Bot War – C.O.I.L.S Vengeance

Thank you so much for following this project and feeling it worthy of a Golden Button. I hope people found it interesting to follow and enjoyed the end result.

There is definitely more Bot War to come in the future that’s for sure.

Community Spotlight: Ancient Cthulhu, A Black Coach & Bot War’s C.O.I.L.S!

That’s a wrap folks.

Using a pass day as I’ve nothing to paint, instead I lined up all of my minis painted over the last 28 days for a little photo shoot.

45 minis painted, not my best, but certainly something I’m quite proud of.

All of my past Bot War painting challenges are up here as well as projects, they sort of go hand in hand for me so if you like what you’ve seen go check them out and if you like the look of Bot War go check out https://tradersgalaxy.com.au/product-category/bot-war/

Bring on next year!

This is it, the end is in sight, and as the final day approaches I have finished up Conspiracy by adding in the spot colours with a mixture of Scale75 Inks over the white basecoat, and highlighted the Steel metallic areas with some silver from the Darkstar Molten Metals range.

I re-rimmed the edge of the base with my brown mix, and glued the head back in.

And that is it.

Its done.

45 models in 28 days, quite happy with that.

Tomorrow I will use my first “free pass” (you get 2) to forgo any painting, and instead will take some proper photos of the finished force.

For now though, enjoy some finished shots of Conspiracy

Lots of highlighting tonight, lots and lots of highlighting.

Progress is being made though and the end is very much in sight.

I also blocked in the areas for spot colours with some Monument Hobbies Pro-acryl titanium white as the base for the inks to go onto tomorrow.

Still cracking on with Conspiracy, tonight I added the blacklining around panels, layered on the grey under armour and gave it some highlights, and started the tidy up.

Still to do…
– highlight metallics
– pinnacle highlights
– basecoat spot colours
– apply inks
– re-rim the base

Looking at what time I have left i won’t be able to get the infantry built and painted as well as finishing the big Bot, which is a shame, but getting the 2nd fortress painted did eat into some time and they weren’t in my original model list for the challenge so I’m not beating myself up over it.

Still very much a work in progress, I was able to get the Anthracite basecoat down to finish off the main primer cover up.

Once dry I used P3 Armour Wash to give everything a shade of dark blue grey. I tried to move this around once aploed to stop it pooling, using a dry brush to absorb any pools, and a wet brush to help smooth it out and push into recesses.

After this was dry I added some Vallejo mecha blue grey to Anthracite and the nned it out into a glaze. This was then applied to all armour pieces, pushing the glaze to create lighter areas, stippling it on to create interest on flat edges, and using it to create some contrast.

This was then glazed back again with pure Anthracite to soften the look.

Its coming along, slowly, and I have much more still to do…..

• Re-layer the grey under amour
• Re-layer base rim
• Highlight under-armour
• Highlight main armour
• Highlight metals
• Pinacle edge highlights
• Black line panels and recesses
• Block in spot colours with white
• Appy magenta and turquoise inks to spot areas

4 days to get that lot done

Into the really ugly phase for Conspiracy.

Given the size of the model I only managed to get the grey under amour and metallic basecoats painted. I would usually start with the main armour colour on a Bot but with the sheer size of this thing I wanted to start with the innermost points first. I am also using a larger brush than normal to make it faster to apply the layers so there is more chance of clipping other parts on my strokes (as can be seen), so having the armour paint go on last means I can be much neater and tidy up all those little mistakes.

Tomorrow will be the first time all month where I don’t have other “life stuff” going on, so I’m hoping to take full advantage of it, stick a few films on, and really push conspiracy forward.

For all those challengers that remain, the end is in site, just a few more days!

Final week and the big Bot comes out to play.

I’ve had this model built since it was released over 2 years ago, but it remained in a basic primed state sat on my shelf staring at me ever since, so what better way to wrap up this COILS force than by getting this titan painted up.

I think I’ve given myself plenty of time to get him painted up, and this was what my schedule was aiming for. I forgo some pass days that I thought I’d need to take, and by getting Chopper and Attack Jet done on the same day has allowed me some breathing space.

Anyway, I have started off by painting up the base, getting down several layers of brown, drybrushing on some highlights. Painting the rocks with a blue grey before glazing in some purples and greens. Everything was then washed with P3 Armour Wash, and then some further highlights were wet blended in.

This will now all dry overnight and set me up for the weekends painting.

My favourite of the COILS Bots, Messenger is a pretty average air support warrior with alright firepower and resilience in the game.

As the Bot version of the Attack Jet I used the Jet for reference and painted all of the elements the same.

It didn’t take me long but I was rushed, I’d like to come back and glaze in some better highlights at some point (on the helmet for example) but time is of the essence and this bot needed to be done.

With all of the main units now complete it’s onto the final milestone, the centrepiece, the 110mm tall Conspiracy.

But he’ll have to wait…..

Another Bot gets added to the done pile. Another split painting session today and i decided to take some shots of my Bot painting process.

I generally approach a bot by dabbing on spots of the main colour to the various armour panels I come across. I use this step to familiarise myself with the bot and all of its shapes. The dabbing gives me a good idea of how much armour there is and how much under armour needs to get painted. If it doesn’t look a good balance I choose to make some parts armour, or some parts under-armour, or in some situations split it using blacklining to essentially separate a piece into 2.

Once I’m happy with how much armour there will be I then layer on the basecoat to give a solid colour, then move onto the under armour and do the same.
Next I block in any metallics for rivets and weapons, and then touch up any messed up strokes.

And that’s it, the basecoats are down, I’ve got a good idea how the model is made up so know where I want to highlight, and have 3 main work ups to then progress after applying a shading wash.
I do use a small hairdryer to speed up the drying time for layers and glazes, and for washes I move the paint around to try and prevent pooling before hitting it with the hairdryer.

Anyway, one more Bot to go.

Words words words

The Heavy Chopper is an absolute beast of a helicopter. Extremely well shielded and packing decent firepower, the vehicle form of Shogun has the ability to transport either Darkstate/Vyper, Deepstate/ABT, or a large infantry platoon to wherever its needed on the battlefield.

Shogun is a massive bot and the “Chopper” is equally massive.

Super early paint today, managed to get a couple of hours in whilst watching some hobby chat show on YouTube that gets released every week, you should check it out…… Anyway, painted up Raven who is the Bot form of Nightbird. It’s a cool sculpt but is let down by it’s pose, it’s looking down as if dropping in from above, but has its foot on a rock which just looks weird to me, even if landing I’d expect it’s head to be tilted up and not looking down.

Also the gun barrel has warped, this was originally fixed by heat treatment but has gone back to being bent over time, a bit annoying but it’s what it is and these aren’t in anyway going near a competition so…..

Anyway, I decided to grab some in progress shots of the general COILS Vengeance painting process as it’s been a while since I posted a more in depth update.

The following shots show off the different colours being applied, and whilst it doesnt go into too much detail about the final steps as this is pretty fluid and changes for each model, it’s the basic process that every miniature I’m painting is following. Enjoy….

A 2 session paint today, sneaking in 30 minutes on my lunchbreak to get this high flyer started with some simple blocking in of basecoats and then washing the hull and the base with P3 Armour Shade.

The part 2 was kicked off this evening with an hour to go through and add some simple highlights and secondary colours to bring it to life.

Again not the best finish, but for under 2 hours and a split session I happy to send this bird into the done tray.

A quick paint tonight of Slaughter, the Bot form of the ABM painted yesterday.

Its nice to have another Bot/Vehicle pair painted.

Tomorrow and for the next few days I should be able to start on the heavy aerial contingent.

Although still behind schedule I have decided to press on and use the airbrush to try and get back on track.

I used the last of my mixed brown and sprayed all of the bases for the remaining minis (excluding conspiracy) so they have their basecoat nicely applied. I did a couple of passes with the brown before adding a drybrushed on highlight with the Longbeard Grey.

Getting all of the minis’ bases to a good place like this will hopefully makes it easier to pick up all of the remaining models in the coming days and just start working straight away on the body basecoats then hit both the body and the base with the shade…. Hopefully this pays off in the long run.

I also painted up the ABM vehicle which is a log wheel base missile launcher.

This was painted up the same as other vehicles, but I found the glazed highlights weened to work better on the flat surfaces of the cab and chassis. Working through a couple of highlights in a glazed fashion added randomness which sort of looks like urban camouflage, an unexpected effect that I was quite happy with.

I didn’t go too fancy with the missile unit, once I paint up Slaughter I(the Bot form of the ABM) I may go back and add some more details, but I’m happy with the cab and main chassis.

Time to get the pair of Fortresses finished and Forktongue moved into the “done” pile.

The night started with the Fortresses getting a black lining around every panel and shadow with citadel contrast Black Legion. This is a great colour for black lining in my opinion as it isn’t fully opaque, so shades surrounding areas it makes contact with, whilst getting a deeper black at the deepest recess.

There were just sooo many panels to like on these fortresses it took a while to do them both. You can see the difference  though when you see in the following image comparing one that had been lined vs one that hadn’t.

With the panels lined I went in with some Monument Pro-acryl White to create a base for the window lights and spotlights. These were then coloured over with the Scale75 inks with magenta for the windows and turquoise for the spot lights.

With the fortresses done it was onto Forktongue.

Following the same method as all of the other bots I used the Turrets as a reference for parts to highlight and added a couple of turquoise spot colours to the shoulders and side of the head.

And that’s them done. A day behind schedule but I’m hoping I can catch up later in the week and use the airbrush to perhaps batch up a few models to speed things up.

Currently hitting one of my struggle points balancing this challenge and other commitments that I knew I’d be facing so running on only 3.5hrs sleep at the moment.

I wanted to get Forktongue and the COILS fortress both started and finished today, but I found my other Fortress in an old WIP pile, so decided that I’d get it painted up at the same time as my new Fortress.

Given the size of the fortress and in preparation for Conspiracy I went with the airbrush to paint the brown bases and also the Anthracite Armour panels. This worked well but when I went over with the Armour Wash shade, all of those flat panels were difficult to keep tidy. A minor set back but I adapted and instead of layering up new coats of Anthracite I stippled on some highlights with a really old frayed brush to create randomised interest on the flat panels. After 2 stages of highlights I glazed anthracite over to knock them back a bit. I’m happy with the result, it’s not perfect, but these are big pieces and I wanted to slightly weather the armour on the structures. They’ll get finished off tomorrow.

Forktongue also had his base and basecoats painted, and got its first shade applied. It doesn’t look too difficult to finish it and both Fortresses tomorrow, and then maybe start on Heavy Chopper depending on available time.

Short brief update. Only managed to get the Turrets finished. Forktongue will have to wait until tomorrow.