Bot War Painting Challenge 2020

Today saw the start of my 4th bot – Digger – one I had been putting off to last as he has a large amount of “metals” and is asymmetric.  I really wanted to make sure I had nailed my paint schema and method before I made a start on it hence leaving him to number 4 out of the 5 bots in the Builder squad (the leader will be number)

I have refrained from using metallic paints on these bots, instead I have tried to create worn and weathered looking points of interest using standard acrylics, texture through drybrushing, filters and recess shading from washes.

Tomorrow I will post a write up specifically on this as this bot has a lot of tracks and details that I can take photos of.

Today though, I have just blocked in the main colours.  As mentioned above this bot is asymmetric so I wanted to make sure the primary green colour would still dominate and not become unbalanced against the large tracks.  Also the pose of the model hides a lot of the body details so I needed to make sure that there was sufficient grey and purple detailing.

My original source of inspiration had the tracks coloured purple, which I didn’t want to use as I didn’t think it looked “real” (ignoring the fact that these are bright green robots).  So I went with my metal colour for the tracks and tried to include purple into the waist and ankles. The inside legs were plain surfaces so in keeping with the other bits I have gone for grey to show for “under armour” joints. This will need to be refined with highlights and black lining to really sell it, and if this unbalance the amount of grey on the model I have the chevrons on the arms I could add some more purple to if its needed (perhaps alternating purple & grey)

My original source of inspiration had the tracks coloured purple, which I didn’t want to use as I didn’t think it looked “real” (ignoring the fact that these are bright green robots).  So I went with my metal colour for the tracks and tried to include purple into the waist and ankles. The inside legs were plain surfaces so in keeping with the other bits I have gone for grey to show for “under armour” joints. This will need to be refined with highlights and black lining to really sell it, and if this unbalance the amount of grey on the model I have the chevrons on the arms I could add some more purple to if its needed (perhaps alternating purple & grey)

So day 2 of Digger is done. Managed to pick out most of the details but went a bit heavy handed with the highlight and black lining. Worked on the tracks with some more colour and good ol Sewer Water from secret weapon.

Really struggling with this bots pose, the head is looking down too much so when I come to base them I may operate on him, make him look up a bit.

Approaching the half way point now.

Over the halfway hump, and 4th Bot is done. Tried to bring on more glazed shading on the bucket to mimic the chest on Loader (1st bot).

Still struggled to get a good shot of this bot, will do a proper photo shoot at the end as a green bot on a green background wasn’t the best.

Tomorrow I will start the 5yh and final Builder, who is slightly larger and has pretty crisp details, may stretch him out over 4 days to make the most of it.

This is it, the final bot of the 5 Builders, and the unit leader (note foot on rock).

I thought I’d do something different to day and show the starting point for this bot as it’s not exactly starting from nothing.

Back on day 1 I zenithal primed all of the figures I was going to paint for this challenge, and on day 3 I gave them a secret weapon Sewer Water wash over that prime to gunk them up. Day 4 was the P3 Wurm then Noctite Green airbrush session. Day 9 I then secret weapon washed the green again to add some shade (which I actually regret doing, you can see a difference between the first 2 models and the latter ones). It was also whilst painting the lens of Dozer on day 9 that I also painted the lens/visors of the other bots.  So yeah, it’s not starting from scratch on this bot but an even starting point that the previous 2 have been started from.

I wasn’t really feeling it today, 17 days on the trot painting after work may have something to do with it, but i was really happy to at least get my base coats down and have all of the main colours plotted out. This bot is slightly larger than the other 4 and his details are nice and crisp so I should hopefully get some nice edge highlights in a few days time. On his back is also the big bucket so the Sewer Water wash has already made a nice weathered/worn effect which I will photograph tomorrow as I work up from it.

• That’s it for now, hope you’re enjoying the project, 14 more days to go!

Very short swift update as last night I really struggled due to a hammering headache. Couldn’t finish layering up the green. 31 minutes a day is the minimum required so I took full advantage of this and didn’t spend any longer than necessary so I could go rest. Will have a bigger update tonight for day 19 as I plan to have a decent paint session after I finish work to catch up.

Day 3 of Dumptruck, usually I would be finished by now but yesterday was a bit of a difficult day for me and so I didn’t manage to get more than 31 minutes painting done.

Today though I finished up the layers and black lining.  I also added in some glass to the left foot similar to the visor using a workup of vallejo Game colour extra opaque heavy red (not the shortest name around) as the base, then layering in vallejo model colour magenta, and whilst still wet dab in some reaper  Foggy Grey.

Tomorrow will see the end of this bot as I plan to carry out all of the edge highlights, I may try to dull down the green a touch as it is quite bright.

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