Fine-tuning the trash can's paintjob

Tweakage

Right. First I had to fix the lower legs and the head, because their cold colour didn't work together with the other, warm tones. The cold grey was also a step or two lighter than what I looked for, so I started by squirting some cold grey on my palette stand-in. To that I mixed two drops of German Grey and two drops of red (VMA 71003 Red RLM23). This looked more like what I was looking for already on the old jam jar's lid, so I tried it out on one of the knees right next to a green area. The difference between these two greys on the mini wasn't huge, but the effect on the mini, when comparing two slightly different knees with their surroundings was incredible.

The last time I was pondering a bit if the boots/feet ought to have been toned towards green to follow the sprite's look a bit more, but I didn't want to make this too complicated for myself. So I decided to use the same customized grey on both the legs and the head.

While those were drying I took some black (VMA 71057 Black) to paint the viewports, the bottom of the AC/10 and the lenses of different lasers. After that I highlighted the various valves, vents and whatnots with German Grey to highlight them a bit before the upcoming oil washes.

Highlighting greens

Just to try something out I mixed the soviet-style 3B green with a couple of drops of brighter green (VGA 72730 Goblin Green) and did a stronger edge-based highlighting on the upper, more sun-kissed green surfaces of the mini. Just like I highlighted the Archer's red armour panels with Ferrari Red, but here the effect could've been a bit stronger, even.

The next evening I continued with my highlighting activities with slightly stronger (brighter) colours. First I fixed what mis- or underpainted bits, then painted thin lines along the various edge with yellow ochre.

To emphasize the greens I did similar thin lines on the edges and upper ends of the panels. This time I didn't mix up paints but used the Goblin Green straight from the bottle.

Skin and metal fixes

On the skinny parts I repainted the biggest gaps that I saw with the Vallejo's wood colour, then did some yellow ochre highlights on the upper edges of the panels. Or wherever the light was supposed to mostly hit.

Lastly I fixed a couple of the metallic bits (the nozzles of the Jump Jets, for example) and as a simple detail I painted the cockpit hatch hinge with German Grey. Maybe the dark grey bits could benefit from a similar edge highlighting as the rest of the parts, a cold grey with a drop of red might be just the thing. Skipping the German Grey from that would keep it bright enough, but hopefully not too bright.

Grey boots and the helmet

Again I mixed a new wonder paint: a random squirtful of German Grey got two drops of RLM red mixed in. That ended up being a bit too red, so I added a bit of Stonewall Grey (VGA 72749) into it. Using this mixture I painted some highlights using my bestest of skills (*snicker*).

Perhaps that did something good for the mini. I used this same paint to highlight the german grey bits too, to get their details a bit more visible.

Uniqueness

To avoid this one to suffer the same fate as my previous one (the mine-clearing T-34/76), I decided to add insignia right now, before washes or weatherings. As the paintjob's inspiration came from Doom and some kind of a unit was to be conjured up, I felt it was obvious: Union Aerospace Corporation. That fit the corporate world of BattleTech like a berserk punch into someone's spleen.

These four samples told me what I needed, I had enough freedom for the insignia. I thought I'd implement this with tiny triangle-shaped masking tape pieces and two grey circles. Depending on my feeling at the moment, I'd either do them with one shade or like the blue one in the bottom, using two greys. Attempting to paint the UAC characters wasn't something I thought I could do in this scale, so the corporate logo had to be enough.

For the masking I just cut a tiny triangle-shaped piece off a slice of masking tape. This triangle was about three times too large, so I only used the tip of it. The tiny piece got pressed on a visible place on the top left leg. I decided to try to do smaller ones in the shins, so I cut two tiny triangles from the edges of the original one. There was some cautious optimism here, despite me knowing that my skills at painting freehand circles with paintbrushes were at absolute zero.

In my hubris I thought for a moment if I should paint them in different greys, so I started with cold grey. As the first circle became a shapeless blob I just did a couple of dots next to each other, positioning them over the three masks.

After removing the masking tape pieces I had no cause for celebration, but that was to be expected. I was still disappoinged with my inability to paint these simple, tiny things: especially the top left leg's main one was foul. On the shins the left one was a bit more tolerable. Still, a crappy idea and I shouldn't have tried this in a tiny mini and scale.

Maybe the Urbie could be saved with some oils. The mini wasn't going to be stared at at these distances, the painting mistakes didn't glare at me when looking at the mini in person, but they did stand out shamefully in the closeups.