DropShip detailing

Getting to the tiny bits

Painting with a figurative massive brush was done now so it was the time to switch to smaller ones. Nice!

A series of tubes

Each of these struts had three massive hoses going into the hydraulic bits. Painting all in the same way would've been so very boring. It would've also been so very boring to paint them all in the same sequence. To add a tiny bit of variety into all this I chose a few colours (VMA 71315 Tire Black, VMA 71028 Sand Yellow, VMA 71003 Red RLM23, VMC 70942 Light Green, VMA 71111 UK Mediterranean Blue) and spread them onto different pipes as my sick mind desired.

Tire blacks

Sand yellows

RLM23 reds

Light greens

UK Mediterranean blues

Washing would bring out some surface texture later on. The rubbery ones stood out the worst, and I was pondering if I ought to repaint them some other way as I already had a healthy amount of greys all around.

Door edges and engine nozzles

Because I forgot to fix the edges of the landing strut armour panels in grey, I did that at this point. I remembered to fix the lower ones as well, even if they were easy to forget behind all the other stuff. I thought that the touching edges - the dark grey inner parts - not the freshly painted outer parts, could benefit from some caution stripes. Painting those at these angles was going to be fun to say the least but they'd bring more life to the greyness.

On the fusion engine nozzles I followed the same approach that I found useful in the earlier Starscream F-15: sandy tan. Maybe I could drybrush it a bit after the upcoming dark wash.

Jade bits

Being a Gamma Galaxy ride it of course had to have jade highlights (VGC 72026 Jade Green). The turret armours were to me a clear place, and another simple choice was the bits in the crown. Maybe there could be something else still, I just couldn't immediately point out what that would or could be.

While waiting on inspiration to strike I painted the caution striping onto each of the twelve doors. Thanks to the unpainted metal they already had the dark grey base, so I just added the yellow ochre bits over that. On the bottom end of the upper doors they were quite easy to paint and one could actually see them. To compensate the upper edge of the lower doors, that was going to come into contact with the counterpart just painted and the main reason to add hazard markings in the first place, was in a more difficult place and angle, so I just added a couple of bars per piece.

Edge highlighting 

It wasn't the time for chipping so I built a bit on the earlier drybrushings with a light grey by just making them stronger and clearer using a thin paintbrush edge. Most of these were done on the upper ends of the landing strut doos and the upper edges of the bigger chunks on the upper hull.

At this point I figured out that one of the engine nozzles was painted differently from the three later ones. I fixed that by painting the first one to follow suit of the others that only had the outer ring in dark grey. The difference was simply caused by me A/B testing which looked nicer and I had not taken the time to complete the setup.

DropShip like the skies in November

Greyscale

I started my painting process by blasting the whole mini with a layer of Cold Grey (VGA 72750 Cold Grey). Right after that I picked out pseudorandom panels with a different grey (VMA 71120 USAF Medium Grey) and some other equally pseudorandom panels and the whole top cupola with a lighter grey (VGA 72749 Stonewall Grey). My idea was to avoid the panel lines but I didn't go out of my way to absolutely not touch them.

As the photo below showed, the coverage and texturing was purposefully dynamic. Maybe a later washing stage would tie them all together. My idea was to give some more liveliness to the hull, and hint at the fact that the armour panels would occasionally be changed and things would change between fights. I might try to work more on that with some battle damage later on.

The tip of my airbrush has been for years a bit larger than what detail work would require. Despite that I didn't start masking off panels, I wasn't going for anything that tight. 

Above/below views:

Landing struts on and greyshaded

Before gluing the landing struts on I scraped any paint off to ensure a stronger bond. My Overlord-C was nicely standing on the table with only three legs.

It was a sturdy construct, but as the landing struts didn't sit flush with the hull, and I didn't want to start poking around that much, I had to paint a bit more grey.

While I was at it I also painted the upper and lower armoured doors of the landing struts, which obviously overflowed a bit on the hydraulic bits. Painting those by hand was the next event.

Bare metal

Like so many times in the last couple of years, this was how I did the unpainted metal. Dark Grey RLM66, a component at a time.

After all six landing struts were painted I continued on with the grilles, gun turret blisters, and the two gates. Those were the fighter launching bays of a smaller Overlord-class DropShip, but I wasn't going to start filling and smoothing those so I let them be.

After the paint dried I drybrushed them with Cold Grey for gentle highlighting.

Any battle damage and chipping would come much later, after all the important stuff got done. I also forgot to take a photo of painting the four engine nozzles.

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.