Hutchs Battletech, A new Begining

With Battletech finally getting more mainstream attention it was time to dig out my Kickstarter Clan Invasion pledge.

Now I am not new to Battletech, having started playing the game when it was first released oh-so-many years ago now, but I have taken a break from playing due to life just getting really busy.  This, however, has not caused my love of the universe to dwindle.

In previous times I just painted my mechs up in batches in various House or camo colours but this time I want to approach things from a different angle.

As nice as it was having so many different painted collections there was always that time when I struggled to make a nice looking and cohesive force for the points value or mission required.

This time around I plan to paint my Inner Sphere units up in one style and my Clan units up in another.  That way I can mix and match units in a Lance/Star without them all looking completely different.

First up was to decide on what kind of tabletop I wanted to create.

The last tabletop I built was grasslands with hills and trees which was all very pretty but this time I wanted something different.

I settled on a more desert feel.  Of course, I still plan to have trees and the like but will theme it more to dryer climates.

With that settled, I had to come up with a colour scheme that I could happily replicate over and over again without going insane.

Zandri Dust Spray Primer seemed like a logical place to start so without wasting any time I undercoated my first model.

The next step was to pick out another accent colour.  Thie model I had selected was an Urbanmech, so to me, it seemed logical that a colour more suitable to built-up areas would be a good choice.  I plan to have a city or at least some buildings as part of the layout as I cannot see a slow Urbanmech lasting too long in the desert dunes.

I chose Army Painters Ash Gray and painted up a few of the armour panels.

Once dry I gave the whole model a coating in Agrax Earthshade.

Once the shade had dried, I once again went over the model with Zandri Dust and Ash Grey repainting the panels but leaving the shade in the recesses.

The next stage was to start on the camo pattern.  For this, I used Flat Brown to make irregular blobs on the Zandri Dust panels.  I tried not to make too many as I wanted the sandy colour to be the primary colour on the model.  I then used German grey to put little dark grey dots on the edges of the camo splodges.  Once dry I used silver grey to put little dots partially covering the previously applied grey dots.  I also added a few of these Dark/light grey dots combos to a couple of other areas on the mech.

Once all that was dry, I used Ushanti Bone to paint around the edges of the Zandri Dust panels, making sure that I also painted across any of the came splodges with this colour to simulate a highlight and also to help the camo splodges blend back into the model.

next up was Stonewall Grey to go around the edges of the grey panels on the model.

I didn’t edge highlight every panel, just enough to create an effect.

The next job will be to paint the cockpit glass and weapon barrels.