Finished: Project VI/25

Two Clan people

This was the first time I did this sort of a mass operation. Painting two very different schemes in parallel wasn't specially time consuming or more complicated than concentrating on one. Maybe this was slightly more productive, as I could work on one gang while the other one was drying instead of just packing my stuff away until the next painting session.

Hell's Horses

A Star of Hell's Horses 'Mechs brought more colour to my odd collection of BattleTech minis. Each of the Clans were not represented by a minimum tactical amount of units, I didn't see a reason to paint singles or less than five Points on purpose. My main reason for choosing the Hell's Horses was the peculiar paintjob and that they were politically Crusaders.

Fire Moth

The fastest of the Light tripled was a Fire Moth that ran over 200pkh with its MASC-powered legs. It originated from the Ghost Bears.

Such a fast one was naturally a bit lighter on the offensive side: two ER Medium Lasers in its praying mantis -like arms, and both SRM-6 and SRM-4 launchers. The larger launcher was in the Right Arm and the other one above the cockpit.

Cougar

On the opposite side of the Light class was stolen from Jade Falcons at some point. The Prime configuration had ER Large Lasers in both Arms and LRM-10 launchers on shoulders. I liked the twin ER PPC -carrying B config so much more myself.

Huntsman

The first Medium 'Mech was a Diamond Shark -designed jump-capable 50-tonner whose production rights ended up at some point to the Nova Cats. The clearly heavier weapons load was much more punchy on this one: four ER Medium Lasers, a Streak SRM-6, an LRM-10 with Artemis IV, an UAC/2, an unmodeled Flamer, topped up with two AP Pods against infantry.

Pack Hunter

This Star's second jump-capable unit was a one-trick dog from the Wolf-in-Exile. On its right shoulder the Pack Hunter carried a lone ER PPC, and it was a pretty quick one on its feet to make the most out of its one weapon.

Nova

Nova was designed by the Hell's Horses, this invididial had been marching in the Jade Falcon Touman for a couple of decades before returning back home. The Prime config was, as we have admired before, built around 12 ER Medium Lasers. Alpha striking with those got your Omni shut down pretty quickly. In case that wasn't enough heat for the pilot, it also sported Jump Jets for a true sauna session.

Jade Falcon

No excuses were required to paint Jade Falcons, maybe I needed some motivation to keep completing the three Trinaries instead of painting individual Stars halfway quickly. This triplet was at this point, for record-keeping, in the second Trinary's third Star. I'd get to the actual assignments when the whole Cluster was done. Each of these Points was gloriously won Isorla.

Nova Cat #232

Nomen est omen, the Nova Cat was a Totem 'Mech by the Nova Cats. This kitty had long and sharp claws: one hand had two ER PPCs and the other one three ER Large Lasers.

Kingfisher #231

This over a hundred year old 90-tonner was designed by the Snow Ravens, and its design was based on an even older 'Mech from the Not-Named-Clan. So, we didn't talk about them much. Being an Assault unit it carried a fun array of tools with somehow funny placements: one of the Large Pulse Lasers was in the arm, while its pair was in the middle of the torso. A pair of Medium Pulse Lasers were installed in the shoulders, an LRM-10 in the side like on the Atlas, and an SRM-6 in the Left Arm. Below the SRM was a single ER Small Laser.

Crossbow #234

This model was a couple of centuries old as well. Designed by the Steel Vipers, a second generation OmniMech was funnily armed only with LRM-20 launchers in its arms. At least they had the Artemis IV fire control, but it was a bit weird considering the Clan style. The reason for the weapons living only in the arms was that the development team couldn't make the OmniPods work anywhere else. For this same reason the older Crossbow frames couln't use Jump Jets.

Finished: Project V/25

Starscream

The number two guy of the Decepticons, their Air Boss, and the fool who was constantly trying to undermine mighty Megatron's power, always failing in his coup attempts, Starscream was immediately recognizeable. Or he was if you were at least a fraction as excited about Transformers as I was in 1987 when I got my hands on the first Finnish-translated issue 1/87 of Semic's comic (mostly Marvel's US stories with some random UK stories here and there). I had never got myself any of the original three Seeker toys, not even from the flea markets, so while continously pondering on ordering the Masterpiece I fulfilled some childhood dream by painting a scale model to look like Starscream himself. And as you all very well knew, if it was worth doing, it was worth overdoing, so there were going to be two more of these models.

"My time will come, Megatron."

While slowly working on the remaining two F-15s I had to come up with a good storage solution for my unique Strike Eagle variant. One that didn't end up being full of dust. The other core requirement was that it had to be safe from our cats. Safer than it had been so far, I meant.

Photoset

Here we had them, a set of photos. Some of the shots I took suffered from my image editing methods and that I didn't get a flat enough ground set up in the light tent, which ended up with the canvas being wavy. That led to the bottoms of some shots being cropped due to half-visible wheels and such. This, clearly, required something else :tm: to solve my issues.

 

Miniproject IV/25

Lego 10358 Soundwave

From rumours to actual items

I started hearing some whispers of the next Lego Transformer during H1/2025 and these whispers said it'd be Soundwave. This got confirmed before my summer vacation and it'd also have a sound brick and of his minions we'd get Laserbeak and Ravage. On the e-shelves it'd be on 4.8. unless you were an insider, you'd get to send them money on 1.8. already. Conveniently that was also the day when I returned from my vacation, absolutely perfect timing for a change.

Then all I could do was to wait for the delivery. Luckily there was the weekend, and a long enough way home, so I got enough things to keep me busy and away from fretting.

This time the express shipping was truly express

Early on Monday I got a message telling me they'd actually deliver it by the end of the day. That was a bit ambiguous but I was prepared for much worse. During my morning meetings the delivery window got specified to 13-15, and it was a timeslot I was meeting-free! The driver ended up having some trouble somewhere, so it was a bit later when I got the box, but I was so excited I didn't even think of grumbling.

Construction in three evenings

One and half a thousand pieces in twelve numbered bags required some time to assemble. As always, working on doubles the first arm/leg/whatnot was half as quick to build than the follow-up(s).

Mini-me

The bag number one gave us Soundwave's alt mode and two printed different minion tiles on the deck. Genious.

Laserbeak

Bag #2 had the bits for Laserbeak. Just the printed 1x1 tiles with the Decepticon insignia made me giggly. The lego version wasn't quite as complex as the Masterpiece versions so the engine-gun pieces had to be detached when transforming to the alt mode.

Ravage

Third up, Ravage. Ravage's engine things were detachable for the transformation as well.

They were magnificent! And that's as far as I got on Monday, but I wrapped up in good spirits.

Soundwave

On Tuesday I got to start on Soundwave's hips. Behind the now-fallen Play button we had a cavity for the sound brick. The infamous sound brick that I hadn't encountered yet.

Ah, the sound brick was immediately in bag #5, and over it I built a nice face mosaic. In the name of transparency, I may have spent a stupid amount of time playing with the sound chip. There was a silly amount of sounds in it, more than I felt like counting. The list contained some pew pew effects, the transformation sounds, the scene change jingle from the cartoons, and a pile of Frank Welker quotes such as "Soundwave superior". The rest of the family wasn't quite as extatic as I was.

Over the sound brick I built a chest cavity, with enough space for one minion at a time. The instructions said that the opening mechanism was the first thing they engineered.

This glorious Decepticon-decorated transparent bit was in a separate bag to avoid scratches. Now that I got another bagful of pieces assembled, the cassette bay door and its opening mechanism worked. Satisfying was the perfect word here, both for the tactile feel of pressing the button, and the sound that it made.

Interestingly the remaining pieces of this bag brought the craftily hinged bits where the arms were going to be attached to.

Now the next bag (I guess I was on the seventh now) gave Soundwave his arms. He had four fingers per hand, and they all were articulatable unlike Optimus Prime's sausages. In addition to the usual finger-pointing and fist-shaking he could do the heavy metal horns or just flip the bird. Or both at the same time. The limbs also had an amount of ball joints so they were going to be very nicely poseable.

On Wednesday I returned to the build and started with the right leg. The inside of the calf got a funky multi-jointed himmel, whose functionality only started being clear when the whole leg was closed and the sides encased the mechanisms properly.

\,,/ Rock rock \,,/

While in progress the spurlike thing was a silly floppy thing that didn't feel like it had a good real position. 

After smashing the missing leg into his hips I was already sadly far in the building proess. I didn't even think of checking if Lego Soundwave could press his own shoulder button as coolly as MP-02 could.

I had been wondering why I had to press the front faces of the legs into the leg itself as if I was partially transforming him into his altmode. Still, I obediently followed the instructions. The reason became clear after the next bagful of pieces and the subprocess of building the feet of his. Those were easy to press into their places when the receiving ends were in a sturdy position. After setting them in place the feet were then folded out for a proper standing robot pose.

The last two bagfuls and steps gave us Soundwave's head and the head's hideout in his upper back, and the AA batteries / weapons. The final bag just had the Icons set's plaque. At this point it was a bit late and I was both excited and busy, so I didn't take too many WIP photos.

For his optics I was given two options: red ones like in the early episodes, or yellow. Instead of choosing randomly, I checked what MP-02 had and installed the yellow lenses.

Naturally I tried out the alt mode and its transformation process. It worked very nicely, thanks for asking.

Photoset - coming soon :tm:

Very much unlike my usual approach to this, this time I didn't wait to get the light tent, tripod, camera, image editors and all set up and done before sharing this post. So for a change the photos were going to be dropped in afterwards. All the essentials were already shown, so only silliness remains.

Finished: Project III/25

The Jade Wolves

Maybe the Clan that lived for nineteen days around the new year of 3058-3059 wasn't the most memorable of factions for the people reading BattleTech novels, even less so for the rest of the people. Despite that or maybe exactly because of that I painted this Star of Second Line BattleMechs for them. As a bonus this was one of the most humble moments in the life of Clan Wolf, and most likely something they didn't want to talk about at all.

Hunchback IIC

The Clan-improved version of the original Hunchback that carried an AC/20 on its shoulder, this one carried two UAC/20s that ate shells at a short range like it was going out of fashion. As some sort of a support there were two ER Medium Lasers in its chest. With the Jump Jets a pilot who might care a bit less about the Honor Rules might jump behind a foe's back to pop the rear plates open and apart.

Stone Rhino

A full 100-ton Assault monster was a continuation of the overweight and immobile Matar, the stupid Wunderwaffe of Amaris the Usurper. Visually this was a pretty unique unnit, it carried Large Pulse Lasers in its arms, and a tiny Small Pulse Laser in the chin, to compensate for the top-mounted pair of Gauss Rifles. To slightly overcome the slowness the Stone Rhino was equipped with Jump Jets.

 

Supernova

As the name suggested, the 90-ton Assault 'Mech Supernova was like Nova but even crazier despite being about 30 years older as a design. It had clusters of three ER Large Lasers in each arm, and 26 Double Heat Sinks kept the temperatures better in check than its sibling, but not so much that it could keep Alpha Striking without worries. It would shut down after three consecutive barrages.

Marauder IIC

The bigger sibling of the classic Marauder, the 85-ton Clan version was ten tons heavier and ended up being in the Assault class, but with a bigger engine it was just as fast. This one was missing the Jump Jets even if the design still had the partial wings visible in the back. Its armament was mindbending: 3 ER PPCs, two of them paired with Medium Pulse Lasers, and quad ER Small Lasers were installed in the chin for good measure.

Warhammer IIC

Another big sister of a classic was also 10 tons heavier than the old Warhammer, and with the new 80 ton mass it also got to the Assault class. Warhammer IICs weaponry was pretty well in line with the basic Star League version but it was technically much more advanced and also better armoured. 2 ER PPCs, 5 Medium Pulse Lasers and the SRM-6 launcher on the shoulder.

Two Hunchbacks side by sides

Unlike the last time doing comparisons I had two very different units side by side, but I wanted to set them next to each other. An Inner Sphere brawler and a Clan viewpoint on the same. These new minis were both bulkier and posed nicer than the lanky old ones, but I was grumbling about Catalyst's old minis when the 25th Anniversary box was a new thing, 15 years ago.