Jewelization, oilification and basing

Additional effects

In one quickish painting session I did all the three jewel effects out of the way. This time I managed to get it done in three substeps.

Cockpit

A yellow cockpit was what I used the last time to stand out from blue/grey, so I painted the viewports with yellow ochre (VMA 71033), then mixed in a bit of white (VMA 71270 RAL9001(White)) for the bottom-right blob and then I added each of the 5 panels a pixel of almost clear white.

Energy weapons

My Medium Pulse Laser got a green lens effect on a black base. First I painted most of the lens surface green (VGA 72732 Escorpena Green) and mixed a slightly lighter tone for the bottom right sector and for an animelike reflection a dot of white into the top left sector.

The underslung ER Small Laser was done the same way, black base covered in red (VGA 72710 Bloody Red), a lighter splotch and a final reflection dot to the opposite side.

All these three stages needed a bit of gloss varnish later on to be declared done.

Pin wash

All of the shadows and panel lines got a very enthusastic sepia oil wash. From these photos I noticed a couple of places that got a bit too much shadowiness in them, things I didn't catch as easily with my own eyes. One good example was the Right Arm pod between the leading edge and the caution stripe. I just couldn't be happier with nature's own undo function.

Recipe from 2011

I checked what I had done for the 25th Anniversary Box's OmniMechs and their home-made hex bases. My recipe had been simple: a layer of glue, Woodland Scenics' Ballast and a scattering of foliage.

After the glue had dried I could brush off the excess pebbles. For a quick comparison I took Summoner and Hellbringer for a group photo:

 

Mongrelgrendel was only missing the other five edges of the hex base and the aforementioned excess oil wash cleanup. In addition to the bigger shadow, the LRM doors also had some stronger marks than what I wanted in the end. Just a few minutes of work, next week I'd be sharing the final photos already.

Stop the press!

One thing that had started bugging me for no obvious reason were the Jump Jets. Maybe I had gone insane and I decided to paint bluish white fusion glow effects in them after all. Jump Jets or cockpit-melters, whichever suited you and your enemies best.

To get this done I used electric blue (VGC 72023 Electric Blue) and white (VGA 71270 RAL9001 White), again in a couple of layers and shades. Something yellower/redder would've stood out better from the grey-blue overall paint scheme, but that was hindsight for you again. Painting this was pretty challenging, the nozzles were absolutely tiny and prone to spillage even with the tight-pointed 5 | 0 brush.

Ghost Bear's Delta Galaxy

Choosing the unit

To be honest, I spent a long time thinking about the future home of this grengel. My Talon Cluster didn't need another lighter than Heavy-class 'Mech so I needed something else. I even thought about the puppies and their Beta Galaxy for the duration of a couple of blinks as the grey-tan scheme was pretty regonizeable. Luckily I remembered that I had two Ghost Bears in the Delta Galaxy, painted almost 13 years ago, from the 25th Anniversary Box. All the other minis from that box were made of that awful plastic, while the two Omnis were great.

This was easier than I feared, the space bears were going to get a third Point to their Star. Sounded like I was going to make two more in the future to round it up, was that was what I was doing here?

Painting process

I hadn't documented my earlier process too deeply. Before starting any sort of painting I took a look at my old photos only, because I didn't want to bother the cats sleeping to get my box.

Just to get a single mini painted quickly I left the airbrush in its resting place and just brushed the primer on.

Black primer

To prime the mini I used Vallejo's black primer. The modifications I had made looked much more reasonable now than mere minutes ago. The lasers were a bit bulkier than absolutely necessary, but I wasn't a weapons manufacturer by trade. Maybe they were just better protected this way.

Cold grey basecoat

Over the black I painted a layer of my trusty Cold Grey (VGA 72750) using a method that I only recently heard being called overbrushing (a bit like drybrushing but with more paint). The stronger grey concentrations I painted on the top and front surfaces that were supposed to be receiving more sunlight.

A perfect coverage wasn't a goal here and especially in the shadows I let the primer behave as bringer of shadows.

Stonewall grey shape-breakers

For the camouflage I spent some minutes with my other favourite grey (VGA 72749 Stonewall Grey) to paint camouflage shapes to attempt to break the physical lines of the 'Mech. As always, this wasn't anything I planned specially but something that just flowed.

Not-metallics

Despite the subtitle I hadn't gone mad and started doing NMM, I just stuck to my current method of painting the metallics with dark grey (VMA 71055 Black Grey RLM66). Today's menu of metallic bits included the visible joints, Jump Jet nozzles and a few random grilles and vents. The LRM-15 launchers were behind the armoured doors so I didn't get a pattern-breaker from those.

Hmh. One thing that I most definitely didn't think of in time were the side torso CASE panels, as those have usually been pretty clearly visible. Maybe I could claim that they weren't just facing straight back and positioned in the shoulder blade area on this 'Mech?

Soviet blue trimming

According to Camospecs and Unit Color Compendium the Delta's trimmings were done with light blues. My earlier Points didn't get a specially light blue but now my collection was better (or worse?), with a quick go-through I decided to try out a blue I bought for the Su-27 years ago (VMA 71318 AMT-7 Greyish Blue).

For a change in painting behaviour, in addition to individual panels I now painted some blueish ribbons on the edges of some larger panels and hatches. As it was the Soviet greyish blue was a bit pale and didn't stand out spectacularly in a manner that'd increase the honour of a Clan Warrior. Maybe they could be highlighted with a brighter mix?

Looking at the last photo I remembered that I had to write a //TODO to rebase the canopy viewports black before any jeweling attempts. Would I remember to? Maybe.

Highlighting

Lucky me, I did remember. I also painted the laser barrels in the Right Arm with dark grey as they were supposed to be plain metal. While repainting the canopy viewports I also painted the lenses-to-be in black.

For an overall drybrushing I mixed a bit of white into the Stonewall Grey and drybrushed that mostly on the top surfaces for highlighting. Then I mixed a bit of the same white to AMT-7 and did some line-based highlighting on my blues. They still didn't jump out that much, but they were visible and that was good in my books.

Insignia

Thanks to the previous failure I might remember to do the markings before jumping head first into the weathering. Or I'd remember until this miniature, if nothing else. Before jumping in I checked some of my past mumblings so I could follow similar steps today as well.

Caution stripes

To belong in the gang, or the Star in this case, the new one needed a few clear caution stripes. I felt they were quite at home next to the JJ nozzles, not many other places felt as obvious to me. As before, I started this work by painting yellowish placeholders to map out the areas. Then I eyeballed a 45° angled (or in the tinies ones just plain right angled) lines to get about 50% fill. Not a single one was perfect.

While painting the tiny ones I also painted the front edge of the base.

Clan Ghost Bear roundel

This was a difficult thing to photograph at this scale with a phone, but I managed somehow in '11 so maybe I could repeat it now? I started with a dark grey circle-ish shape on the left armoured plate because it was pretty much the only big enough space I spotted in a visible place for Clan insignia.

Then I painted a blue (Citadel Ahriman Blue) horizontal line and an X for the Ghost Bear's arms.

After that I tried to get something bear paw -like inside the blue lines with clawlike things coming out a bit. I also tried to get a bear's head shape in the middle but like I have often said: my freehanding skills are on the negative.

Of course I forgot to take photos of the dark grey eyes and maw to the grey lump. Luckily these were never looked at this distance in real life or while playing.

Delta Galaxy insignia

Below the right knee I saw space for the lightning bolt -spitting bear of the Delta Galaxy, even if the space was a bit tight.

Over the crossed lightning bolts I painted a grey blob to represent the angry bear of Delta.

Unit number and the 73rd Battle Cluster's number

The Points appeared to be numbered 21n, where n > 1. Following this the current model ought to get a number 214, and it'd also get a 73 for the Cluster on its other shin.

First I painted the numbers with thin lines of dark grey. After a bit I painted new, top-left offset numbers with red.

Luckily the 314th Battle Trinary didn't have its own insignia, I really didn't think I'd have space (or daring) to attempt to freehand another. Thinking so much about the 314 I brainfarted and painted that number onto the Left Arm instead of the 214 I was planning. Sigh.

In the search of configuration A

Starting point

What we had was two ERMLasers in the Left Arm, another one in the forehead, and the Right Arm was practically an ERLLas (*) and not much else. On the Right Torso we also had an SSRM-6 launcher. None of this would stay in place.

According to the official paperwork nothing was going to remain in the Left Arm beyond the arm-hand bits themselves. On the Right Arm I would need to get a couple of different-sized lasers. From the head, just above the cockpit, I needed to chop off a bit more than a millimeter of tubing. On the shoulder side replacing the SSRM launcher and nothing with LRM-15 launchers wouldn't otherwise be a problem of any sort, except that the working area was so tiny that even my pin vise was way too large to get fifteen decently enough spaced holes drilled in, no matter what. Instead, I could cheat and glue on armoured doors, a bit like the ones in Catapults.

At least the Jump Jet count was the same (for the 7 hex leaps) as in Prime, so the danger of making the backside ugly as well was lesssened.

Chop chop

In my quest of making the pose nicer I rotated the Right Arm upward to make my mini look like it was aiming at something instead of just posing around. Then I chopped off the tip of the head laser and filed the resulting mess down a bit. The worst remaining offenders would melt away or at least get toned down with a drop of liquid cement.

When I cut off the RA double lasers, there wasn't that much meat left on the Arm itself, so I thought at least I was supposed to scratch some kind of panel lines there. Thanks to the torque applied by the snippers the arm had gotten quite loose, so I just plucked it off for easier handling.

From the Right Arm I just cruelly cut the Laser's barrel. I didn't start mutilating the arm any more than that, so all the little subcontainers and whatnots remained. Without any of the original details the new arm would've been a sad sight.

For my replacement parts I spent a bit of time in my bits boxes for things that looked potentially useful as laser cannons. The scale was a bit of a challenge, and the pieces I considered minuscule (like a 1:72 Apache's wing pod, or a same-scale Werfer-Granate 21) weren't that small next to the miniature but enormous. In the end I glued a fire extinguisher from a 1:35 Panzer as the ERSLas and used a short piece of a qtip to stand in as the MPLas. How would I get the jeweling painted in these? Badly, most likely.

To attach my LRM launcher doors on I had filed the Grenmongrel's shoulders a bit and cut ridiculously small pieces of 0,5mm styrene sheet into tinier rectangles until they fit decently for gluing. Of the cutoffs I cut even tinier bits to glue as greeblies onto the leading edges of the doors. Similarly I added tiny strips to stand in as hinges. There may be some tweaking in their future, but overall I accepted them.

My original guesses of the missile launcher surface area had been off by millimeters, so I had some excess styrene flakes on the cutting mat. I decided to use them in different shapes to add some three-dimensionality onto the mistreated left forearm.

While gluing these tiny bits Adam Savage's hint was worth its weight in chocolate: they were sillily easy to pick and set in place using the hobby knife's tip alone.

(*) Of course I forgot that the Right Arm also had an ERSlas that I didn't snip off earlier, most likely I was stuck in my previous mindset of UrbanMech's AC/10 non-weapon targeting laser living on top of the bigger weapon. Smarter people must have noticed my brainfart many photos earlier.

The important thing was that I fixed my mistake and now there was a correct amount of death rays and related objects. Did they look anything plausible, acceptable or tolerable? That was a different discussion altogheter and I ignored it to retain my sanity. To help me paint the lenses I used some Vallejo Water Texture (VWE:WT 26235 Still Water) in the custom-made barrels, expecting a concave and smooth plug near the end of each hole.