A thing a week 2025, week 52

We end the year with more Battletech, this time mechs. These guys go surprisingly quickly, especially now that I'm dialing in on a better scheme. These are roughly in the order they were painted 

This first four in wolf grey is the Inner Sphere Battle Lance including four of my favorite anime-not-quite-pseudo-licensed mechs. They're painted in an almost Macross-like scheme which didn't really work since they're not quite detailed in that way. I'm finding the details on these molds a little soft and the mold lines are godawful so I haven't had quite the normal edge highlighting fidelity that I usually enjoy. I also tried to force an oil wash to work here and I don't think it quite landed. Probably the Payne's Grey details are too dark in addition to the black details and I really should have known better. Left to right we have Warhammer, Rifleman, Phoenix Hawk and Wasp.

These next guys are the Inner Sphere Command Lance and instead of basecoating with the airbrush I hit them with a slight zenithal (base grey primer with sketchy white primer on top--I screwed up my mixing and it really performed badly) and a coat of Akhelian Green Contrast Paint as a test. I like this color quite a lot and I've used it quite a lot but it performed not very well in this application. The big flat areas probably warranted a thinning down and I ended up doing a lot of cleanup after the fact. Also of note, my color choice was compositionally good but the specific paints I used were really transparent and the four-ish coats of each made the detailing really tedious. These guys took the oil wash a lot better and I was a lot more diligent in cleaning up pooling on the big light grey panels. I think they look pretty good. Left to right we have Marauder, Valkyrie, Stinger and Archer.

These blue and orangey guys are the Inner Sphere Recon Lance and probably they're the best of the bunch. They're zenithaled better than the last and I hit them with a basecoat of a mix of Pro Acryl Blue Transparent and Pro Acryl Black Transparent. These were drybrushed twice after that before adding the detailing which I suppose wasn't strictly necessary but I did it anyway. Orange and other details came next. After that I spent a lot of time getting the edge highlights on the orangey bits which looks good, but was very tedious. I've got a better solution for this now, but that's all part of the journey. The last step was a light oil wash which worked well on these guys' darker color scheme. Left to right we have Firestarter, new-to-me Spector, Javelin and Ostscout. I'm pretty happy with these guys.

Continuing my "I spent too long on edge highlighting despite the fact that I like the result" we have the Inner Sphere Striker Lance and I was super stoked for the Blacktron color scheme. I was pretty sure I'd have a rough time with the oil wash on the yellow in addition to the edge highlighting on the same yellow and I was right on both counts. These guys had some shallow armor plates which make them non-ideal for any kind of edge highlighting and there was no way to make the off white edges distinct enough because there just plain wasn't much color value going up. These got mostly where I wanted them and I think they look pretty good but all of the edge highlighting continued to be tedious. The cockpits came out especially well here because I spent quite a lot of time on them. Left to right we have Wolfhound, Jenner, Panther, and Blackjack.

For these red guys, otherwise known as the Inner Sphere Urban Lance, I got them half right. These were zenithaled with the airbrush and I hit them with Contrast Paint Blood Angels Red, a color that I don't super like. I spent a lot of time cleaning up the resulting blotchiness. These guys are big and my pot (maybe all pots of this color?) was really thick. This makes it really hard to properly extend the wet edge and is one of my big gripes about Contrast Paints in general. The grey bits were done next and the whole thing was drybrushed with an ancient pot of Reaper flesh tone that I bought at the turn of the milennium. This took the tedium out of the edge highlighting and meant that I could vary the weight which is nice. They look good on the table but if you look closely, you'll see all the corners I cut. Left to right we have Victor, Enforcer (late model, I think), Hunchback and Raven.

For these dudes I finally got it all put together. These are the non-dupe clan mechs I got out of salvage boxes in the kickstarter. I could have painted them in proper clan colors but TBH, I can't be bothered. These guys were simply primed with the airbrush and then basecoated with the airbrush (Pro Acryl Dark Neutral Grey, if you care). Details were picked out, they were drybrushed, and finished with the typical oil wash. They were done more or less in a day (sans drying time and whatnot) but they are both high drama and low effort and came together in a few hours all told. They are left to right: Adder A (Puma), Mongrel (Grendel), Timberwolf (Mad Cat), Dire Wolf (Daishi), Mad Dog (Vulture), and Nova (Black Hawk)

Last but not least, a polarizing mech if ever there was one. This little trash can looking dude is the Urbanmech and I have a love/hate thing with them, particularly that I love to hate them despite it being an OK mech. It was painted as a batch with the Striker Lance which is probably obvious and I have the same critique for this guy as for those. The blending on the cockpit doesn't show super well in these shots which is sad because I thought it came out pretty good. A lot of these battletech figs have recessed cockpits which is a nice detail but it can be challenging to paint. This particular guy came out way better than it had any right to and we're going to end the year on him because that seems appropriate.

2025 finished mini count: 260