A thing a week 2025, week 51

Continuing our low-effort and hopefully high-drama Battletech figs, we have a mess of tanks and other vehicles. I wanted to paint these really fast and they more or less were really fast. Like our aerospace fighters from last week, they were primed and base-coated with my cheapest of airbrushes only to be drybrushed and oil washed after that. Also of note, I usually have a pileup at the end of the year because I tend to work a week or two ahead so I have something to post if I'm busy or out of town or something. This year I've got a similar pileup but only because I'm geeked about painting Battletech figs and they're going really fast. 

First up we have missile carriers in a military green with a very light drybrush to edge highlight and one or two coats of a light oil wash. These guys are high damage, low survivability so I painted them in the least eye catching colors I could find. The base coat was a Pro Acryl through the airbrush and probably if I used these more often rather than a Speed Paint or Contrast Paint I'd have fewer blotchiness and gloss issues. Note that these came with extra turrets so you could have four of either should you so desire. The standies they're on are a work in progress.

Next up we have a mess of tanks. I'm always a little shaky on the non-scary ones so from left to right I think we've got: Galleon, Vedette, Manticore, Shrek, and Demolisher. The triple-PPC Shrek tank should not be confused with the early 90s ogre of the same name. The guys on the right are legit scary and I've lost many-a-battlemech to the inimitable double-AC/20 Demolisher. The semi-glossy greenish tanks are basecoated with multiple coats of Daler Rowney inks that I keep trying to use in this way but keep disappointing me. The arctic-themed tanks were base coated with Vallejo Game Air Wolf Grey which is one of my favorite cool off-whites. For these guys I wanted to push the light oil washes I've been using to see if they'd play nice with light base coats which kind of worked. I got the panel lines for nearly free but where it pooled unhelpfully on the big flat areas, it really looks bad. Still tuning this step. This shot also unexpectedly dark but I couldn't be bothered to re-balance it. 

How about some VTOLs? These are the H-7 Warrior last seen being blown up in MW5:Mercs. These probably could have been a little fancier but the details were a little soft and I really made a mess of the mold lines. These guys helpfully come with two sets of stands, the tall ones shown here and some very short ones that make them look like they're landed. That's a really nice touch and I love it when game companies do such things. These guys are from the Recon and Hunter Lances and probably I should have shot them with their box mates.

These guys are the rest of the Recon and Hunter Lances. From left to right we have the Ontos Heavy Tank, the Behemoth Heavy Tank, and the Skulker Wheeled Scout Tank. These aren't tanks I'm super familiar with, though the Behemoth shows up occasionally in the HBS Battletech game. The Ontos carries a stupid number of medium lasers which is endearing for a tank. These guys had some pretty rough mold lines only some of which I handled acceptably. Probably the dark grey ones could have used a heavier dry brushing at the end. One weird thing I noticed about these is that they generally have either too many, or too big cockpit or windows. Usually windows are less armored than, I dunno, the armor, so you'd think they'd make them smaller.

Last up we have some rando hovertanks. The little guys on the left are the Savanna Master from one of the gajillion salvage boxes I got from the kickstarters and the guys on the right are Fulcrum from the Aces: Scouring Sands box. I ordered the Hunter and Recon Lances in addition to the Aces box (and some other stuff without minis) and I really wanted all of the vehicles to be done. So here they are! The Fulcrum have a fun red cockpit that sadly aren't visible here with the high angle shot. 

2025 finished mini counter: 241

A thing a week 2025, week 50

And now for something completely different. My love of all things Battletech is very well documented at this point so several years ago when Catalyst Game Labs did their Mercenaries Kickstarter, I was all in. When they subsequently did their Clan Invasion Kickstarter...I was also all in. 

All four of these guys were add-ons to the two kickstarters and I painted them mostly with the airbrush. I haven't painted many mechanical figs, vintage Mekton figs notwithstanding, so part of this week's effort was trying to sort out better ways to paint them. Also of note, I have a lot of mechs to paint and probably this is going to be a journey. After the airbrush and some details, I did a heavy black oil wash like I've used many times. On a couple of these you can probably tell where I tried (badly) to edge highlight some of the panels. Unfortunately, these sculpts are a little soft and I didn't have the patience to do so consistently. 

The guys on top are Shilone Aerospace fighters, the guys on the bottom are filthy Clan Visigoth OmniFighters. They're bigger than I thought they'd be which means that my normal microspace Lego stand-ins probably aren't going to be retired anytime soon. Ultimately I rushed these and it shows. The dark is probably too dark and that was not helped by the heavy oil wash. We'll see next week some improvements which probably would have helped here. I do like these guys but I ended up with a worse result because I'd sold myself on doing them really fast. That's how you learn, I guess. 

What are these guys? I'm a little shaky on hovertanks but I think the guys on the left are left to right: Pegasus, Maxim, and Condor. I've mostly only blown these up; I've never needed to field any. They're a little shinier in this shot than they read in person. I expected the light oil wash to flat them down a little more than it did but I'm not unhappy with where the landed.

2025 finished mini counter: 207

 

A thing a week 2025, week 49

This week we have the Waspnettle Lizardmen from Bones 6 and a plain 'ol white Bones plastic lizardman warrior because he fit the theme. The warrior is the guy on the far left with the bendy spear. In fact we've seen this guy and two of his pals way back in Week 8 of 2021 because a) the warrior was a freebie that came with a different purchase and b) the other two dudes are good sculpts that Reaper decided to add to the set. In fact, I think the bow guy is also a reprint but not one that I remember buying or painting.

I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted out of these guys from the get go and did some extra work with the airbrush to kick them off and because they had such good texture I hit them with a light drybrush and a wash. The orange armor and orange-y leather bits were built up over many layers.

These three guys I think are new sculpts and I'm pretty sure they're either 3d printed or molded from 3d prints since they have support bits that are pretty indicative of resin prints. I tried to capture the drama of their shields and as is typical, they look better in person than they do in these shots. My only real gripe with these three is that the big guy is maybe too big. His head looks very small in proportion and his armor details look a little soft compared to the other guys. Those are minor gripes, though, and the cyan/orange contrast sells well at the table. These guys were fun and I think they came out well.

2025 finished mini counter: 197