Project VII/25

A Map-scale Overlord-C

Nothing got me more excited about the DropShip than anything else in the Mercenaries KS loot, so that's what I properly started with. Since I had taken the first photos in Spring I had washed all of this with soap water, which is when I noticed that the engine nozzles were fully open.

Build prep

Cleaning the landing struts was pretty simple. I filed and sanded the worst mold lines from the upper and lower doors. From the inner curve I also scraped with the roughest quarter of my nail file to give them more to glue on.

 

I also scratched some crossmarks onto the receiving ends in the hull, so that the glue could have more to hold onto. The nail file would've had the best surface for this but it didn't simply fit inside this shape. I decided this was better than nothing, and I wasn't really concerned about the glue even without this step, it was just another "just in case" moment.

Black primer

No real explanation here. I primed the hull black with Vallejo's Black Primer. I was already thinking of how I'd actually paint this, but before that I had to get the landing struts also done without making a fuss out of it. 

The remaining six pieces got primed the next evening. One of them, as the photo revealed, got to be a test piece for how the grey looked like on the upper armour plate.

Next up, following the November's overcast theme: shades of grey.

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.

Two-Clan weathering and basing

A surprise combo stage

Because I didn't see this step taking that long this time around, I decided to take care of any oils and the base stuff in the same sessionsets. We'd see later whether it was a good idea or not.

Mud bases

To get some kind of shapes on my flat hex bases I dabbed odd lumps of Vallejo's diorama mud (Vallejo DFX 26811 Brown Mud) over them. I didn't even consider going for footprints or anything else of that sort.

For those damn horsies the black basecoat and a brown ground didn't look too fun. I thought that painting the ground somehow would take me forward by leaps and bounds.

With the Falcons the brown bases worked better, but we had been here before so it wasn't a test or a brand new line of thinking. This time I didn't search for pieces of anti-slip gravel or other tiny rocks to glue on the ground.

Oil wash for Jade Falcons

Only this triplet got a thin Abteilung Sepia pinwash, as a dark brown wash wouldn't have stood out from the horse skins. Now I managed to make my wash as thin as I needed, now I needed to be able to repeat it for future paintings.

After getting this far I set my minis in a box and carried them into the sauna to flash. They had two days of peace and quiet.

Base painting

To improve the flaming horde's look I started painting their grounds with heavily diluted Cold Grey. This felt like a good idea for the hot rods style, it was like they had ended up fighting on an airless moon or an asteroid.

That plain Cold Grey was a bit too flat to look at so I used some even more thinned-down Stonewall Grey over the bumps on the ground surfaces. After drying the result was going to show up better.

For the Jade Falcon base highlighting I drybrushed them gently with Medium Fleshtone. Then I picked out a few of the bumps with the Cold Grey I had still left. I didn't aim for anything too specific, just something that would add a bit of variety.

Final tweaks

I thought for a fleeting moment if the unfriendship ponies' bases should've got some snow on their bases but that didn't work for my thoughts of moons/asteroids. Instead I made them look a bit harsher with a white (VMA 72701 Dead White) drybrushing.

For the green birdies I added a couple of dark grey bits onto the bases. Again, to gently increase the variety.

That was it, next time: photos.

Two-Clan detailing

Personalized warmachines

At this point all the Points started moving more clearly to their own routes, when each had their own canopy shapes and numbers, and their weapons were arrayed in who knew how many different ways. Doing this was of course not that bothersome as the members of the same unit had the same approach to their cockpits, and the Jump Jets were all done the same way as I could not be bothered to go for specific paintjobs for all the subtypes of devices.

Hell's Horses

Energy weapons

Most of the barrels o' fun in this batch consisted of different flavours of Medium-class Lasers, the Cougar had two Large Pulsers, while the Pack Hunter carried the gang's only ER PPC. Apart from the PPC all the tubes were relatively small, which was typical on the Light and Medium 'Mechs, and made painting them somewhat more bothersome than on their Heavy and Assault class colleagues. Still, it was funny that the Cougar and something like the Stone Rhino both carried the same weapon that was modeled so much differently on the minis.

For the sensor lenses I had started some little time ago using yellow or yellowish colour to keep them apart from the energy weapons. My reference (the earlier linked Canon Cockpit Painting Compendium I) reminded me that Pack Hunter had no cockpit viewports but just sensor packs, so that affected this section noticeably. In addition to those head-mounted lenses the Cougar had a couple in its arms, the Huntsman as well, but I didn't regonize any on the Fire Moth.

Jump Jets

On the first round I only had time for a couple of blue shades on the nozzles, which was where these couple of photos were from. The next time I thinned some white into thin wash, mixed in a hint of blue, and used that to highlight the Jump Jets.

Both the Huntsman and Pack Hunter had Jump Jets that clearly looked the part so there was no guesswork needed there. Being an older IWM miniature, the Nova was a bit more peculiar so I decided that the grilled boxes in the lower torso and the shins were now the nozzles.

Cockpits

As we noticed at the sensor packs, there were only four sets of viewports to be painted. I was flip-flopping between blue and green for the colour, as the green had worked so nicely on the red-based Shilone and Morgan Kell's Archer. Camospecs had both colours, UCC recommended green, and ultimately I went with blue.

With the jeweling dry I applied gloss varnish on them all.

While I was going at full throttle I painted flames on the front edges of the hex bases. At this point I left the thought of adding the diagonal hazard stripes over this to simmer in the back of my brain.

Jade Falcon

Cockpits

My grey-green Jade Falcons have been been painted with red cockpits for a long while, as the previous paintjob of the Nova showed. The bloody red got lightened with sand(ivory) for a couple of layers. Finally the off-white highlight dots were painted in the brightest bits and as opposing reflections. With these eyes and object sizes it was a bit of a hassle again.

Energy weapons and sensor lenses

There was just one lonely ER Small Laser, a few of the Medium and Large types, and two of the Particle Projector Cannons. No Jump Jets for these Surats.

Of the three minis here just the Kingfisher had something that looked like sensor lenses in its head, so that was to be done. Maybe the underhanging bit below the Right Arm's Large Pulse Laser could have a targeting bit.

All the chosen sensor lenses got painted orange (VGC 72008 Orange Fire) with the same one or two lighter layer approach. When those had dried I applied gloss varnish on each and every jeweled part.

Caution stripes

To make the camouflage even more sensemaking on a three-storey high walking tank I added the hazard markings. I started by painting rectangular strips in good-looking areas with yellow ochre. The dark stripes were done with black grey. The thinness of the stripes got decided by the size of the part and the angle I had to hold the mini.

Unit markings

Following some sort of an assembly line approach I painted white circles onto Nova Cat's front thigs. On the Right Leg I did the sphere-piercing jade-coloured sword for the glory of the 3rd Falcon Talon Cluster, on the Left Leg I added the jade-coloured Jade Falcon over the planed for Gamma Galaxy. I also attempted to paint some kind of Clan Jade Falcon insignia somewhere higher and more prominent, in this case it was both ball-shaped shoulders.

 

Crossbow had a weirder shape so I did the same for the lower insignia in the front shins. Finding a space for the Clan emblem was a bit of a bother, in the end I put them on the sides of the missile launcher -carrying arms,

Both of the Kingfisher's lower markings I painted now on the knees. Thanks to the difficult shapes of the torso and arms, I painted the Clan marking in the crotch plate.

All three got their low-vis numbers in dark grey, I didn't take photos of those separately. Just before packing for this post I painted the front faces of the hex bases with thinned down Jade, and then the hazard striping with dark grey that I also used for the remaining edges.