Return to the brushes

[Elmoth]

Well, breaking the brushes after a 15 year hiatus, and a sporty record before that. Let's see what I can get out of my lack of ability.

I ok bed to paint some white cream emchs, but I lacked white primer, so I went for black primer and started painted 2 test mechs for a drac-style force instead. Here they come in brown and bronzed flesh (really old GW paint, no idea if it exists still) and waiting for the red.

Any suggestions during my experiment will be appreciated.

[dread12]

Sorry, but i cant see anything.

[Elmoth]

Hmmm... There is an attached picture to the post. You can't see it or is it that the picture quality is too low and you can't appreciate anything?

[worktroll]

I'm seeing it!

Is the bronzed flesh thin, or did it go on thick? It's gone sort of dark on the depressions. If thick, you can usually just add a little water to Citadel paints, then stir/shake really well, with some small bits of spare sprue added to encourage mixing.

The coloured body/black arms & legs is a really good contrasting scheme which will look great. Consider going back & doing the heads black, or hands red. It's always easy to fix colour bleed - just paint black over it!

[Elmoth]

Considering the paint is 25+ years old yeah, I should probably need to add more water.
I tried to thin it, but dunno if I succeeded, specially with the dark brown.

The light brown (bronzed flesh) one is the black you see there, so it is thinner. I will need to learn patience here and apply several coats, and I am not a patient man.

I will co sdier painting the heads black. Thanks. Will try to make a report of the process.

[worktroll]

How are you with drybrushing?

[Elmoth]

Dunno xD been 15 years since I took a brush. I guess ok but I am relearning how to paint now

[worktroll]

I can dig out some basic instructions I did back in the A Call to War era, if you like. Short form, a very very faint drybrush - I call it a ghostbrush - of grey on the black areas adds a little highlighting without the pain of trying to do edging.

[Elmoth]

Those 2 test models wil be abused heavily. I will probably slap 3 reds on each and try different tecniques in the black parts (edging, drybrush...). So yeah, I am about to get started remembering xD I remember that putting too much paint on my drybrush was one of my sual mistakes. Not thinning the paint enough was another. Let's see how I do this time

[Renard]

I can't see the pics very well so I am not sure what I'm seeing, sorry.  But here are some youtubers you can check out, if you're just looking for some ideas and recent advice on how to get back into painting:

-- Goobertown Hobbies
-- Squidmar Miniatures
-- Miniac (just turn the sound down at the end of the videos...)
-- Midwinter Minis

They all have "intro" videos or speedpainting videos that talk about easy tricks or how to get certain effects without a ton of work.  Goobertown's intro videos (and videos in general) is especially laid back.  They all link to people who are better painters, but are willing to spend hours and hours just to get a mini looking slightly better instead of just tabletop ready.

[Elmoth]

Weird that you can't see the picture. It is attached to the forum itself... No idea how to help here. It is just a pair of black primer minis, with one having itrs torse painted brown and the other bronze flesh so I can paint red over them and test techniques and stuff.

I knew squidmar and miniac. I cannot stand the antics of miniac despite him giving good advise. I will check the others you suggest. Thanks. Most of the stuff they tend to say I know about. I am just veeeery rusty, and veeeery lame when it comes to painting, so it is not that I do not know what I am suypposed to do, just that I am bad at it  Let's see if I can improve slowly.

[Renard]

Why do you think you are lame?

A solid base coat with some metallic bits and a wash and some drybrushing looks great on a tabletop.  You don't need to do all kinds of fancy stuff to have fun and take pride in your minis.

I tend to be very bad at picking out color schemes, so I end up flipping through camospecs or unit color compendium to have a really clear idea what I am going for when I start. When I just throw paint on, it usually ends up looking like a little toy in a bad way.

[Elmoth]

Ok, i have been experimenting with schemes using some Warhammer elves. And some paints as old as those 1994 minis :p

I painted them like the mechs, one with a beige base the other brown, over a black primer both of them.

I tried 4 reds. Go fasta red (GW) and scar red, red (td) and orange red from Vallejo.

The red (td) was very thin and a direct fail. The other 3 covered well and I have them the black wash (he nuln oil).

Here you see the results. (Once I manage to load the pictures).

It looks like scar red is the winner here.

Edit. Looks like the picture with the orange red cooks does not load (too big) but anyway,, it does.not work.

[Elmoth]

OK, after the test with the old 1990s vintage elves I returned to the test mechs (wolverine and clan thunderbolt wannabe).

Once I applied the Nuln Oil wash the wolverine ended up being a tad darker than I thought it would be. Too dark in fact. On the opposite end, the clan thunderbolt looks good in that red! I think I will go for that. The red used on the cthunder is Army painter red. SO, a very basic red that all brands tend to have. Should be easy getting more of it if necessary.

Now I have to work on the blacks. My idea was to edge them with grey. Until I saw the ammount of edges in those minis!!! They have an insabe ammount of edges! So being unsure of my own technique AND patience I decided to go for the sure thing as a first test, and I will drybrush the legs and arms with grey followedby a nuln oil was to correct the splashes of grey on the flat surffaces of the legs and arms.

After that it will be the turn of weapons (metal) and details (lenses, cockpit...).

SO far I am quite happy with the effort-results ratio. Let's see if I can keep it up.

And I have to buy some 21st century paints. Most of the current pàints I have are too old to use (dried up). I am using paints that are older than some people I game with.

Cheers,
Xavi

[worktroll]

That Thud is looking sharp!

A drybrush of red might lift the Wolverine back up.

Remember, the grey edging drybrush has to be really really dry. Try on the back of the legs first. If you leave smears on the flat parts, it's too wet. You can easily re-black.

[Major Headcase]

2 other ways to do black:
One: do a VERY light dusting dry brush of light grey or even white all over a black base, and the wash with black mixed with dark blue. It works well, but the amount of light dusting can really make or break the "black" look.
Two: dont paint it black at all! Use a very dark gray base coat (like charcoal gray dark), lightly dry brush medium gray over that (German panzer gray is good) then wash with black. The was will darken the seams and shadows, but the plates will be ever so little bit lighter than black, and the panels will stand out.

[Elmoth]

It seems that the thunderbolt wannabe is a clan Summoner/Thor. I just checked. I had no idea since my knowledge of clan machines is basically "this is a mad cat/ this is not a mad cat". The later category is somewhat large. I think I will use it as Thud myself.

I will try to drybrush the legs. If it does not work, I will try the "black-but-not-black" grey techniques you suggest. Thanks!

Xavi

[Elmoth]

I as told to paint the edges of the legs (in other forums). Lining, I think it is is called.
I was also told to drybrush the legs in a VERY light dybrush.
I looked at both options, saw the ammount of pannels in the mech legs and decided thast either option was too much for me right now. So I did a HEAVY drybrush of vallejo basalt grey on the legs and arms of both mechs. After that I put Nuln Oil wash on both. The result is not black but grey, but it looks ok to me.

I repainte the body of the wolverine with 2 drybrush coats. The first one with the same red use din the other mech, and the second one with a Vallejo cadmium red (red-orange). This has brought the mini much closer to the color of the clan-thunderbolt wannabe (thor) and makes both mechs be acceptable as belonging to the same unit

I painted the head of both mechs black. I will line them with grey in the next days, with a light drybrush.

Without being Golden Demon or Coolminipornot winners they are quite OK and I am happy with them at the moment. I have been told by y mates to stop messing around with them now and I think they are right. I need to do other colors and details (weapons, weapon lenses, cabin glasses...) and the bae and we are ready to roll.

Better than expected when I did pick up the brush after 12 years, really.

EDIT. Link to a smaller picture if you want to see it better than with the HUGE pivture that the forum loads.
http://laarmada.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=36882.0;attach=20686;image

[Mecha82]

Very nice.

[Elmoth]

Breaking a new scheme based on the Lothian guards. This is Arthur. It needs the black wash, si just testing how many panels to paint  blue.

[Elmoth]

Test model for the Lothian guards scheme phase 2. Arthur, with a black wash

[worktroll]

That'll do it! 

[Elmoth]

Next step. Highlight the white with ivory, then tried to panel the miniature. Didn't work well, so I resorted to pure white light (not ghost) dry rushing. Worked well, specially in the blue.
Tomorrow details

Edit. Somehow the image seems to be too big despite cutting it around like 90%. Will try to npost it tomorrow since it is 0.30 in Spain right now. In the meantime a link to the image

http://laarmada.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=36882.0;attach=20698;image

EDIT: image is available now. I was trying to emulate the color shceme from the unit color comprendoium webpage: https://unitcolorcompendium.com/2019/05/31/lothian-guards/


Now I am considering that this should work with red arms as well. Or purple. Or whatever except green or yellow. Those colors do not seem to fit well with the grey and black wash. So I might try to modify it some and use it for my Aran Guard mercenary unit. They did a campaign in Dersidatz after all. I might even try to combine it somewhat, like using the Lothian Guard scheme with the right arm painted another color (purple if you hail from the FWL, red if you come from somewhere else...).

So in the end my formula has been [posting this for my own reference]
- White primer
- Vallejo medium blue. I will go for Army Painter "blue" (starter box) in the next one since the Vallejo one is a little dark. I ended up trying to lighten the blue with white at several points. The differences in the mix made for some weird stains in the legs of the mech. Meh. I prefer paint straight from the container to prevent that, so will try to go that route next time.
- Heavy Nuln oil wash.
- Raise the white with heavy Ivory (vallejo) drybrush. Not really a drybrush, just a discharged brush but applied liberally on the mini.
- Failed edging/paneling on the blue and white. Smeared with the finger to smooth it.
- Drybrush the whole mini (white AND blue) with pure white (vallejo)

I can cut a few steps next time.

[Elmoth]

New test. I did a Commando using the urbanmech scheme. (white primer, medium blue legs and arms, nuln oil wash, white drybrush). Only that this time I painted one of the arms red. if the urbanmech looks like R2D2 ("Arthur") now we have Captain America ("Steve").

This time the nuln oil did not penetrate as much. I think that I did not splash enough of it, and removed too much of it with the brush afterwards. The white looks rather flat even after drybrushing. I am looking at how to improve that now.

[Elmoth]

Ok, more progress.

The first one is "Dino", a Wasp 1A piloted by Nathan "Leaf" Washburne (Son of Zoe and Wash). It has a brown right arm as a mark of identity, since it used to belong to Malcolm's Browncoats. I am dong that will all the mechs of the unit: the right arm will be of different colors depending on the original allegiance of the mech owner.

The second is a mech that the Periphery people call "an Archer". It is a cobbled together thing that would NOT be called an archer 2 jumps in from the periphery, but it serves the same role and has the 2 LRM racks and the 4 medium lasers. Since it is a periphery design the medium lasers are quite inefficient and need to be massive. They are also reinforced to be used as clubs. So yes, it is a Clan mech, but I do not do clan invasion, so it has been repurposed as an ugly Archer.

Regarding the minis, They all came out darker than the original test urbanmech. I really liked how the urbanmech turned out, so I am disapointed I could not reproduce the color scheme. I think I might have mixed my blues and used a darker one here :/
- The Wasp came out well in contrast between the dark and the light, but the blue is really dark. a lighter one would have been better. 
- The commando was too dusty. "repairs" on it did not solve the issue completely. it seems a little bit flat.
- The "archer" has a dark white. A little bit darker than intended, really, but when I tried to raise the color it did not come up well.

In all cases I avoided an intermediate off-white step that I did with the commando. That might be the reason why the white came out darker than in the test model.






Finally I painted a Tió. A traditional Catalan Christmas character that you feed with food scraps for a month and on the 25th of December brings you gifts.

[Elmoth]

And the second picture.

[Elmoth]

Next batch. I did the basic colors tonight. Waiting for the nuln oil wash to be done tomorrow.

The different right arm colors represent the origin of the unit and it's pilot. It is painted in the color chosen by the pilot, really. The grey MAD will be dark grey after the oil, so I hope to paint a white line on it and make it Canopian. The green Cronus (ex SHD) is Capellan, of course, while the red WHM can belong to anyone, but I guess it will be Canopian as well (haven't worked on that pilot's story yet).

[anarchy]

Oh, I like what you are doing here. Nice mechs!

[worktroll]

Something to consider. Before you do the nuln oil wash, try a very very dry brush of lighter blue over the blue sections. If the brush is really dry, you just get a ghosting of the lighter colour on raised edges. They stand out a little more, even after the nuln.

[Elmoth]

Too late xD
I will do normal drybrushing when the oil is dry. Thanks for the idea in any case. I have not considered doing highlights before the oil.

[Elmoth]

Well, finished with the Nuln Oil and the follow up with the white drybrush.

Minis in the back were the ones already painted for reference and the RFL, the last mech I am going to paint in this scheme.

I did NOT hedge drybrush white on the Warhammer or Archer. I can always go back and do it, but right now the base color + light Nuln oil is looking good on the legs and arms of both mechs so will see how the others turn out regarding coherence with them before I do anything more on those 2.

The others (the 3 55 toners and the MAD) are going to have their colors in arms and legs rised again with the base color.

[Elmoth]

Ok, more progress.

all base colors finished except in the WHM and ARC (blues need to be raised with white and toned down again with a blue light wash) and the RFL, that needs all the drybrush and toning down done (it is a late comer to the party!!)

Quite happy with current results, especially with the green in the Shadow Hawk's (well, Cronus, actually) arm and the general appearence of the Griffin.

Pictures:

[worktroll]

Looking very sharp there! What are you planning to do about basing?

[jimdigris]

 

[Elmoth]

I am having trouble deciding the tertiary colors. Fornthe gun barrels, cockpit glasses, and the like. Any suggestions? I tried with gumboot metal.for the gun barrels. Ok for the Griffin and Wolverine, but for the Rifleman, shadow hawk and other long barrels it looks extremely lame. Any ideas?

[worktroll]

Best metal effects usually go with black base, then drybrushing a thin layer of gunmetal on top of that.

Gunmetal with a wash of Nuln Oil can work well for grilles & accordion joints, but will look bad on simple surfaces like long, cylindrical gunbarrels with no relief.

[Elmoth]

Yeah, I know.
Th thing is that it looks bad even using that. The gunmetal does not seem to fit with the general colors of the mini if the piece is large, like a Rifleman or Marauder gun barrel. :/

[worktroll]

Then paint the long barrels the base colour, and only do the metallics if there's some sort of feature at the tip?

Check out my recent post, the Warhammer barrels are coloured, not metal.

[Elmoth]

Ok. Details painted. Lasers are now GW goblin green.
Any suggestion on color and technique to do the cockpits?

[worktroll]

Okay, one suggestion - black, particularly gloss black, will work well. It almost always does. Gloss means it self-highlights with reflections.

Normally for cockpits I think about the colour wheel. Grey's dominant, but blue is next in line, so red/orange - as long as the red is different enough from the maroon arms. If you want a more reflective colour, paint the cockpits silver, and then apply a light coat of yellow/red/orange ink.

And then there's metallic green. I think that goes with pretty much anything.

And for another option, fake jewelling. I can't tell you how to do real jewelling, but I have a half-decent substitute. The Assassin is the clearest view of it. Works best with not large, curved cockpits eg. old Beemer.



So,

1) Base the cockpit. Black works with everything.
2) Use a fine brush, lightly white out a crescent filling one bottom corner
3) Hit with coloured ink - any on black, yellow works well on red
4) Add a tiny white highlight spot towards the opposite corner.

Hopefully some ideas there!

[Elmoth]

Ok. Since this is my first big batch of mechs I do not want to screw up now. So I will go for the easiest suggestion and paint them black + gloss varnish. Maybe not the most wonderful system, but certainly one I can work with and be satisfied with the result. If I mess up now I will hate myself! I will try the other technique in a smaller batch, like a lance-sized unit.

Now, the lasers and PPC: they suck. The goblin green and sky blue of the PPC just do not contrast at all with the white/blue scheme of the mechs as you can see in the images below. IN the images they appear OK since they are like x3 the size of the actual mech, but they are invisible wheh you have them in your hand.
The case of the PPC is not as dramatic, but the lasers just do not cut it.
Would it be problematic to paint them red?

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[MarauderD]

I think the hint of color on the weapons is fine.  Would it be nice if we could jewel lenses like the CamoSpecs team?  Sure.

Can I jewel lenses like the CamoSpecs team?  HAHAHA. No. 

You can always watch a few jeweling videos if you want to work on it, but I think the PPC's and lasers add a clear indication of what they are as is.  But in the light provided, they are clearly weapons.  Good work!

[Valkerie]

Nothing wrong with painting the lasers red.  The ones I'm working on right now have bright green panels, so green lasers would have blended right in.  Thus I'm using red for all the lasers.

What was your process for painting the PPCs?

[worktroll]

You can always use metallics for the weapons. I tend to - but don't always - go metallic blue for PPCs, metallic red for lasers, and black for ballistics/gauss.

[Elmoth]

PPC were done very easy.
- Paint white over the base color
- mix medium Vallejo blue with pure white to get a sky blue color. Apply a smaller dot than the white area in there. Done.

Ok. Moving to black cockpits and red lasers tonight.

I do not have metallic paints except silver, so will apply a dot of orange-y red to the laser bits and consider it done

[MarauderD]

Something you might try:

When doing weapons:  put that metallic silver under the colors.  Then put a thinned out coat of color on top.  It will pop more.

This is especially true if you use the gemstone colors from GW.  FYI!

[worktroll]

Citadel are very clever and very good at what they do. If only the lids sealed properly ...

[Elmoth]

Ok, finished with them. Black cockpits looks great and the red lasers are MUCH better. Only thing remaining is taking pictures of the lot of them and painting the cockpits with a gloss varnish. Very happy with the result so far. Oh, and the bases are still to be decided, so the minis are not ready yet.

I couldn't take the pictures today because my 2.5 years old daughter asked me to paint some minis and to get her a "search and find (like a where is wally book) in IMPERIAL ROME". Now I have som elves in "autumn camo" and a children's book that fill my geek wargamer heart with pride. will post about them tomorrow as well.

[worktroll]

Just painting some DA minis with my granddaughter yesterday, similar age. Looks like she likes Republic Standing Guard & Canopians. 

[Elmoth]

Ok, ready.
Painted the cockpits black and lasers red. Flat colors in both cases. I might try to put bright seal on the cockpits, but apart from that and the bases they are done. Now moving to something else whie waiting for wave 2. Maybe I will.continue with the red-black kurita style unit you already saw. Or something else. Will decide in the next days.

[Elmoth]

And my daughter's entrance into the World of miniature painting:

[Elmoth]

There were 11 mecha there! I had to do one more.

A locust finishes the Aran Guard company, bases and background pendin. Details in black because it is an ex Black Warrior.



And a bad family photo

[Elmoth]

Today I was classifying my kickstarter stuff.

My better half

[Elmoth]

Well, here comes my KS mech collection. And only collection really since I do not have metal mechs. Except 2 Stinger LAM that will go with the An Tings.

una

My original idea was to have an easy color scheme: white, blue, red, green and tan teams. But somehow painting the kuritas as SoL do not appeal to me.

Anyway, distribution and painting projects.

UP LEFT. Aran Guard (company). Already painted, see posts above. painted ver similar to the Lothian Guard since their background story (that I need to finish writing...) is based in the Lothian/Illyrian/Circinus conflict of the 3030s

UP CENTER Arms of Thor (1 lance). Color scheme to be determined. 2 awesomes, 1 battlemaster and a shadow hawk that acts as a scout. The exact composition can still vary.

TOP RIGHT. An Ting legion (2 lances). the paradigmatic raiding force. All mechs move at 5/8 (10+" in Alpha strike) or faster. 2 LAM stingers missing from the picture. The 2 panthers are the ALAG version, which does not jump but moves 5/8. I decided to put the Locust in instead of a Phoenix Hawk to keep the swift lance as fast as it could be.
Colors: dark blue and silver details.

CENTER LEFT. lyran Guard (a whole company) . I have not fully decided on the assault mechs, but for the moment the Thug and the Cyclops are here. They act as Black Warriors painted as Lyrans (Black warriors always use the colors of other units when attacking to hide who they are). I had thought about painting them as Skye Rangers, but Skye Rangers don't seem to be sensible in the countrspin periphery border where the Illyrians, Lothians and Circinus Federation are.

CENTER RIGHT. Taurian concordat / fedsuns (2 lances)
The mechs are from Taurian production or from their neighbors. The lance below is 100% Taurian, and the upper one is a mix of Taurian troops with suns and capellan mechs. They will be painted red, or green. Still to be decided. The Taurian color schemes haven't impressed me much and I wish they could "count as" suns or cappies as well as Taurians, so I'm still looking for how to paint them.

DOWN LEFT. A mech that was sent to me with the box of legend mechs. It's from the clans. I do not know what mech it is, nor do I care too much since in 3025-3049 they do not exist, in the same way that there are other mechs of the clans distributed in the other troops that represent frankenmechs of the periphery. I'm trying to decide which mech of the inner sphere it represents. Marauder II?

DOWN CENTER UP. The Reavers (lance). Yolanda Saffron's unit. Red and sand colors.

DOWN CENTER DOWN. Malcolm's Browncoats (lance) . Jayne (3S banshee), Mal (blackjack), Zoe (wolverine) and River (experimental hatchetman with Nightsky stats). Sand / brown and red colors, but I may paint every mech differently. The 2 lightnings of Inara and Wash are missing (I still need to buy them). I'm not entirely convinced with the Banshee, because even though it is a beast (specially the 3S) it slows down the whole lance and I  ight change it for a thug or battlemaster. As I say, the assault mechs is where I still have doubts.


I have some work ahead 

[Elmoth]

Well, lets start the second wave of the kickstarter with the An Ting Legion.
Black primer
Medium blue (vallejo)
Nuln oil black wash (GW)

Tonight i have to raise the color with vallejo medium blue again.



I have my doubts about the middle wolverine. It was a test to see if a white primer would work. It did not. I tried to put several layers of black wash on it, but it is still too clear. The Locust (left of the picture) was primed with light grey primer (vallejo  a very light brown-based grey) with a black wash and can pass along well with the other members of the force. However the wolverine still stands out. Maybe I will need to re-prime it woth black.

The black wash was unnecessary. It was only made necessary because I applied too much blue on the mechs. If I had made a heavy drybrush it would have been unnecessary to apply the wash. I will take this as a personal warning for the future

[Elmoth]

Continuing. I've lined the pannels of a test Jenner. With ultramarine blue from the year before walking was invented (I think the pot is from GW 1994; from the pots of the coat of arms when it was sold by Citadel).

Excuse the shitty picture.


It looks ... decent? If there is light, at least. In low light, like indoors, the climb is too smooth.

And I hate the thing.

It took me like 3 hours to paint this watching WandaVision (and after seeing Loki the series is not up to expectations) and I to ended really fed up with the poor Jenner.

I'm somewhat frustrated right now. This is the FIRST rise of color of the test model. And I have 7-9 more mechs that need their color raised. And then there are the details to be painted still. This ain't good.

I will try to highlight another mech with a lighter blue to see how it ends up looking. Several raises are out of the question.  :/

[worktroll]

You see, this is where I use the ghostbrush technique. With the mini based in blue, I'd get a very dry wide brush with a lighter blue paint, and gently brush the mini. With the very low amount of paint on the mini, and with light pressure, it only comes off on the edges and provides the level of highlighting you're doing manually. It takes a little practice - mainly in getting enough paint off the brush - but highly effective in the right circumstances.

It also doesn't help that it's blue. Check my "proof of concept" thread. The 21st Centauri paintscheme is ... blue. And it's pretty boring by itself. I based in dark blue, then drybrushed (not ghostbrushed) in French Blue (which is coincidentally the same as Ultramarine Blue). Wasn't until I started the detailing - with an additional but non-canon dark grey trim - it came together. But came together it did. With single-colour schemes, the pop all comes out of the detailing. If you do the cockpits, joints, and weapons in metallic or other colours, you may warm to it.

And darn you for having your Wave 2 minis! Still waiting here, and seeing them online in retail shops, is 

[mbear]

Any suggestion on color and technique to do the cockpits?

Have you considered using nail polish for cockpits? It's really glossy and when it dries it's pretty tough.

[Elmoth]

I had not considered the nail polish idea, no. For the first batch I painted the cockpits black. Not ideal but workable. I still have not decided on color for the An Ting ones. seeing how a lot of people paint them silver and then a wash of a chosen color, I might take that approach myself. Nail polish might be too difficult to paint well? No idea really 

[marauder648]

Really nice work mate

[Elmoth]

Okay. Mech comparison.
The 2 in the center have had their edges painted (dunno the word for this in English: you see it in the painting). The centre right (jenner) with ultramarine blue and the one in the centre left (panther) with wolf gray (the leg only). Both GW paints. Those of the extremes are there for comparison reasons.



I'm still not sure about it, but I would say that the pather (grey one) looks better from a distance since the contradt is more extreme. I am finishing painting all the panels, so we will see when it is ready.

Of course, I'm going to hate painting these 10 mechs: / Painting all those edges is not hat I enjoy, as I'm taking about an hour PER LIMB, so around 4-6 hours per model ... Just to finish the basics.

In the process I have made a wet palette for myself. My friends who know me for NOT painting my miniatures in 30 years think that this is the breaking of the second seal of the apocalypse. I did it for the laughs … and have been taken aback afterwards with the results: The paint does not dry while I paint or from one day to the next!! Amazing. And it is EXTREMEY easy, since it  is just a tupperware, a cloth and an oven paper, and some water. Nothing more. Very easy to do and I recommend it.

[Elmoth]

the panther with its basic color coat finished. Now it is time for details, the silver lines, weapons and cockpit. The color is the one of the second picture, but I give you the single panther picture for some 8crappy picture) detailing.






I have been recommended to do the ghostbrush with makeup brushes. will try it with the second jenner or the wolverine since they have more volumes where to drybrush (the panther has more flat pannels) and see what results I get.

[Two Guns Blazing]

I like the highlighting on both Mechs, but the Wolf Grey does stand out more, and will be more noticeable from a distance.

[marauder648]

I'd go with the wolf grey too.

[Louie N]

Good edging.  The 2nd from left stands out

[Elmoth]

Ok. FINALLY ended the edging of the 8 mechs of the An Ting Legion I have hated it from the get go, but I am stubborn. Since I started this I have painted the ships from 1914 battles of the coronel and the falklands, written a resume of 3 years worth of weekly lord of the rings RPG gaming, read 2 books and bitched a lot about edging to my friends. But they are done. The base at least

Now on to deciding what parts to paint in silver and do details on them.

I have decided to halt the lyrans, though. I was planning to do them as donegal guards, but single color Mechs are a no go for me right now.

[Elmoth]

Ok, taking the brush on these again. Red, first layer.

[Elmoth]

Ok, an ting legion. No silver highlights since I made that border thing with the pannels, but thney look good enough anyway.

I hated profiling the pannels, but the final result is good. It took me 3 months to pain tthose because I was really fed up wioth the lining of the pannels (or whatever it is called) and couldn't bring muself to paint the details (reds, blacks and bases). But I finally did it to finish them.

I have used these to do aA LOT of new techniques for me.
- Painting the borders of the pannels
- paiting small Kurita suymbols
- testing the Vallejo basing material (that is super nice!)
- several types of undercoat to see what color
- tested the new Citadel shades Contrast colors (it didn't work well)
- tested several profiling colors

But in the end the result is this. 2 lances for a striker force that moves 5/8 or more. Drop, destroy or grab and flee.



Support lance. 2 panthers ALAG (no jump, move 5/8), wolverine and Dragon. Typical striker lance. 



Recon and skirmishing lance. Spider, jenner, jenner, locust.



Pictures are not that great. You can blame my phone and technique. The Kurita symbols specially ar enot good in here. I wil truy to take better pictures of those.

Aaaaand we are finished with these!!! WOHOOOO!!!! FINALLY!!! Now out to get something else to paint.
I am not profiling a pannel in my life ever again.

Cheers,
Xavi

[Elmoth]

I gave a dire wolf to my (almost) 4 year old daughter to paint, but we lost it due to a gust of wind that made the priming box fly off the balcony when it was drying. So i gave her one beamer.

She had the task of defining the colors of the Arms of Thor mercenary unit. I like what she did, so we will build from that.