Paint Roulette Invitational, Round 2

The first Paint Roulette Invitational was a huge success. So much so that Round 2 was all but inevitable. What? Never heard of it? Well, do make sure you go and check out my post on the first one from a few months back, get up to speed.

This time around we had more painters, more options and some incredible raffle prize support for all participants courtesy of Fortress Miniatures and Games. Just for fun: no judges’ panel, no scoreboards, no bull. Just a bunch of hobby heroes doing something different and pushing their personal limits. And everyone got a little loot to seal the deal!

You know what they say: enough pressure can turn a lump of coal into a diamond, a normal person into an unhinged maniac, and a tough PRI assignment into a masterpiece. Fun was had by all, even if an unlucky few, including your dear writer here, were sentenced to some truly challenging paintjobs.

I think this little shindig has legs. I really do. It has the makings of a proper event. It is small for now, but one day it might be the sci-fi mini-painting extravaganza from which there is no escape. In the meantime, check out the charts and the results below along with some insights from each of the participants. We once again had some amazing, one-of-a-kind BattleTech pieces churned out.

Theme
Rolling on 1D12

1. Spots – Circles, dots, spheres, etc.
2. Fade – One or more colors shifting to others.
3. Blobs – Irregular blobs and patches of color.
4. Blocks – Squares, rectangles, cubes, etc.
5. Lines – Just what it says. One or more lines, parallel or not.
6. Camo – Just what it says. Pick or make a pattern and use your colors.
7. Dazzle – Eye-melting explorations of an evolutionary cul-de-sac in camo theory. I’m praying for you.
8. Animal Print – Wildlife-inspired patterns. Mammals, fish, birds, insects, reptiles, etc.
9. Worn and Weathered – Beat and batter your model like it just shortchanged a Diamond Shark. Rust, grime, wear, streaking, scrapes, mud, etc.
10. Stencilled – Checkers, quadrants, tessellations, tri-color, bi-color or other liveries or distinct graphical embellishments.
11. Inked – Flames, bones, thorns, and other sort of pattern or iconography you’d expect to see on a reasonably tasteful if ill-advised tattoo.
12. House – Pick a Major or Minor House unit scheme of your choice, or some other faction or outfit that you can work with your colorway result.

Colorway
Rolling on 1D12

1. Desert – Any colors suitable for use in desert environments.
2. Woodland – M81 and OD enjoyers rejoice.
3. Jungle – Emerald greens and other conceivably tropical tones
4. Urban – Grays, black, dusty brown, white, etc. Or go monochrome.
5. Arctic – Frigid white, pale gray, frosty blue, anything that says “cold.”
6. Basic – Pick a color. Use only shades and tints of it.
7. Patriotic – Colors chosen from a national flag, or the stereotypical colors of your favorite House or other faction.
8. Two-Tone – Pick two complimentary colors. Use those.
9. Foundry – Chrome, steel, iron, bronze, brass, verdigris, aluminum. Anything that says “metal”.
10. Hazard – Think heavy equipment manufacturers. Vivid, contrasting oranges, yellows, greens, reds, etc. Tones that will say “danger” in every language.
11. Oceanic – Bright, clear beachy tones, or dark and unsettling shades from the briny deep. Blues, greens, white foam, tans, yellow, etc.
12. Galactic – A cosmic palette of black, deep blues, purples, silver, gold, etc. Or anything else that evokes the vastness and mystery of space.

Oleg (Yellow With Hobby)

Crab CRB-??
Assignment: Worn and Weathered, Basic

“…13 years ago, after the dunes strode yet again, Camilla found this ‘mech stuck prone with its limbs deep in the sand. At first she only saw its humped torso and an oddly shaped “B” painted on it. That is probably why she called it “Bug”. She was only 16 back then.
The machine laid about 2 miles away from the scrapyard, where she helped her father repair what was left of agricultural equipment in the village. Camilla used to take every free hour to visit her Bug and eventually started trying to restore it…”

Both parts of my task came as a challenge to me: I am not very experienced in heavy weathering and also one colour restriction promised complications. I decided to partially achieve the weathered look through modelling battle damage and improvised repairs. To satisfy the one tone condition I chose browns and bent their definition from red browns to light sand, ahem, browns. It gave me shades, highlights and weathering, and my black is a bit brown too.
I tried to imagine the reason for the mech to be oddly modified in sandy conditions and came up with this little story which served as a guide for the work. The color scheme of Goliath Scorpion Beta Galaxy felt perfect (except for the clan insignia which I redesigned). With these big pieces in place it was just a matter of putting time and effort into completing the piece.

Huge thanks to Chad and all the painters for support, advice and fun challenge! With all the thought, research and work it inspired me for, I feel I became a better painter over this month!”

Rob Jensen

Assassin ASN-23
Assignment: Lines, Two-Tone

“I feel its fair to say my ambition exceeds my ability to paint consistent, smooth, freehand lines.

That having been said, the design parameters rolled for me were “two color” and “lines”, so though I could’ve dodged a bullet, my fate was always to be shot.

Yes, I’m sure there are ways I could’ve made this project easier on myself, but a paint scheme popped into my head almost immediately, something that would be at home in the Battletech: Beyond Electrodrome gladiatorial setting that I’ve been working like an old dog works an old bone.

So I was stuck with executing this monstrosity. Measure twice, cut once. I tested the scheme on a Trebuchet to get a feel for how to implement things. Poor bastard never saw it comin’.

But hey, you don’t gain and build new skills without taking some risks. You must be willing to make mistakes. In all things, but especially when painting tiny war machines.

Am I critical of my own work? Yes. It’s always been that way. For all of us. Thats human nature.

But balancing those scales is simple: I enjoyed the hell out of this friendly competition. I enjoyed watching my brain give birth to this insane color scheme and then figure out how to make it so. I enjoyed the learning process, my first attempt at precise freehand lines, the butchery and beauty, seeing how much I improved from Trebuchet to Assassin. And I have a Firestarter and a Thunderbolt lined up next to continue the process, to keep my brush in the paint, as it were.

Many thanks, amigos. I had a ball.”

Jason Newman

Jagermech JM6-S
Assignment: Stencilled, Patriotic

“Mercenary Jagermech ‘Landsknecht’

I pulled ‘patriotic’ and ‘stenciled’ where the stencil could be stripes, checkers, and the like. That sounds like heraldry to me and my mind went immediately to transfers. I’ve got a lot of transfers already that fit the bill, I do a lot of 40k and primarily Imperial Knights so I was flush. I decided on a blend of a more standard militaristic look with some accents that would call back to the knight idea.

Working backwards from there I tried to think of something that fit the ‘patriotic’ bill. I didn’t want to do an established Battletech faction, mostly because I never do an established Battletech faction so real world it is. If I was going to do it in the style of a European knight there was always the low hanging fruit of a Templar or something like that but I didn’t find that particularly interesting. So what else could I do? Well a Jagermech sure sounds awfully German, that could work!

What I would do for the base was pretty easy. Thinking about modern German armor immediately calls a snappy grey scheme to mind but that is pretty tasteless so I settled on a more neutral green. For the fancy bits I decided to go with the landsknecht, 16th century German mercenaries that often work brightly colored and patterned tunics and trousers under their armor along with flamboyant feathers on their helmets.

So I’ve got a mercenary who thinks he can trace his roots to German descent, a long line of military culture. He flies the old Terran German flag and has his mech painted in a style that evokes the same wild uniforms of the landsknecht mercenaries of old.”

Arclight Miniatures Zack

Shadow Cat
Assignment: Camo, Woodland

“I quite enjoy the challenge of painting a miniature that is in a style/scheme that I haven’t picked. I feel I got a paint scheme roll that suited me perfectly as camo is something I’m familiar with. Because of this, I decided to do camo in a style that I had not yet done: tiger stripe woodland. I found this a tedious, but very pleasing camo style to paint, and I have been inspired to do a larger force in a similar scheme, go figure! I’m very happy to see Chad continuing the Paint Roulette Challenge and look forward to participating in the next one!”

Daniel Corrigan

Hoplite HOP-4D
Assignment: Blobs, Galactic

“My rolls were “Galactic” and “Blobs”. My fig is a Ral Partha 20-803 HOP-4C cut from a blue card blister. Always a joy to work on actual lead. The artwork on the top of the model was done using just an eye dropper and a toothbrush. Many thanks to Chad Nabors for organizing this fun event and for letting me play along. Cheers!!!”

Adolfo Fernandez

King Crab KGC-000
Assignment: Camo, Two-Tone

“Hello everybody, I am The Collector and I’d like to talk about my entry the “King Crab mini diorama”. It begins with another Paint Roulette invitation and some dice rolls. This time around I got a pretty simple set of requirements that didn’t involve painting tiny trees on mechs. Nevertheless, I wanted to push the limits of my abilities as I knew I’d be going up against some of the greatest mech painters in the hobby, including a couple Camo Specs artists. The excitement and anxiety were in high gear as I felt the rush of wanting to prove myself and do the best work possible.

First were my color choices, as my first set of requirements was that the mech needed to be 2 toned. I went with a white and green color choice, and I wanted to make the white and green look muted and worn as if it were the camouflage colors on an alpine pattern WW2 tank. The second requirement was that it needed to be a camouflage pattern so that made things simple. But just painting a mech a 2-tone camo pattern felt like it would be dull, and I could be done with it in less than an hour. So, after brainstorming with the guys in the chat, and after some digging through my parts bin, I decided to add infantry, terrain features, a little bit of a story for the mech and infantry, and I knew I wanted to spice it up with some dead bodies. Why dead bodies? Why not dead bodies. One squishy body where the King Crab purposely stepped on an enemy soldier revealing only his legs, and another body laid out on a fallen fence due to multiple gunshots from some support infantry hiding just behind the barricade and standing fence.

I had my color scheme and story ready, but next was the actual execution. The most difficult part for me was the OSL on the large laser on top. I had tried to use my airbrush, but I ended up over spraying and I had to retouch the OSL by hand with a size 1 and size 0 kolinsky brush. The brands I used for the model range from Army Painter, Pro Acryl, Scale 75, Citadel, and Vallejo. I used various washes and tones and techniques to achieve some of the effects such as oil barrel spill, blood, chipped paint, heat and metal charring, and of course the OSL. I got to a point on the model where I felt there was a little too much, so I muted things down with some nuln oil and careful touchups with glazes to bring the background tones closer to the mech using some light blues and dark blue glazes.

Overall, I am happy with the mech, however I didn’t notice some of the model’s defects on the right side of the cockpit glass. It was slightly melted and warped so I just painted around it. I hope it’s not too noticeable. I also didn’t quite like how rough some of the airbrushing went on. I have a pretty dusty painting area and I should have kept things cleaner to avoid the granular and dusty bits from getting sprayed on with the primers and paints. I learned a lot about where I am regarding my painting skill, and seeing the competition gave me even greater admiration and respect for the clean and flat panels and surfaces as well as blending and details from artists like Kevin and Zack.

I’ve got to thank Chad for inviting me again to paint and to give me the opportunity to challenge myself so shout out to him and everyone else involved in the Painting Roulette Invitational. Thank you for taking the time to read my blurb.”

Kevin Dub

Mad Cat
Assignment: House, Desert

“A Synthwave tribute to the cover of TRO 3050.”

Jonathan Shore

Ebon Jaguar
Assignment: Animal Print, Hazard

“I thought of the Ebon Jaguar for the theme of Animal print/hazard. The Jaguar just has this loping hunter look to it as if it was stalking in search of prey. I tried to go in the direction of a great cat gliding silently over the plains as it closes on it’s intended victim, blue sky glittering overhead. Hardened orange ferro skin on the outside, tender fur on it’s unprotected undercarriage. With a barrel, burnt in and well used in the hunt.”

Jeff Carlisle

Javelin JVN-10N
Assignment: Fade, Jungle

“I used 4 colors and tried to blend them from top to bottom. I used some verge from the garden for basing:)

I used gloss finish on the high points hoping for a rain effect. Didn’t give the desired look.”

Jack Taylor

Warhawk
Assignment: Spots, Oceanic

“This Warhawk is painted to match the theme of “aquatic, circles.” My ambition was to paint water with the effect of bubbles rising. My vision was beyond my ability, but I hoped to capture the essence of an aquatic paint scheme with some circles to add visual interest.

The mech is painted in colors adhering to the CamoSpecs entry for Clan Hell’s Horses Iota Galaxy

The official Iota Galaxy color scheme is solid black, without trim or highlighting. However, many Iota warriors have taken to painting their equipment in several outrageous colors. (https://camospecs.com/unit/iota-galaxy-2/)

Iota Galaxy has long been Hell’s Horses dumping ground for old warriors, and I wanted to paint a mech befitting a seasoned veteran, ready for retirement, but with maybe one last score to settle or the kids are getting a little too close on their jet skis.

Base colors were airbrushed, highlights were achieved with mixing the base color to an equal part white. Decals are from Fighting Piranha Graphics, sand and water from Vallejo (Mediterranean Blue).”

Joshua Bressel

Kestrel VTOL
Assignment: Animal Print, Two-Tone.

“Davion MI6 Rabid Foxes Special Forces, deploying from a Kestrel VTOL. Kestrel VTOL is 3d printed with etched rotor disc by Death Ray Designs and Infantry are Khurasan Warforce Reserves Infantry.”

Chad Nabors

Stalker STK-3F
Assignment: Dazzle, Jungle

“In the PRI, no result is as feared as Dazzle. Aside from being a bonkers “camo” pattern generally, it is also excruciating to paint to a reasonable standard. All precise linework and painstaking highlighting to make it look decent.

Truth be told, I had a hankering for a dazzle-painted mech for some time now, if only to see if I could execute it. In a way, my initially demoralizing assignment was serendipitous. But the constraint of a “jungle” paint palette gave it some unexpected pizazz, and I think turned the pattern into a stylish if plausible one. Dark green stripes on the upper body and legs, and dark brown on the bottom: Perfect for blending in among the vines and branches of a continent spanning emerald inferno.

This Stalker is modded with flipped arms. It looks better and I will die on that hill. On the base, Tracker Dan atop his trusty steed, ready to ferret out any ambushing infantry or fleeing pilots. They’ll be lucky if dehydration claims them.”