

[Liam's Ghost]

This is another one I've had planned for a while (since a certain legal event...) that I've only just now got around to starting.

I started with this guy just to see if I could pull it off, and... well it might be off brand for me to say it, but I think I did pretty well, all things considered. Five more members to go.

[Ruger]

This is another one I've had planned for a while (since a certain legal event...) that I've only just now got around to starting.

I started with this guy just to see if I could pull it off, and... well it might be off brand for me to say it, but I think I did pretty well, all things considered. Five more members to go.

I have to say, although the Phoenix Hawk LAM is probably my favorite of the designs by stats, I think the Stinger LAM is the best looking model of the LAM's found in TRO 3085.

And I'd love to see your Skull Squadron mini at different angles to get a fuller effect from your paint job.

Ruger

[Liam's Ghost]

I've got two stinger LAMs, two Wasp LAMs, and two Wanetas for skull squadron. I was originally going to go for two phoenix hawks, but the Waneta's guardian err... airmech mode just seemed more appropriate. Of those three, I've assembled a wasp and stinger, and I've just started on the Waneta.

I feel like the easier they are to assemble, the less I'll like their look. The wasp is fairly simple to put together, and just feels blah (not having any arms doesn't help). I like the art for the Waneta the most, but it's a more involved build, and the feet don't even fit right. The stinger lies somewhere in the middle.

[Liam's Ghost]

So it's been a while...

Let's be honest, even as periphery worlds go, Greenwood Station isn't a great place to live. It's bone dry, the dust gets everywhere, the gravity is only a third of Terra's, every now and then a gas giant comes strolling through the sky causing earthquakes and throwing rocks, and some people say the whole place is haunted. Its only real value is that it's close to a lot of other places, and the locals have a clear "no questions asked" policy when it comes to visitors. Still, most of those who visit never stay for long before heading out to greener pastures.

The ones that do, however, tend to be of a certain type...

The House Brand Heroes serve as the planetary militia for Greenwood Station, and all things considered, they do a pretty good job of it. Their machines have been heavily adapted to operate in the low gravity and unique conditions of Greenwood Station, with mods to the myomer systems, vehicle motive systems, fire control computers, and even the munitions they use to get the most out of their environment. This would cripple their machines if they ever took them offworld, but of course they don't. Greenwood is their home.

Their mechs are the most visible of their troops, though they have a whole hodgepodge of other units that usually don't even see the battlefield. Armored trucks are used to scatter remote sensors and decoy reflectors around the battlefield. Swift Wind Scout cars (they fell off a dropship) monitor the sensors and coordinate with a tracked APC that they've cobbled together into a reasonably effective Mobile HQ. Light infantry and maybe a few attack vehicles add extra hitting power, and they can sometimes call in friends of questionable pedigree. It's all very slapdash, but it works.

Unusual for a ramshackle unit bound to a poor periphery world, they even manage a unified paint scheme, more or less. A pristine unit would be dark blue with a red stripe (humanoid battlemechs have it placed on their central upper body, other units are more flexible). But the environment and the limited resources means no unit can ever be pristine for long, so extensive wear is very common.

[Daryk]

Nicely done, and I especially love the fluff!  :thumbsup:

[worktroll]

On the phone, I thought that left-hand Savannah Master was an Undine, which did get a moment of  ???

But a lovely unit, with great fluff, and I'd be happy to see it on my table.

[Liam's Ghost]

I've actually been pretty busy painting this last month, and I just got around to getting the pictures done.

First we have a lone Helepolis, a relic dating back to the reunification war dug up by an especially lucky freelancer. Age and abuse has pretty much worn away the original paint, though a red stripe mostly remains. The pilot isn't too picky about the jobs he takes, and sometimes he encourages donations from isolated settlements by demonstrating his artillery piece. Last word on him said he was heading to temp town and taking some calls from people in white robes...

Second, Greg's Grenadiers, a mercenary lance that calls the Aurigan Reach its home. They mostly work for independent worlds, and a recent job they pulled helping the planetary militia of Greenwood Station may have put them on the Aurigan Coalition's naughty list. Time will tell if they can mend fences with a potentially lucrative employer.

[Liam's Ghost]

Next up, a rather low tier Raven Alliance garrison star. I'm not too fond of this one. Due to side affects of a medication my painting was not at its best, and I've decided I desperately hate vedettes. The infantry units turned out pretty good though.

Finally, a (non-sponsored) product placement. I've been using a lot of craft sand in prepping my bases, but I've never been all that satisfied with it because of the size of the grains. Fortunately, I used to cat sit for a friend who also had Degus, and I remembered the bathing dust she had for them (you put a bit of it in a small bowl and rodent rolls around in it). After some searching I found a twenty seven ounce jar for about six yankee dollars and have been experimenting with it. I like the results. The grain is much finer than any craft sand I've been able to find, and you get a lot of it for a relatively good price. It can be a little messy times (being very fine grained dust), but it's manageable as long as you don't use it alongside wet paint at the same time.

I've called the small collection of units I tested it with the Dust Rats. They're an ad-hoc guerrilla force composed of a hodgepodge of whatever they could get their hands on and dedicated to resisting the Word of Blake whenever they can.

(Also, I experimented with making a rough terrain hex. It looks nice, but I think I'm going to use cheap cardboard for my future terrain hexes rather than plastic hex bases)

[Liam's Ghost]

So the Dust Rats picture was too big to attach to the last post. So here you go.

[Force of Nature]

Your pictures are WAAAAAAAY too big, size wise.

Reduce them down to 780 x 350 - ish.

[worktroll]

The 3050 Vedettes suck, true. Stick to the 3026 versions ;) Had the same issue with the FRR ones I did.

One thing I'd recommend - consider using bronze or gold, or metallic green, for your cockpits. The Heleopolis could use the high point. Or, something I'm going to try sometime, coloured ink over silver/steel.

W.

[Liam's Ghost]

A Free Rasalhague Republic skirmish lance. None of the schemes on camospecs really spoke to me, so I went with something like my Dust Rat Guillotine, except using limited blue accents and yellow cockpits (which stood out better than I should have expected in retrospect). Still, I like these guys. I'm fond of the lance composition and I've got myself wondering what kind of story I could write about them.

(I split them into two images to cut down on individual image size)

One thing I'd recommend - consider using bronze or gold, or metallic green, for your cockpits. The Heleopolis could use the high point. Or, something I'm going to try sometime, coloured ink over silver/steel.

I bounce back and forth over using gloss, satin, or metallic paint on the cockpits. I've done it a couple times, but I keep finding myself coming back to the flat colors. Not sure why. 

[Liam's Ghost]

Atrean Dragoons? Nope. The household lance of House Tezuka uses a color scheme based on the old Alshain Regulars scheme (described as white, jade green, and shades of grey).  Not surprising, since every member of the lance is a former member.

The commander of the lance, as well as the entirety of the Tezuka Household Guard, is Ichika Tezuka, one of five sisters (quintuplets) who hold authority over the affairs of house Tezuka and their landhold of Shirotori. She's a capable warrior, a former member of Duke Ricol's personal forces (signified by the red band on the arm of her Orion), but her detractors in the DCMS say she's all style and little substance, who made her way through the Tezuka name and a rumored past relationship with the Red Duke. How much of this is justified and how much is typical Combine mysoginy is unknown, but she certainly doesn't enjoy fighting, nor was she her father's first choice to inherit his Orion. Her sister Miku (now a pillarine illuminatus) was always the better strategist, while her sister Yotsuba had better natural talent, but neither of them were willing to accept the responsibility, so the task fell to Ichika, which she bore despite the long periods of separation from her sisters.

[Daryk]

Not a lance I'd want to meet in a dark alley...

[worktroll]

Yup, that'll put the smack down in a dark alley, alright.

What makes up the rest of the Household Guard?

[Liam's Ghost]

Yup, that'll put the smack down in a dark alley, alright.

What makes up the rest of the Household Guard?

The household guard is predominantly light infantry (with trucks and APCs for transport) with a couple of battalions of cheap assault guns for extra firepower. Their colors may be dramatically different from the mech lance however.

Okay, extra backstory, the Tezuka quintuplets' mother died when they were young, and without managing to produce a male heir. Since he knew one or more of his daughters would be inheriting the Tezuka holdings, and knowing the male dominated attitude of the Combine, their father decided to push a "divine right" sort of narrative to give them more cred with the people they would be ruling. He insisted that each daughter embodied one of the five pillars of Combine society, giving the impression that together they were the truest expression of the Combine's spirit. That's why one of them had to become a mechwarrior and take over their father's mech, there needed to be a Pillar of Steel.

What this means for the household guards colors... well.. that narrative is still in place. So in my head I'm going back and forth between the household guard using a straight steel color scheme (representing the pillar of Steel), and a painfully ambitious five color scheme (Ivory, Jade, Teak, Gold, and Steel) representing the house as a whole.

The five color scheme would be especially painful given how small the minis representing the rest of the household guard would be.

[worktroll]

I think the Guard could be a fairly plain scheme on the whole, with Ichika's 'Mech maybe having a steel band or contrast patch.  The guards are just minions, after all ;)

[Liam's Ghost]

Mysterious raiders that have struck targets within the Capellan Confederation, Free Worlds League, and Federated Suns. At first it was suggested they might be the Green Ghosts, but their targets are well outside the Ghost's normal stomping grounds, and bodies recovered have shown signs of cybernetic augmentation. Some of the more intact remains have even been identified as thugees and missing blakists. Their heavy equipment is painted to evoke green soapstone. It's even thickened and textured to give some of the feel of carved stone, for reasons that have escaped explanation. Intercepted battle chatter has the standard, but also reveals snippets of hindu prayers, High Domini invocations, and some sort of constructed language that has so far proven incomprehensible.

Infantry wear red robes, covered in fine green embroideries containing pictograms and text that seems to have been pulled straight from to voynich manuscript. Once again, undecipherable.

The raiders goals are unknown, their targets apparently random, though often after the fact identified as hidden Blakist caches, and they've been seen on multiple occasions fighting enemies wearing Word of Blake or Manei Domini colors, as well as others reputed to bear the banner of the missing Knights of the Saints Cameron.

[Liam's Ghost]

Flea proxies, a new light mech type, some denizens of the California Nebula, or maybe the Terran Supremacy was experimenting with this mulitiverse thing and accidentally poked the wrong one? You be the judge!

These came from the micromachine line that accompanied the release of the new Star Wars movies. Honestly, all I really did was base them and apply a dark gray wash to bring out the details better, but they turned out good for such a quick job, and I may have to see if I can find more for cheap. Maybe also look into decals to differentiate them better.

[Valkerie]

Nice work and good idea. 8)  Good job on your Green Raiders as well. :thumbsup:

[worktroll]

Troopers!