Battletech all primed! now to start painting.

How did I miss this thread?

I used to be into wh40k in my teens (and that's some 25-30 years ago), and had a large collection of 3rd ed Eldar and got the first Tau models when they came out. Most of it has sat in boxes for 15+ years, but I've kept up the painting side of things, branching out into scale models and Gundam kits, as well as collection minis (mostly Rackham models, of the old Confrontation and Ragnarok ranges).

I shall have to put a few up here for examples... I have to say though, although I love my airbrush for Gundam / scale model stuff, I'm actually a really "dirty" painter when it comes to minis - loads of use of inks, washes, etc. So my finished figure don't look very clean 😀

BloodyCactus wrote on 2023-09-17, 16:39:

Battletech all primed! now to start painting. […]
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Battletech all primed! now to start painting.

Ohh, that looks sweet. I always wanted to get into Battletech mayself, never found people to play with.

In other news, here is Tarik Mansuri from Infinity, finished sans base.

I've still got most of my original metal (and some plastic) 40K minis, this is what my paint jobs in circa 1998-1999 looked like:

In hindsight, I don't think these were too bad - I'm not going to show you what the Dark Eldar (for that is what they were called back then) and the plastic Space Marines from the 40K boxed set looked like.... sheesh... better left in the box!

These days I'm more into collecting interesting pieces and ranges for shelf display or mini diorama's, hence picking up some of those utterly gorgeous Rackham models from around 2000-2004. They really were at the top of the pile for quality at that point. Shame they self-imploded after switching to pre-painted-plastics.

Anyway, here are some of the models I've painted in the last six months:

As you can tell, I'm much more into the dirty, weathered look these days. In terms of paints I have a mixture of stuff:

For brush-only I use:
- Vallejo game colour + game inks (bought one of the 100+ mega sets some 10 years ago and still use it, filling in empty bottles from time to time)
- Vallejo xpress color (their contrast paint range)
- Army Painter speed paint 2.0 (their replacement contrast paint range - though I've yet to use any)

For airbrush-only and occasional brush use, I use:
- Vallejo model air
- MIG AMMO air and metal air colours
- AK interactive (a few colours that I can't match with Vallejo or MIG)
- AK interactive extreme metal (absolutely phenomenal enamel metal colours)

Plus, there's a load of different weathering / grime / rust enamels and mediums. But I also experiment now and then with making my own washes with Abteilung oils, some of it has been more successful than others!

I always tend to gravitate towards Vallejo or MIG if I'm looking for a new colour though. They both have some 'bad' paints in their ranges (MIG reds were really translucent when I tried them a few years ago), but on balance tend to be quite consistent.

On the other side of things, my scale/sci-fi modelling is mostly Gundam 1/100 master-grade related (and then almost all within the 'Universal Century' universe/timeline). Here's a couple...

I can't stand the out-of-box look, so I paint everything:

No unpainted images of this one, but the 1/100 Gundam Hazel Custom is probably my favourite design/model of the entire range... well, I always have time for Zeon grunt suits, but this is my favourite:

I'm almost entirely airbrush-based with the Gundam kits - usually fully painting the inner frame, even if not going to be seen, and my usual approach is pre-shading the exterior armour panels with a dark blue or grey if they are going to be light, like the above, then blending in with the lighter white/grey over the top. Panel lines are most often done with Tamiya inks, though I do use oils from time to time. Waterslide decals every time - stickers or dry transfers usually end up in the bin.

The newest stuff I've been getting into is Maschinen Krieger / SF3D. If you want to do weathering/busted up models/kitbashing, then this is the thing for you.

If you haven't come across it yet, then I would recommend taking a look - it's a retro-futuristic take on WW2.

Here's a 3D model I bought, printed and then built up and weathered:

I managed to get three figures done in September..