Bot War Painting Challenge 2021 – Atlanticans Rising

Wrapping up Kamen today will give me 3 days to focus on Leviathan. He’s a rather big chap but everything has scaled up so it should be achievable.

Kamen had some horrendous yellow foundations to work from, but this was the first thing I tackled, using P3 Blazing Ink to first draw glazes down towards the bottom of the details, then using Scale75 Hykey Yellow drawing glazes upward to finish at the high points. Increasing the amount of the Hykey Yellow glazes really helped to smooth out the transitions, and the effect was finalised with a small highlight of Reaper MSP Foggy Grey (as I had it to hand). This worked well in the central canopy details, the shin guards, and the head fin.

As with the other bots the main armour was edge highlighted with Surfer Orc from Scale75. I did have some issues with my detail brush and the edges did become messy (wings are a prime example of this), and not having a consistent base colour I could go back in and fix overspill or thicker edges, I did the best I could with some Aethematic Blue contrast paint to try and harmonise the colours.

Once all the remaining little details were added (like the eyes), I was happy to call this bot done.

A bonus entry for today, as I need to make a start on the 9 bases so that they can set overnight and I can make use of the airbrush when I have it out tomorrow for Leviathan.

The bases I have to complete are:

• 4x 40mm (Mud Warriors)
• 4x 50mm (Kamen, Neptune, Moray, Stingray)
• 1x 100mm (Leviathan)

I have a fairly comprehensive tutorial for my Bot War bases in my previous Project, and these will be created in very much the same way.

I wanted some interest on the bases, so I started off by gluing some slate chunks I had to the bases in random areas, but for Leviathan base I clumped a couple of pieces together, using ultra strong PVA to secure them together and to the base.

These 2 pots give me a great amount of  mileage, they’re both huge, don’t break the bank, and have great results.

The Rough Terrain pot from Ak-interactive is gritty paste, able to be scooped and spread over an area, and is tacky enough to help secure any scatter that you sprinkle over the top.

I like to use a plastic spoon to heal on enough to cover the base, and then use a small spatula to spread it out over all of the surface, making sure to not carve channels or leave obvious spread marks. Any overspill can easily be wiped off with a bit of damp kitchen roll as we want the base edges to be nice and smooth.

I work the Rough Texture into any gaps between rocks and around the bases to ensure that they have a better grip on the base once it cures, but also to help with the realism as the rocks would be protruding out of the ground as years of mud/dirt/sand would build up around the edges.

Once the base is coated in rough texture paste I use the Rival Craft Rocky Canyon scatter tub to sprinkle over a the wet paste a mixture of sand, grit, and small rock details. This range of tubs really are Instant Base Scatter as they work so easily on bases like this. I highly recommend checking out Rival Crafts for any basing or scenery project.

With all the bases worked on I will leave them overnight for the rough texture to set, and tomorrow I will then give them a blast of varnish to ensure the scatter is secure before painting.

Today sees Leviathan get his first few coats of paint. Having primed him at the start of this project he has always just been sat to my side waiting patiently for his turn.

Leviathan is the combined form of 5 other bots, the 4 mud warriors I have already painted, and Octo, who I purchased during this project but didn’t get a chance to build him…. He will get painted very soon though or I won’t be able to use Leviathan on the table.

The basecoats started as usual with Vallejo Metal Air Black metal and then Gun Metal. This gives a solid base with dark recesses that I could then lay Chrome over for the topcoat, the photos above don’t have the chrome shown, but after I had finished the 3 colour workup I wanted to do something to help create contrast and interest.

Taking Liquitex Carbon Black and Dark Umber inks I added these to some Black Metal and thinned it with I star Water+, this created a nice bronze like shade.

Painting this inky shade into the deepest recesses I then used a drybrush with Vallejo chrome mixed with a very small amount of the Umber to then buff in a slightly coloured highlight. You can see in the following photo the difference this makes, whereby I painted the left leg in this method, and the right is left with the chrome.

I liked the effect the Umber ink in the chrome created, it warmed the metals and I figured it would also mix with the contrast I’m about to lay over the top to give a nice colour.

Taking the same approach as the mud warriors I created a mix of Akhelian Green, Terradon Turquoise and Dark Angle Green Citadel Contrast paints, thinned with a little contrast medium and water+ so it’s ready for the airbrush.

Working my way gently over the model I applied an even coat of the mix so that all of the metal was totally coated, I didn’t mind about the non-metal parts as they will be painted separately so I didn’t need unnecessary layers to have to paint over later.

The overall effect of this has come out well. It’s not quite how the same as the other bots, they each have their own variation of this workup, but this version on Leviathan matches the same colours as the Mud Warriors just on a much larger scale.

And that’s it for Leviathan, this sets me up well for the last 2 days, one to paint the yellow and grey details, and then the final one to edge highlight myself into oblivion.

Part 2 of the Part B updates, focusing on basing.  Bases are very important, they frame a model, help convert a narrative, a setting, a sense of coherency.

Leaving the AK-Interactive Rough Terrain to set overnight gives a really rock solid layer to then work with. As the paste dries it compacts so any loose sand or grit over the top get trapped, and it hugs onto any rocks that were poked into it as well. Whilst I know this is enough to start painting over, as I was using real slate and rocks I wanted to give everything an even playing field, so I used some Army Painter Anti-shine matt varnish (rattle can) as I love the effect it has, and when I’m sealing bases I don’t care if it accidently frosts over due to humidity or other environmental factors.

You can see in the following images the compactness of the set rough terrain paste.

With the bases solidly set, I gave them a coat of citadel chaos back rattle can to get into all of the crevices, this is still one of the best primers going and there is nothing wrong with it other than the price.

As with my previous Bot War bases which are brown rock themed I created an airbrushable mixture of citadel Xv88 and scale75 Gibi Brown, thinned in a dropper bottle with water+ and vallejo flow improver.

After a good shake in the dropper bottle I used this through my airbrush to give the bases a couple of coats from all directions to ensure everything had paint on and then left it to dry.

That’s it for today, another productive day over.

Still to complete:

• Drybrush the bases
• Rim the bases
• Add tufts
• Paint the slate rocks

2 days to go.

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.

Not quite. Despite 20 days of consecutive painting, the wonders of a calendar means that to finish in the 30th will actually be 21 days of painting, so there’s a bonus day.

However, that will be minimal painting, a couple of touch ups and gluing to bases before a final photo shoot.

To finish off Leviathan I had a number of things to achieve, and to be honest, as with many of the days during this challenge I took a little bit longer than 30 minutes.

In fact I did about 4 hours work, but then I had a lot to do:

• Edge highlight the grey
• Edge highlight the armour
• Paint the tyres
• Highlight and blend the yellow
• Paint the weapons and metals
• Paint the eyes
• More blacklining and tidying

And I achieved the vast majority of this. All of my previous workups went into this model, and whilst he’s not perfect, there’s still some touching up and tidying to do. I’m pretty happy with the result.

I will sum up some lessons learnt in my final project post but for now Leviathan is in an 95% complete state, which I’m content with.

And as June 2021 comes to an end, so does this painting challenge. 20 days of painting, 9 Bots finished.

I’ve learnt a lot over the last few weeks, about my approach to painting, the benefits of planning, realising I can paint yellow in some ways but not in others, and testing out some new techniques.

Most importantly though, I had fun, and I got back to painting regularly again.

I will leave you with some final photos of my completed bots, if you have enjoyed reading this blog, seeing Bot War’s being painted, and want to know more about the game and its wonderful models, please drop by the Bot War Miniatures Game Facebook group and check out the Traders Galaxy website which is full of great information.

PLEASE NOTE

I am in no way sponsored by or affiliated with Bot War or Traders Galaxy, I am just a fan of the game, the miniatures and universe Anthony has created, its the miniatures range I have always wanted so I’m happy to share my enjoyment of them where I can and hopefully see this game grow and grow.