Yeah, the sculptors and design team over at Atomic Mass Games are really impressive.
There are elements I loathe (two cockpits? Massive windows? Barrels that are mounted in such a way that it’s impossible for them both to hit any target less wide than ten meters?), but overall I really dig the look of the Grand Army of the Republic.
The Wookie Flying Wooden Helicopter, not so much… but whatever. I’ll paint it anyway.
Kudos for that!! I feel like I need one of those in my life, somehow
Okay, finished up a bunch of “Wolf’s Dragoons” Battlemechs. They’re a different colour scheme from the rest of my stuff, but I figure having a few mercenary units I can slot into either side (Clan or Inner Sphere) might be nice. Plus, made a nice change of pace.
This is all the Battletech currently on my painting table after their standard “steel then aluminum” drybrush phase.
These are the Wolf’s Dragoons with their red painted on. Couldn’t believe how poor the coverage on this “carmine red” was… almost transparent. Whatever, end result was fine.
Dark grays done. It’s technically supposed to be black, but I don’t like painting black because it looks weird unless you do 20 steps to make it look right. Can’t be bothered, so dark gray it was… although there are technically 3 different dark grays used here (USAF Dark Grey, USAF Dark Grey with black mixed in, and Medium Gray with black mixed in). End result is pretty uniform-ish, or at least close enough for my tastes.
And here they are, all finished up (the bases are now painted and drying, so they aren’t technically done, but they’re mostly done). Eagle-eyed viewers will note that I also painted two Aerospace Fighters for my Wolf’s Dragoons… I’ll also be doing 2 for the Clanners, and 2 for the Inner Sphere as I paint the rest of those.
Plus I touched up my Saber tank to try and make the metal look a little more melty…
And I finished a quick paint job on a Republic Infantry Support Vehicle…
Also managed to write another 3 chapters in the next novel I’m working on… gosh I can get a lot done when I have a few days of free time…
Back to work tomorrow and school next week. So long, free time… oh well. I’m hoping to get the rest of the Battlemechs painted up this weekend. After that, I have 4 boxes of Legion to paint (more Phase 1s, which I want to do as the 501st, since I hadn’t seen the show when I painted my last batch of P1s and now I need to have more 501st… in case the tank and ISV above weren’t enough indication of that… and a Wookie Wooden Helicopter, and a downed AT-ST), and then probably the Comstar Battletech stuff will arrive. Might paint that like Wolf’s Dragoons too, now that I think about it… anyway, that’s a future-me problem.
I love what you’ve done with the tank damage… that’s looking really great now!
Low light and a deep crop haven’t done me any favours here, but Newt just needs to dry so I can finish her base and these two are ready for sealant. Nice to be back at this, I hated having it half finished.
I found myself with an afternoon, and decided that Dragon Lady from Godtear would work better as Creepy Dragon Lady, so I did a repaint. She, I believe, is the final victim of a real bad priming job from last Fall, so she’s got a bit of extra texture. I’ve been getting much better results from the little battery powered airbrush I picked up on a whim this Winter.
Finished another 11 minis today… well, took me a few days, but I finished them today.
Here is my 4th Phase 1 Clone Trooper Unit, and some Phase 1 Upgrade Troopers, primed in Grey Seer.
Next a highlight drybrush of Off-White (I am so proud of myself, I never remember this step and I remembered this time!)
After that liberal use of Black Templar Contrast Paint for joints, weapons, straps (although some of the straps were missed at this point and will show up later).
Honestly, my favourite thing about painting Clones is that I could stop here and they’d look good. But no! The reason I have 4 units of Phase 1s is because I hadn’t watched the final season of Clone Wars when I painted the other 3 units, and so I didn’t know about the glory that is the 332nd Company! Must rectify!
So on we go to the basecoat of Ultramarine Blue Contrast.
Have I ever mentioned that I suck at freehand? I do. At some point I suspect I will get better, but it is not this day.
Anyway. With that done all that’s left is the helmets. I started by doing them in red some time ago, but I think they should’ve been orange… too late now… and they look fine in red. It’s a reddish-orange anyway.
After that, just a question of preparing to base them, and painting all the bits and bobs I missed previously (backpacks, mostly).
And then base them, and they’re done!
Very, very satisfying. And happy with how they turned out!
Technically the bases need another coat of black around the rim to make it matte/uniform, but that’s a few seconds of work before they’re off to be sealed.
First painted models of the year - a cossack sled cannon and crew.
(I say first models, but I’ve done a few bits of terrain too, but they’re not as interesting to show)
Okay, buckle up folks, this is gonna be a long one…
I play Star Wars Legion, a game I quite enjoy. I play the Clone/Grand Army of the Republic Faction because I have never liked the “ragtag bunch of misfit” look to the Rebels and I don’t play evil Factions in any of my games. It’s a thing, I don’t know why. This meant that for a very, very long time I watched the releases of Legion, but until they (FFG/Atomic Mass Games now) released the Clone army, I just didn’t bother with it.
And then they announced Sabine. Sabine Wren was, up until the release of the last season of Clone Wars, my favourite Star Wars character. She’s now number 3 (Ahsoka, Rey, Sabine), but I have always loved the character design and style that has gone into her “look.” It also meant that there was no way I was ever going to paint her because LOOK AT HER.
You want me to paint THAT? Come on. Never going to happen. And why would it? I don’t play Rebels!
… unless… nah. Nah! Not gonna do it!.. unless… maybe just as a present to myself? I could paint something so totally different from my “Here are 20 models that are almost all identical” style of painting?
… no. That would be crazy…
sigh
Okay, all joking aside, there is a very good tutorial by the extremely talented Sorastro… a video tutorial for her Imperial Assault version, and a PDF for her Legion version. I wish there was a video for her Legion version, but such is life, and with PDF downloaded, here we go.
And already I’m different. I don’t have the array of browns and flat-browns Sorastro has, so I used a couple different Contrast paints for her legs.
Next step is her dark bodysuit and the light grey for her armoured plates. Okay, okay, so far so good…
Ammo belts around each boot (sure, why not), and then a coat of dark purple followed by a highlight coat of “violet” on the jetpack. Tutorial said to use a dark grey for the middle section of the jetpack and the Darksaber, but I went with a dark metal instead because I only have 3 shades of gray and I’ve already used all of them on the model in different areas.
Armour plates for the boots and knee done, plus the right side (her right side) of the chest plate. It was around this point (step 7 of 23, for those of you following along at home) that I realized that Sorastro’s PDF didn’t say how to paint the other leg, and so I had to just “wing it” in a close approximation of the right leg.
Okay! Back to step 7. You may note that the chestplate, which I am about to paint over!) is lighter on top and slightly darker underneath. See, this is why great painters are a cut above… I would never bother to paint a section that I was going to paint.
That sentence sounds weird in my head. I hope you understand what I mean. On to step 8!
I did my best with the firebird on her chestplate, but there was no way I was gonna get it to be obvious what it is. Hopefully it looks okay at arm’s length. Also threw in the lower shoulder plates in there, putting me on Step 11, I think.
This… frakkin’ owl-thing. That stupid little shoulderpad took me an hour, and it still looks like ass. Gah.
Those are supposed to be wings on the jetpack, but they’re more like… President’s Choice Memories of Wings. I tried, I tried…
To whatever artist decided that a checkerboard pattern on this shoulder was the right call: je te deteste.
Helmet done, and while not great, it’s as great as I could make it. Sorastro has this… I dunno, pact with forces beyond nature to make white look “real” when highlighting the helmet and I just couldn’t make it work. I think the violet looks okay, and still outlines the visor pretty well.
And there she is. Technically I stopped at Step 22 of 23, because the last step is Sorastro saying “And then I went around the model, adding highlights and even outlining some areas in black to make them stand out more” and it’s just pure wizardry to me. His final result absolutely looks better than mine, but he’s a better painter than me and I’m pretty content with how she turned out.
That took me… a week? More or less? And now back to speed painting… I have a Wookie Fluttershy that I want to have finished by tomorrow night.
What the hell are you talking about “it’s not great”? That looks awesome! I agreed with you when you said she would be really hard to paint but then you went ahead and did the thing anyway. Well done! Standing ovation!
Good job @Marx! Freehanding small patterns and details is not easy, especially if you don’t do it very often.
New place, new setup and so I painted this Zombie Hunter mini from ax faction. I bought this many years ago at a con. I’ve been picking up tips from Vince Venturella’s Hobby Cheating series on Youtube. I don’t think it’s kicking in yet but with some practice I hope there’ll be a but of jump in quality coming my way
A Prussian Black Hussar from the Seven Years Year, got as a freebie when buying some other stuff from Black Hussar Miniatures.
Quite happy I’m not painting up a whole bunch of these for a unit, but a nice sculpt for a one-off.
Black Hussars were well known for blazing massive doobage.
(Yes, yes, I know you can’t really model a pipestem as thinner than that, but the bowl’s largely hidden by his hand, so…)
Ha ha - I was just gonna post something like this! Either a doobie or a bong!
Loving it! Some inspiring freehand, and so many kinds! You’ve persuaded me to revisit freehand sometime soon 
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Always good to get out of your comfort zone and do something fun and challenging, and I think that one is a lot of both!
If you had painted that cliff red, I would have thought the hero was chopping some dragon’s rib rack for his dinner 
I love the one “watering” the tree
