Oil painting

A slow-drying weathering operation

The story so far: I had painted the BattleMech in two short painting sessions on two consecutive evenings. After this I'd have to let my paintwork dry a bit longer, from a couple of days to up to a week, depending on how my calendar behaved.

Sepia

Preparing the wash for panel lines and gentle shadows was becoming familiar: a small dollop of paint (ABT002 Sepia) onto the palette, add drops of thinner until the result got thin enough. Now I didn't get too stressed about overapplying the wash somewhere, as I knew that it went away quickly and easily whenever I wanted.

Edge by edge, corner by corner I applied my wash on the panel lines and all the darkenable surfaces. On the LRM launchers the effect was quite nice, even though I hadn't drilled the individual missile ports open. When I had applied my wash thoroughly, I wiped off the excesses pretty soon after. I wanted to keep the flat surfaces, especially the topmost ones and the forearms, clean while the joints, corners, nooks and crannies were allowed to remain darker.

This was the state I left it, to dry in peace. The shininess would be mostly gone by the next day, but it wasn't going to be touch-dry anytime soon, but sooner than if I had applied thicker paint. In any case I decided to give it a few days to begin with.

Three days later the Archer's look was somewhat more subdued. Now it was ready for the next treatment or toning this effect up or down. I was pretty happy with the panels and the shadows, so I didn't give it a new treatment.

I had pondered if I should give this 'Mech a dot filter, but I was a bit worried about getting carried away and the effect not working that well in a small-scale item like this. A gentle lightening, on the other hand, sounded nice so I decided to go for it. Lightly.

Buffaliciousness

I chose a random, very small amount of spots where I applied a dot of paint (ABT035 Buff) with a toothpick. The colours and the sizes of the dots made this look almost symphatetic and something completely different from a warmachine from the future. It was almost a shame to not leave them be.

As instructed by smarter and better people, I blended the dots away with a rolling motion using my round-tipped blending brush. Then I left the mini to wait for a better day:

The effect was pretty strong when wet. For comparison purposes I took a quick set of photos a couple of days later. Of course I ruined any kind of comparability by taking these photos in a different lighting set, opposite corner of the apartment and at a very different time of day.

I felt the efffect worked better with a bare eye, but I also didn't spend that much time setting up my photos. Hopefully they gave some sort of an idea anyway.