20 year old battlepods

[kanata67]

Those are simply gorgeous.  Fantastic stuff....I LOVE the mottled appearance.  I only hand brush so far, so I am also really interested on both a how-to, and some more pics of the Marine in your avatar   That's one clean and siny SM.  Amazing interior bash work as well... that's so cool.

Thanks, I mainly hand brush myself, I do have an airbrush but it is cheap and nasty and I'm not sufficiently skilled with it to use it for much more than basic coverage so all special effects are done with good old-fashioned bristles. Due to popular demand I will post a "how to" in this forum as soon as I get a chance to do some painting and take a few "in progress" pics.

The Space Marine is one of my CG works, my actual GW figures rarely paint up so good in the real world.

I was gonna say that I thought I recognized somebody used to citadel paints when I say the first page. Motling, drybrushing, and washing are what it's all about. I spent many a day happily painting 40k figs and battling them... up till got banned anyways. Mount one interplanatary defence cannon on an ork battlewagon and damned if they don't revise the rule books

unlike somepeople who managed to hang on to all their stuff... I have only the one original piece of my gaming days which suffered much in the decade it was stored...

[Mechmaster]

Those rule changes bite, they got me the same way, I had just finished building a huge Imperial Guard army, around 150 figures, four Rhinos, a Predator and a Land Raider. Then they revise the rules for IG and I could no longer use any of the armour and my squad configurations were suddenly all wrong.

After that I pretty much gave up on the gaming side of the hobby but I still buy the vehicle kits from time to time, mainly as reference for building CG models.

I've just been racking my brains trying to remember which anime kit that blue piece on the side of your battlewagon is from, its the magazine from the Bushman from the Takara Dougram range, or possibly the Roundfacer since they provide that particular weapon as a second, optional armament in that kit.

Edited May 8, 2005 by Mechmaster

[Black Valkyrie]

Nice to other members still have old Macross kits, I my still have a whole set of Arii 1/200 kits from 1987 like VF-1A GBP Armor to VF-1J in Skull squadron style.

[Rodavan]

Great models, Mechmaster

[dilaton]

They are really good! It is interesting to note that some kits were built with some Star Wars kind of effects on them. I meant you can see they do not look like some popular Japanese work, it has some influence from the old Star Wars finished kits.

[Grayson72]

Cool thanks for the shots from the back, the cockpit looked so roomy from the other shots

I can't believe you jambed that much detail into such a tiny space.

[Mechmaster]

They are really good! It is interesting to note that some kits were built with some Star Wars kind of effects on them. I meant you can see they do not look like some popular Japanese work, it has some influence from the old Star Wars finished kits.

Prior to discovering anime kits I had mainly built WWII AFVs and movie spacecraft (mostly Star Wars) so its safe to say that I carried that influence over into the Macross kits. I'm not a great fan of overly clean mecha and really enjoy building things that look like real down and dirty combat machines, the Destroids and stuff like Votoms are real favourites for me since they are ground pounding mecha that get muddy and beat up.

[promethuem5]

Hehe, same here. My favs are always ground pounders..... weathering is my strong suit, so I can do it pretty well and it;s the best of what I can do

[kanata67]

Those rule changes bite, they got me the same way, I had just finished building a huge Imperial Guard army, around 150 figures, four Rhinos, a Predator and a Land Raider. Then they revise the rules for IG and I could no longer use any of the armour and my squad configurations were suddenly all wrong.

After that I pretty much gave up on the gaming side of the hobby but I still buy the vehicle kits from time to time, mainly as reference for building CG models.

I've just been racking my brains trying to remember which anime kit that blue piece on the side of your battlewagon is from, its the magazine from the Bushman from the Takara Dougram range, or possibly the Roundfacer since they provide that particular weapon as a second, optional armament in that kit.

bonus points if you can figure out where the canno came from. Still rotates and pivots to. I was real proud of the spikey nose platform... till it got stored to long anyways. Used to have a snotling up front with a blunderbuss hanging on for dear life LOL. I still use nothing but citadel paints. And let me tell you it isn't easy tracking down colors they haven't made since the early 90's

[Mechmaster]

bonus points if you can figure out where the canno came from.

I think you've got me beat there, it appears to be a Nousjadeul-Ger shoulder cannon but its not the one from the Imai kit which is the only model of the suit I am familiar with.

I'm quite a fan of the Citadel acrylics too, they cover really well and they have the best shelf life of any paint I've ever tried, I have a pot of Titilating Pink which must be 15 years old now and still perfectly useable.

[promethuem5]

The only BW paint that has a poor shelf life as far as I can tell is Boltgun Metal.... it always dries up into a really thick molasses like substance for some reason! It doesnt last more than two or three months of proper use.... all the others are good tho.

[kanata67]

bonus points if you can figure out where the canno came from.

I think you've got me beat there, it appears to be a Nousjadeul-Ger shoulder cannon but its not the one from the Imai kit which is the only model of the suit I am familiar with.

I'm quite a fan of the Citadel acrylics too, they cover really well and they have the best shelf life of any paint I've ever tried, I have a pot of Titilating Pink which must be 15 years old now and still perfectly useable.

think outside the box...

many a gi joe vehicle was sacrificed in my teens. Now I have no friends with old joe toys in the basement I can have for free so I abuse spawn figures

[94medition]

Mechmaster, really like your painting technique. Would love to see a "how to". I have seen another model with similar effect. The guy who painted it uses many "layer" of color wash to achieve the effect.

[Mechmaster]

I will try to put together an interesting "how to" with a few pictures when I get the time but for now I will give a basic description of my technique.

I work wet on wet which makes it a relatively fast method of painting a kit. Generally I apply an appropriately coloured base coat, although I have used the same method on bare plastic without any problems. Then I open 5 or 6 tins/pots of paint, one will be the main colour, a couple will be either darker and lighter shades of that colour or black and white and the others will be contrasting colours or browns. I apply the base colour to an area of the kit and then with the same brush dab on other colours, stippling or blending them to a greater or lesser degree depending on how strong I want the mottled effect to be. In essence I mix the paint on the kit rather than in a mixing dish, but do it in an uneven manner so that the colour varies while giving an overall impression of the particular colour that that part is supposed to be. For metallic areas I generally use gunmetal with black and brown to give the apppearance of aged steel, perhaps adding a dash of silver to the mix to highlight areas which would be shiny from wear. The technique is really a combination of colour coat, weathering and highlighting all rolled into a single coat of paint.

I hope this description will tide folk over until I can put together a more formal explanation with a few illustrations and thank you all for your interest and kind words.

Edited May 11, 2005 by Mechmaster

[HWR MKII]

The main part i like about the process is that it gives the model the look of a peice of machinery used by a race that has forgotten how to fix or maintain its equipment. It gives them an aged but still in service look.

[promethuem5]

Thanks! That helps alot to get a basic feel of what you're doing... sounds really cool. I've been getting into blending alot more lately, and might have to try this to further my learning some more. A pic tutuorial would be stellar!

[rnurmin]

Mechmaster: Very nice work

The models look amazing

[Osean]

Nice. The battlepods look great, its obvious a lot of time and effort was put in.

[honneamise]

Great work Mechmaster, I very much appreciate this - I built my first (and only so far) Regult 20 years ago just like you but mine was one of my first partially airbrushed models - looks plain and boring compared to yours! And in the 80s I was still years away from your skills of superdetailing as well.

Before I had an airbrush I tried to use a technique similar to yours to create soft edged camouflage schemes. When I finally had one I put all my efforts into airbrushing and never tried these things again. Your models prove that hand painting is not a dead end at all - no airbrush technique creates surfaces like these! And yes, your Regults look very Takani-style!

My first contact to any Macross stuff was through the IMAI kits with Takani box art on them. I didn´t know his name but his renditions immediately got me hooked . I had seen japanese robots before but I considered them as being toys. The Macross mechas on the boxes were clearly big walking tanks, made of steel and fighting real battles - I had to have them!

I consider Takani as the greatest box art artist - Shigeo Koike or Hidetaka Tenjin are more perfect in terms of smooth surfaces, lighting, realistic skies, tiny details and even perspective - I love their work, but still the Takani style is more...I guess I should call it "dramatic". His paintings rock!

[kanata67]

I will try to put together an interesting "how to" with a few pictures when I get the time but for now I will give a basic description of my technique.

I work wet on wet which makes it a relatively fast method of painting a kit. Generally I apply an appropriately coloured base coat, although I have used the same method on bare plastic without any problems. Then I open 5 or 6 tins/pots of paint, one will be the main colour, a couple will be either darker and lighter shades of that colour or black and white and the others will be contrasting colours or browns. I apply the base colour to an area of the kit and then with the same brush dab on other colours, stippling or blending them to a greater or lesser degree depending on how strong I want the mottled effect to be. In essence I mix the paint on the kit rather than in a mixing dish, but do it in an uneven manner so that the colour varies while giving an overall impression of the particular colour that that part is supposed to be. For metallic areas I generally use gunmetal with black and brown to give the apppearance of aged steel, perhaps adding a dash of silver to the mix to highlight areas which would be shiny from wear. The technique is really a combination of colour coat, weathering and highlighting all rolled into a single coat of paint.

I hope this description will tide folk over until I can put together a more formal explanation with a few illustrations and thank you all for your interest and kind words.

what he said.

mixing on it as you go has great benifits and a few drawbacks. + is kit looks sweet as heck... - is it's real damn hard to duplicate. It's all about the washes

[Wicked Ace]

Simply awesome. I really like the painting technique. I will be builing my own Regult, soon hopefully, and I hope I can do half as good a job as you.