Painting the bases and varnishing glossies

I started this session by painting the various canopy bits with new creamy white dots. This wasn't important enough to take photos of each just to show I did it, as they were going to be visible in the next photos anyway.

Disgusting browns

On the bases I painted some sort of a haphazard layer of dirty brown (VMA 71133 Dirt), and as a result this made each of the hex bases look like my 'Mechs were ankle-deep in a dog playground. Then I painted with a different emphasis some woody brown (VMA 71077 Wood) that didn't really improve the overall look much, if at all. After giving these paints a short bit to dry, I applied a wash (VMW 76513 Brown) over the bases.

They really looked disgusting, but I was going for a nasty muddiness. Maybe I could use some acrylic still water on some dots, or something, later on.

As one simple detail I finally painted the Summoner's LRM-15 launcher's tubelike bits with a rubbery paint (VMA 71315 Tire Black). Not to make them look like they were some rubber hoses, but to separate them from the camo and the other parts but not so much that they'd stand out like a Pride parade in Moscow.

Gloss varnish on the !glasses

All the canopy pieces and the energy weapon lenses got a layer of Gloss Varnish (Vallejo 70510). Each of the death ray tubes would need three layers, the canopies would be fine with one. At this point I only had time to do one layer only, as they would need to cure for a day before the next layer could be applied. Also, this was nothing that would need to be photographed every time.

 

These five Points were just about done now. Playing with the gloss coat would take a few days, but that wouldn't even need to be mentioned considering active project time.

All I knew I still had to do was to paint the edges of the hex bases, maybe I could paint the first edges with a jade highlight (to mark what was "forward" for the 'Mech). Maybe I could spend fifteen minutes in trying out how the dark steel pigment would look in this scale, there were quite a few non-metallic bits to experiment on.