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.

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.