Blood Spirit Alpha - sepia attack

Pin washing

This section was going to be pretty much the same as in the previous ones: I made a thin wash with Abteilung's Sepia to enhance the panel lines and bring the tans and reds together a bit. I started with the Mediums in the back row, where it showed how my wash was a bit thinner there than the portion I applied on the front row's Light Omnis.

After the oil paint had flashed in the sauna overnight, I cleaned up the worst excesses. Then I returned them in the sauna for the thinner to evaporate. Now the key difference between the photo above and the one below was that they were taken under different lights, thanks to the other cat had reserved my usual table corner as her napping place.

After another night-day cycle inside the unheated sauna the minis were ready for the next step. I hadn't quite made up my mind on what that actually was, but my options were pretty much narrowed down to two paths.

Mist Lynx's Galaxy emblem might require a thin line of off-white along the bottom edge of the octagon, the red drop had gone too far low. In the same way the Clan emblem's droplet had too low contrast after drying, even if it stood out more while wet.

I properly liked the way the Shadow Cat's Gauss Rifle looked like now, nicely worn. While writing this I was thinking very hard if I should attempt to do the heat-distortion with the washes or not. The dark grey surface just didn't sound like a fruitful canvas.

Like I said earlier, Ice Ferret's oil wash had had a much subtler effect than most others.

Stormcrow's top torso lines would've benefited from some masking instead of pure freehanding. This was another thing that just didn't come to me while working on it.

My Kit Fox had a nicely worn look on it now, and the LB-5X had a neat aged effect, despite the mold line. This one had a bandlike window that worried me to no end. Maybe something could be saved by highlighting the sensor packet under the cap in the middle of the forehead, something like a yellowish lens that wouldn't get confused with the actual viewport.

Blood Spirit Alpha - detailing

Endo-steel

My default recipe got into use again. I painted all bits that I felt like they were unpainted steel, using dark grey (VMA 71055 Black Grey RLM66). This incomplete list of mine included things like the weapon barrels, all sorts of grilles, vents, nozzles, sensor pods, and various joints. Once again, all this was directed by my guts, I didn't believe in using "Part X always looks like Y" checklists.

Kit Fox

Mist Lynx

Stormcrow

Stormcrow

Shadow Cat

Drybrushing the steely highlights

As my drybrush-highlighter I used cold grey (VGA 72750). To make my process quicker, I wrote down the essential equipment like the weaponry and Jump Jets for each 'Mech on a sticky note. After the drybrushing I painted all of the viewport panels and orifices black.

Stormcrow

Here the reds felt good, as long as I cleaned up the right side's overpaintings. I could also add some steel into the ankles or knees.

 

Shadow Cat

On this one the biggest question mark was the Gauss Rifle. The previous one I painted on a metallic paint and I had attempted the heat-distortion effect with a number of washes (Citadel's paints, most likely dry in their bad pots after a couple of years) .

The shadow-loving kitty might benefit from a bit more pure metal in its lower legs for added variety.

Mist Lynx

Mist Lynx's right bicep needed metallifying. Also most of its upper torso surfaces needed some sandy touching up.

Ice Ferret

I noticed a pattern emerging: the legs/feet needed more steel on them. The Torso and Arms felt ok. As a funny detail I noticed from these photos was the round piece on the roof hatch. It was just like the vent cover on the turret of a Panther or Königstiger but in a smaller scale.

Kit Fox

I was pretty content with the Kit Fox, maybe it needed a bit of steel in its ankles.

 

This drybrushing result baffled me slightly. Before I started drybrushing I made sure practically nothing was left on the piece of paper towel when brushing on it. Still the effect was this strong on the mini.

Fixing and roundeling

I painted the Clan and Galaxy roundels badly, as my skillessness directed me. First I painted the octagonal whiteish shape for the Alpha, and a red droplet inside it. For the Clan roundel I painted dark grey circles, which I filled with a slightly orangeish circle, and made a red drop into that one. In this scale, especially on Kit Fox and Mist Lynx that was pretty difficult for someone as bad at drawing as I was.

 

While I was touching up here and there, I fixed especially the sands and the dark greys wherever my eyes caught something. I also added more dark grey in the legs and especially ankles. I doublechecked each five minis, so maybe nothing was forgotten.

 

Maybe I should've painted the hex bases at this point, but I simply ran out of time. Not that it made a difference for the end result, I just found the clean grounds much more eye-friendly.

Blood Spirit Alpha - trimming with red

Turning Red

I kept on adding more reds that I had started with the previous time. A good bunch of these minis had Hands, so I decided that red fists was going to be a thing. Beyond that the trims went on based on the gut feeling, as usual.

Stormcrow

Shadow Cat

Ice Ferret

Kit Fox

Mist Lynx

 

Next I was going to iterate through the bare Endo-steel parts, which would give me a pretty good view on how the overall style of this Star was going to be, and based on that I could add or just modify the red trims as needed. These photos also showed painfully clearly how some of the sandy yellows were a bit too thinly laid on. All of these I'd touch up before the pin wash.

Blood Spirit Alpha - basecoat

A sandy base

Camospecs told us that the Alpha Galaxy's scheme was a utilitarian camo of desert tans with red trims. In the photos all of the minis were pretty much sandy coloured so that's what I was going for as well. My minis were primed black much earlier, so that part was again skipped here. Like I said the last time, the Sand Yellow (VMA 71028) I had bought for the DAK Panzer IV fit thematically like a glove. As if all this was planned years in advance.

I overbrushed the paint, using multiple layers, the idea being that all surfaces would get covered but the brightest coverage would be over where the light touched the mini. This was some kind of a semi-zenithal approach. Using an airbrush this would've been much more effective and the coverage would've been better from the get-go. I just didn't have the actual time to set up my airbrushing setup for these few evenings, and I felt that the maskless painting didn't exactly require airbrushing.

As the photos showed, I left most of the to-be-dark bits untouched. This included things like the weapons, joints, and other grilles and vents.

Starting with reds

While I had some little time left I thought I'd try out how the red trims (VMA 71003 Red RLM23) would work on the 'Mechs. That Ice Ferret on the right was clearly the one that I had started with. As my time running out I just foreached the other four, to get each of them at least something red to see where that would lead me to.

 

This'd work out just nicely. It was also lots of fun to paint something new.

Project IX/24

Blood Spirits

I had a fascinating selection of 'Mechs in my stack of ForcePack boxes. Some of these boxes I had bought only because of one mini, as all my favourites were naturally spread around the different sets. The 3rd Falcon Talon that I had been working slowly over the years pulled the heavier classes, and the lighter ones were just hanging around. I had to figure out a home for them, preferably a Star at a time so I didn't end up in the same situation as with the previously finished Ghost Bear Star: an easy dozen years between the first and last Points.

 

From these three boxes I semirandomly plucked five Mediums and Lights to painted somehow. At this point I didn't want to paint them as Falcons, and I didn't feel like making more Ghost Bears either. The thought of having a quintet of Wolves to be hunted interested me, and their pretty easily recognizeable scheme was the grey-tan of the Beta Galaxy. Also the Smoke Jaguar's Alpha and Beta Galaxies were just different greys, and I just didn't feel like painting more grey stuff right now. Something made me half-excited about the titular Clan Blood Spirit and their Alpha Galaxy that was a desert tan with red highlights. Here I could also use more of my quite nice sandy yellow I bought for the earlier Panzer IV model.

Miniproject VIII/24

Repaintings from start to finish

You may have noticed how I've pondered a bunch of times to repaint all of my old energy weapons. One of these afternoons, on a somehow annoying day, after the workday was done, I decided to do something enjoyable with the hour I had all for myself. Spoiler alert: after a bit of tinkering I felt good again.

I spent some time rummaging through my CGL boxes and my hunch was wrong: only the Clan box OmniMechs and the Shilone were unjeweled. I had truly been prepared to paint a good bunch more, but on this one afternoon it was a perfect amount. Of course I had a couple of dozen of IWM minis to be repainted, but that wasn't going to be done in one random hour.

Before getting any further I checked the specs from TRO and Sarna, so I'd get a correct amount of proper lenses per miniature. A bit later I realized that I had forgotten the Jump Jets, that I painted as the last item on the list, after also checking the specs before touching a drop of paint.

Grendel

The Grendel had a good amount of paintables for me: one large, three mediums and a small one. Sillily in the stock pose the miniature's Right Arm was pointing downwards which hid 40% of the lenses when looking at the mini from a gaming angle.

ER Small Laser

This set of minis only had one of the Extended Range flashlights and that lived in the Right Arm of this Grendel. Because it wasn't the large pipe, the only option was the bit above it. The bit that I had decided to act as the rangefinder of Grendel A's AC.

The red paint was, in addition to be reserved for the difficultly tiny ERSLas lens, a good paint for the viewports of the five OmniMechs, so I also repainted all of their cockpits. They'd show up on their photos in turn, as I didn't take separate cockpit painting photos. I actually took no work in progress photos of any of the subparts in this miniproject, now that I thought of it.

 

ER Medium Laser x3

This time I knew to paint the green lens on Grendel's forehead, to compensate for my ignorance (or lack of accuracy) two years ago, to compound with my stupidities starting with that ERSLas mentioned above. The whole ERMLas tripled got the exact same Escorpena Green treatment.

 

ER Large Laser

I've grumbled a lot about Grendel's pose, but I felt that despite that I managed decently with the Magical Blue lense and its anime effect. Sadly it wasn't visible on the tabletop.

 

Jump Jet

No surprises here: the JJ nozzles were a bit odd, and I guess I could've thinned my blues down a bit more for a smoother transitionset. They worked better seen from a more respectful distance, which was a good thing.

Puma

Not much to redo for the Puma, just the ERPPCs that I had earlier apparently left untouched. What could explain that? Maybe I had used a blue wash that just didn't show up too clearly after flashing.

ER PPC

Like I said, I had already painted the windows while working on Grendel's small laser jewel, so at least we had something else to show next to the Particle Projection Cannons. Unlike with the laser lenses, I tried to get a more central concentration for the glow effect. To my bare eyes they looked better than on the camera's viewpoint, but then again, what didn't?

Executioner

Again this fugly monstrosity was in my hands. While admiring the "before" photo, it was a perfect moment to praise a painting resource I encountered around the end of the summer: Camospecs Canon cockpit painting compendium, vol 1. That one showed me that the Executioner's cockpit windows weren't quite as Atlaslike as I had thought but the middle panel was a window as well, not armour.

ER Large Laser

Here my jeweling looked clearly better than in the photo right above, especially as these nicely warned of the weapon's class. Also the missing viewport was painted correctly and I could sleep my nights better.

Jump Jet

The mere thought of an Assault like this jumping around, even if for short distances, was disturbing.

Timber Wolf

I was positively looking forward to work on the Timber Wolf, even if I still wasn't going to put my hands into the wrong-looking LRM warhead caps.

ER Large Laser x2

Looking at these photos the Timber Wolf's ER Large Lasers were otherwise great, but especially on the RA edge had some old red stains ruining the full image. Maybe I'd poke them with a mix of dark grey + red, and turn the messy paintjob into a fresh and totally purposeful chipping.

ER Medium Laser x2, Medium Pulse Laser

The medium-class laser's brighter shade wasn't that much different from my base, unlike what I expected. That meant that the jewel effect ended up being a bit gentler than I intended. The barrels were also quite small, so there wasn't that much space for my sausages to fine-control a tiny brush.

Nova

The tubery that resurfaced vivid memories of Marko's "ALPHA STRIKE!" exclamations looked a bit intimidating, but it was just two sets of six each, so how much time could they require? Especially considering my painting skills.

ER Medium Laser x12

A dozen laser lenses were jeweled much quicker than what I feared. Waiting for the next red-hot and semi-suicidal alpha strike...

Jump Jet

My third and last jump-capable 'Mech was pretty easily nozzled up. I liked to paint this shape of JJ nozzles than the ones on Grendel, for example, even if those kinda looked more like the part.

Shilone SL-17

When I started I only intended to paint the three lasers, as I had been content with the cockpit. I actually had to search for the LL for a bit and I had to admit that I needed to check its location from Sarna to get the correct piece painted.

Large Laser

The laser lived comfortably between the sensorsets, right next to the cockpit. The nub for the laser was pretty small, and a bit difficult to paint comfortably, but now it looked more like a lense than before.

Medium Laser x2, cockpit

Did you guess already? My original canopy set was just plain green, so while I was already painting jeweling on the Medium Lasers in the wings, I also did the three viewport panels. That round one on top was like a big lens, so I just followed my usual jewel method. Those rectangular ones got a more or less L-shaped things on them, where the brightest reflections were aligned with the centerline of the frame.

 

The lower front pane immediately reminded me of a Lego computer and that was always a good thing. I wish I knew how to do something like that on purpose instead of accident...

Group photo

I took a quick shot of the bits standing abreast facing this way and that way. The cockpits looked generally improved, and I really liked that the energy weapons were clearer and they also brought a tiny bit of variation into the camo-schemed miniatures.

Individual photos

I did shoot a set of these photos of the sextet, while I was taking the final photos of V/24 in the same run. One of each, here ya go: