Bot War Painting Challenge 2021 - Atlanticans Rising

Nothing like an impending deadline looming to focus the mind.

The most pressing thing I needed to do was to finish the bases, without these I would not have achieved the minimum requirement of 5 competed miniatures.

Working through the checklist I set out yesterday I firstly Drybrushed all of the bases. This was first with Citadel Baneblade Brown  followed by Longbeard grey dry paint. This was worked over both the rocks and the rough texture to help lift the volumes.

A small amount of Army Painter Dark Tone and Liquitex Burnt Umber ink was then worked into shadows, around rocks, into the layers of the slate, and also sparingly dabbled into random places on the bases. Adding this shadow colour helped create interest and some variety.

Finally I again drybrushed with Baneblade Brown to harmonise everything and reduce some of the brightness of the Longbeard grey.

With the main bases done I added little flourishes using small tufts. The scale for this game is 10mm, so any bushes would be very small, and whilst the bots look 28mm, a 28mm scale tuft would be huge at 10mm.

The last thing I did was to use my basecoat mix from yesterday to paint the rims of the bases. Two thin coats here gives a lovely smooth finish.

I don’t enjoy this stage of painting. Its lots of basecoats and layers and on a model this size it takes time.

It doesn’t look pretty.

It’s not very interesting.

It is however, essential to do these things.

Working in the grey joints took several coats, they are big flat surfaces, and whilst I could do some fancy fade work I simply don’t have time, so focussed on being as smooth as possible.

I also worked in the blacklining using the liquitex carbon black mixed with Vallejo black to create a smooth opaque colour. The reason for this is that there are some fairly large recesses and gaps that need to be blacked out and adding the acrylic paint to the ink made a nice smooth opaque application.

With the grey blocked in i then set about starting some of the details.

Painting the tyres with Secret Weapon Tyre Black was the starting point, the same as the mud warriors, but this time there were 30 of them to paint. Whisky I had the tyre black out I also painted on some of the hose details on each of the limbs.

The final bit of painting I did today was to start on the yellow. To speed this process up I used Vallejo Extra Opaque Heavy Brown mixed with the Pro-acryl Golden yellow to get a solid base. And one I had this I then use the P3 ink and golden yellow mix. Getting the opacity blocked in helped to reduce greening of the yellow, and allowed me to reach my finishing point of the day faster.

Lots still to do, tomorrow will be a busy day.