Project mumblings: July 2022

Seven fresh from the oven

Working at a pretty rapid assembly line washion the fifteen individuals were finished. The work depicted in these eleven work phase posts contained more than just 11 * 45min, but not insanely much more. Still this ate at least nine hours, most likely about ten. As numbers alone it may have sounded like a lot, but considering the amount of pondering and such (and being used to my own pace lately) it was a pretty damn rapid for a Project Mumblings project.

As miniatures the CGL pieces were pretty good, bulkier and much more natural in their poses than the somewhat older IWM miniatures. Maybe I could do a silly comparison photo post at some point between the CGL plastics vs IWM metallics. At least I had a Timber Wolf, a Nova, an Executioner and some Elementals. I really didn't recall owning an Adder, but I most definitely didn't have a single Grendel, that was for sure.

Timber Wolf Prime #201

A 75-ton Heavy OmniMech, armament: 2xERLLas, 2xERMLas, 1xMPLas, 2xLRM20, 2xMG. Walking ankle-deep in some nasty crap.

Nova Prime #202

A 50-ton Medium jump-capable machine, armament: 12xERMLas. Alpha striking with this one you'll shut down immediately and without exception, but the damage caused could climb into insanity at best.

Executioner Prime #203

I have been saying how little I liked this 95-ton Assault 'Mech. At least this one was less ghoul-like than the skinny IWM model. The armament didn't really inspire to much: in addition to the LA Gauss cannon the RA had 2xERLLas and the 2xMG were hidden somewhere out of sight. Despite the always handy Jump Jets this was just a horrendous 'Mech in my books.

Adder Prime #204

As a Light 'Mech the 35-ton fast bugger with its Targeting Computer -linked 2xERPPC had my symphaties. The flamer has never been a weapon much used in the games I've got to play, but then again, in principle a flamer is always a correct option.

Grendel Prime #205

The series' only completely new 'Mech to me, Grendel, the 45-ton Medium 'Mech was clearly built around the RA-located ERLLas. The RT had an SSRM6 launcher and a 2x ERMLas in the LA (I had no idea where the third one was installed), and a final silly ERSLas most likely installed in the head.

Off topic: one of my Salvage Boxes had another Grendel, that claimed to be a different variant but IIRC the miniature was physically exactly the same. That was going to warrant some customization.

Elemental Point - G9TC Elemental One 1

This subtitle's assignment info (C Trinary > Elemental Star 1 > Point 1) was just a placeholder, just so that is out in the clear. These folks here made me think of a hidden deployment Point, that was just about to swarm an enemy who just stumbled into the next hex.

In my opinion the jump effect on those two Elementals looked disturbingly nice in these photos. Confusing.

Elemental Point - G9TC Elemental One 2

The Point 2 Warriors were pretty much as successful a set as the first one. For some reason I liked the jump effect here a bit less. Still, they were a disheartening sight for anyone finding them next to their 'Mech (or a plain Vehicle) without any sort of an advance warning.

Finalization rounds

My fifteen accomplished Warriors in their equipment were just about done now. Only their surroundings were missing from the photos, the black hex bases were supremely boring and all the previous ones were either sand-based or watery (or a mix of those). Now that I had a set of fresh and nasty mud types I had to put them to good use.

Icky icky goo for the legs

For starters I just made a decent mess on the bases and the feet of the 'Mechs, using my arsenal of crap. Euromud (VWE:Thick Mud 73807 European Mud) provided the first layer in pretty silly amounts. The bits that didn't get covered with the euromud got topped up with some black mud (VWE:Thick mud 73812 Black Mud), with the edges mixed and messed a bit to prevent it looking too planned and artificial.

After these main layers I used here and there some mud-grass glop (VWE:Environment 73826 Mud and Grass). My partner was looking at this from the side and said that they honestly looked disguting. I took that as high praise in this context.

The way my poor elementals were trodding in waste was looking really, really unpleasant. Luckily they were wearing Power Armour anyway, unlike traditional ground troops.

An attempt at the heat effect

Over the years I have encountered a couple of articles and picture series of how to achieve a decent-looking heat-ruined metal surface. Mostly these have been about exhaust pipes and whatnot. I thought that the boring and uninteresting Executioner would be fruitful ground for a test that could always be overpainted again, if needed.

For this attempt I used the Citadel washes I had bought a good bunch of years, one of which I had put into such a good place that I couldn't even find it anymore, so I didn't use the full possible array. What I did was to generally follow the example: first I washed almost the full barrel's lenght with sepia (Citadel Shade: Seraphim Sepia); then starting from the business end, working on a shorter length, I mixed in some violet (Citadel Shade. Druchii Violet); and finally the shortest length got some sort of blue (Citadel Shade: Drakenhof Nightshade).

Time was of the essence, so that they colour layers didn't dry up while I was working on the Gauss cannon. I mixed the washes around the layer edges, but pretty gently as I didn't want the whole barrel to be just covered in some undescribable mess. This effect wasn't very trong, but I also wasn't looking for anything comic-like and bright.

Add some muddy water

When my mud effects had cured I wanted to add a bit more to their nastiness. Each of the bases got some randomly sized and -shaped puddles of Vallejo's acrylic water (Vallejo Water Texture: 26235 Still Water) and when that had cured in turn I used some water texture (Vallejo Water Texture: 26591 Transparent Water) on the puddle edges. This step could've or maybe even should've been done in the reverse order. Didn't look wrong this way, either.