Tiger Camo Axman -- No Guts, No Galaxy!

[abou]

You kids don't know how to 1st Somerset Strikers. I'll show you how to 1st Somerset Strikers.

Finally got around to painting my Axman. Part of me didn't want to go too hard after ReaperCon... but  directional lighting and NMM later, here we are. Plus, it is special to me.

This mini was a Christmas gift from my mother along with the Mauler from the ancient year of 1995! And I got it done just in time for the 30th anniversary year of the cartoon.

The BattleTech cartoon blew my mind wide open as a 10 year-old in 1994. The bug bit me hard and never left. The 2N Axman has always been my favorite despite its flaws on the tabletop. Unfortunately, I was too in my head to try and do the black & yellow scheme justice. Now 30 years later lots of people have done it, but I have never seen anyone do the tiger camo version from the second run of toys. Nostalgia was hitting hard and I even pulled out my 3rd edition map sheet with a tear in it from when our first family dog walked across it.

Also, aren't the proportions on this miniature great? Dude is sculpted with the physique of a body builder showing a V silhouette due to those big lats and shoulders.

I pulled the image of the toy from the https://tyco-battletech.de/ site.

[garhkal]

Nice look..  Good paint job.

[jimdigris]

 

[Daryk]

That's an amazing paint job! :)

[Desert Scribe]

Very impressive! I like the reversed colors on the torso vs. the rest of the mech. How did you paint the light green stripes on the limbs? Was it light on top of the dark background, or did you paint the lighter color first, then the darker backround color?

[Wolf72]

holy cow, very nice.

[Luciora]

Hmm I've already done up a kitbashed 2N from the new plastic Axman in the yellow and black.  Doing the official 2N in this scheme might be a good idea. 

[Schwerpunkt Prinzip]

Stunning! 

[Daryk]

And I see it's now your avatar... excellent choice! :)

[ISD]

Fantastic paintjob

[abou]

Very impressive! I like the reversed colors on the torso vs. the rest of the mech. How did you paint the light green stripes on the limbs? Was it light on top of the dark background, or did you paint the lighter color first, then the darker backround color?

Good questions.

I wanted as much saturation as possible for the turquoise, which meant using a single-pigment, artist paint. Unfortunately, cobalt turquoise was the best match to the toy and is very transparent. My plan then was to paint the entire mini in turquoise with all the shading and highlights for that color. When it came to the limbs then, I had to essentially paint the "negative space" in black. This was pretty difficult at first, but eventually I got the hang of it. Highlighting from there also proved interesting when working around the turquoise. Any mistakes were cleaned up with white first and then the turquoise. I think I had to repaint the torso three times just to get happy with it.

Often we don't recognize just how many different pigments are in our miniature paints. Many have some added white or black & white to increase opacity. This makes life significantly easier for us, but we need to realize that we lose saturation. And if we want that punch, it is going to take some work.

And I see it's now your avatar... excellent choice! :)

It seemed like a good time for some change.

[avon1985]

sweet!

[Neo-Tanuki]

Nostalgia!

[Wasteland Warrior]

Very clean, looks great!

[Teejay75]

Nicolai Malthus is seething somewhere whilst looking at that mini. Nicely done!

[Gladius-XC]

That’s so cool!  The NMM really pops!

[17thRecon]

Very nice! The reverse striping, the orange contrast, the highlighting, and the NMM are all top notch.