Switching Gears

As Paul had mentioned a few days ago, we are going to be attending GASPCon XI  next weekend at Pittsburgh's beautiful and historic Best Western in the Parkway Center Mall.  For me, this is going to be a landmark event as I've never attended a large-scale convention before so I'm not totally sure what to expect.  What I do know is that nobody can host a convention like Pittsburgh, who is famous for such annual gatherings as Anthrocon:

Furries!

And let's NOT forget the International Bridge Conference, an entertainment juggernaut in it's own right...

I think all those overturned water glasses speak for themselves.

It's safe to say that the bar has been set fairly high and I expect nothing but good things from my first convention experience.  In particular, I'm looking forward to the Classic Battletech 'Poker Run' event.  You can take a look at the rules here, but the basic jist of it is each person brings one 'Mech to the table, and you get playing cards by holding objectives and damaging enemy 'Mechs.  At the end of the fight, the person with the best poker hand wins the game.

I decided speed and firepower would be key and settled on a shiny new Marauder-3R to get the job done.  It has decent speed, packs a wallop with two PPC's and a low Battle Value means I'll be hitting almost everything I shoot at.

Everybody knows that a painted mini kills better and after spending entirely too much time on the Space Marine Sternguard Squad, I thought a 'Mech would be a nice change of pace...so let's get to it!

1.  I started out with a dark grey basecoat:

Stormy Grey

2.   To start bringing out detail, this was followed up by drybrushing a slightly lighter shade on top.  For those of you (like me) who don't have time to bother with mixing your own shades for this, Reaper Miniatures sells 'Triads' of three paints in varying shades.  For this 'Mech I used the Neutral Grays set.

Stormy Grey + Cloudy Grey

3.  At this point, I filled in details on the 'Mech like regimental colors, cockpit glass and gun metal.  After this was done, I lightly drybrushed on a third shade of grey.

Stormy + Cloudy + Misty Grey (seeing a pattern, here?)

4.  Now, at this point, most purists and professionals would start yammering on and on about applying washes, inks, more drybrushing, more inking, sandwich making and five more shades of grey.  Call me a cheater and heretic, but I don't have time or the patience for this for this.  Thus, I'm going to tip you off to a little gem I recently discovered called Quickshade by a company called The Army Painter.  In short, "Dipping" is a technique wherein one takes a miniature and literally dips it into a pot of watered down, inky paint-like...stuff.  With a little help from gravity, the ink then settles into the cracks and folds of the model and dries dark.  This creates a really neat shading effect that the pro's spend hours on. Suckas.

INTO THE DIP

So, I dipped the 'Mech into a pot of Quickshade "Dark" Tone and let him rest.  The important thing to remember about this stuff is at needs a good 12 hours at least to dry completely.

5.  Last but not least, I based him using a no-frills technique of green paint, Elmer's Glue and some Woodland Scenics flocking.  If you are interested in the Quickshade, one thing to remember is as well as being a sweet shortcut, it's also a varnish and dries shiny.  For this, the folks at The Army Painters have created an Anti-Shine spray.  You don't need much of this at all, just a few very quick passes over the front and sides of the mini and it's done!  Note: MAKE SURE THE QUICKSHADE IS COMPLETELY DRY BEFORE APPLYING THE ANTI-SHINE. If it's not, it'll turn everything white.

6.  Go to the convention and kick some ass!