Paint Roulette Invitational, Round 3

Another year, another PRI. This round was held in the summer of 2024; life got in the way and I utterly failed to upload to my blog here in a timely fashion.

If you are just now discovering the Paint Roulette Invitational, get more details on the premise and see some amazing, past pieces here. As ever, entrants brought their A-game: some of the resulting pieces are entirely unique. Once more, prizes were graciously provided by Fortress Miniatures & Games.

Enjoy! And stay tuned for more.

Benjamin Wendt

Orion ON1-K
Assignment: House, Arctic

Jason Newman

Supernova
Assignment: Inked, Basic

“My two parameters were ‘inked’ and ‘basic’. The first was described as tattoo-like patterns, flames, skulls, and that sort of thing. The second was interesting in that it called for me to use a single color to drive everything, using shades and tints of the core only. I chose to interpret that as ‘colored areas on the mech’ instead of every single part of the model and base as I felt that would lead to a pretty uninteresting paint job. Maybe someone better than me can take up that challenge, but I choose to go with ‘armor only’ as to where to approach it.

Everything in the main red of the model is based around Kimera The Red. I hadn’t had a ton of a chance to use my Kimera paints and a one off fun project like this is a perfect chance to give them a test drive. The color made the second choice easy, if you’re going to paint something bright red then flames are the answer. I was able to push it to very dark, desaturated burgundy colors for the lining and shades to bright oranges for the tips of the flames but the base color is present in all of it. After everything was down I also glazed over everything with that base red again to pull it all together even further and keep that strong red running through everything. The lining and edges are shaded and highlighted pretty strongly on this, everything being variants of the same hue means I had to lean into value contrast way more. It gives everything a little more cartoony look I think, but it all fits with what is apparently my style for painting Battletech stuff.

The metallic bits and bases were all colors chosen to put a lot of contrast in the piece to make up for the lack of color contrast on the main red. The bright green crystal and violet ground are triadic to the main red and the greenish blue of the metal is a direct complement. All that is just a longwinded way of saying I tried to paint it to have more visual impact to make up for the challenge. Hopefully it worked out.”

Jeff Carlisle

Cataphract CTF-3D
Assignment: Worn-n-Weathered, Two-Tone

“My task was to create a two-tone wornout mech. I put more emphasis on the wornout side of the assignment.”

Kevin Dub

Double Feature! Supernova and Marauder IIC
Assignment: Blobs, Patriotic

“Working red, white, and blue into camo without it looking like fashion from Wal-mart was certainly a challenge.

Ever the subtle hunter, the Nova Cats paint their machines in appropriate camouflage. These warriors of Sigma Galaxy painted their machines in mottled red, white and blue camo to match the arid Martian environment of the crystal fields of Patriocys. The crystals were the subjects of many trials as they proved a valued resource.

Old Glory’s colors definitely proved a challenge to make into a convincing camo. I initially started with the Marauder and hand painted white and blue blob camo over a red base. It looked quite busy, so I gave it a second try with a blue to white fade over red, done with masking putty and the airbrush.”

Josh Watrous

Warthog
Assignment: Animal Print, Woodland

“This mech is part of my group’s alternate history for BT, specifically us deciding to do some more expansion on the Homeworld Clans post-Reaving. Though the model is an Osteon, the mech is known to Clan Havoc Hog as a “Warthog”, a total conversion of the Osteon from expensive wunderwaffe weapon, into a fairly sturdy and inexpensive garrison unit. The paint scheme is derived from one of the Wolf keshiks, presumably due to an early member of Havoc Hog being a captured member of the keshik. Paint roll was animal print and woodland!”

Adolfo Fernandez

Warhawk
Assignment: Camo, Urban

“This is my entry for June’s Paint Roulette. I rolled Urban and Camouflage, and so I went with a very subtle military style grey and dark grey 2 tone urban spike camo pattern on an Alpha Strike Masakari along with some 3D printed highway dividers and a Khurasan minis pewter 6mm car, but due to the nature of urban camo being dull and matt to better blend in with buildings and rubble I did an airbrush zenithal using some of the neutral grays from ProAcryl, I decided to focus primarily on the parts that would have the most color.

The Barrels and heat treatment for both the plasma cannons on the right arm and the PPC’s on the left give off a different glow and heat signature, for these I used various products from Citadel to Vallejo Metal Colors. For the Canopy I did roughly a 6-color transition for the red jeweling and 3 color transition for the green part of the jeweling, for these I used Duncan’s 2 thin coats paints for their thinning ability to get to an extremely thinned down filter and still have enough pigment for beautiful fades and color transitions.

For the metallic applications on the mech’s mechanical parts I went with the new ProAcryl Adepticon Magnesium and mixed some Army Painter Fanatics Plate Mail Metal for highlights. For the road and environmental apps I used scale 75 graphite and some Citadel washes and some ProAcryl Coal Black for the road itself and some 2 Thin Coats yellow and AK 3rd Gen White for the stripes on the road. For the car mini I went with a combination of Army Painter Fanatics Greedy Gold and Weapon Bronze along with some Vallejo Metal Color Gold for highlights, and for the windows I used a similar technique as with the mech’s canopy but I added some scratches to simulate the impacts of the mech causing the car windows to crack from the sheer shock of mech scale weapon booms and stomps, but the glass still holds.

I also added some Warpaint Fanatics Power Node Glow for the pinks to add vibrancy, and Data System glow for the green part. I think overall the car has the most glass detail than the mech does but I wanted it to be a visual point of interest to contrast with the militaristic urban camo vibe of the mech. It took me about 3 days of solid work to pump this out as I had many responsibilities, and this is the fastest competitive piece i’ve painted for those interested in more information about the process.

Thank you for reading if you found this informative and special Thanks to Chad Nabors for another fun challenge and Paint Roulette. Hope to be a part of the next one soon.”

Jesse Crisanti

Diorama, “Big Trouble in Little Chinatown”
Assignment: Lines, Hazard

“A Draconis Combine Sword of Light regiment encountering Clan Smoke Jaguar circa early Clan invasion. My theme was stripes and hazards. My Plan A failed when I couldn’t find the file I needed and this sort of fell into place. Fun fact, both mechs, the base, and many of the elementals are blemished/ failed prints. Since I suspect there might be a couple questions, I’ll just try to answer a few of them ahead of time.

The lasers are just wire painted with primer, white ink, and speed paints. Everything is 3D printed except lasers. The base is scaled up to 3 inches and is a free file you can find on cults (as you guys probably already know). The mechs are standard size. The Orion and the Axman are also free files you can find on most sites. The name of the artists who created them currently escape me. The AxMan file that you can find is actually different from this one. There’s one that is all one piece and another download that has the pieces broken down so you can articulate it a little bit like I’ve done here. The elementals are made by Locust Labs which I received recently through their Patreon.”

Josh Neal

Exterminator EXT-4D
Assignment: Fade, Jungle

“‘Star Commander Jonas held his breath, fully aware that any noise he made inside the cockpit of his Exterminator would not alert anyone outside of his mech. He had been slinking around for days hunting some problematic member of the dark caste who’s name he could not even remember. Days of sleeping, or not sleeping more accurately, in the cockpit would do that to you. But here he was, in the moment of truth: his target had rolled out in a clearing right in front of him.

It was a handful of vehicles, all carrying small arms of sorts that had been used to terrorize some of the Wolf labor and science caste members, and Jonas was here to put an end to it. He waited just another moment, to ensure that the terrorists were out of their vehicles, before he punched the throttle, and killed his Chameleon Light Polarization shield on his ‘Mech. The last thing that any of the insurgents saw was his Exterminator, fading from invisibility into view, and the flash of it’s lasers.’

Aaaaand I am calling it! Not exactly how I hoped it would turn out, but also better than I expected! My theme was “fade” and “jungle,” so I decided that meant the Chameleon system was helping it fade into (or out of?) a jungle!”

Jack Taylor

Assignment: Blobs, Desert

“Not much to add, desert blobs screamed chocolate chip camo and it is a camo type I’ve never attempted. Thought it was fun and easy to make look good. Some of the pictures it has a yellow look, but no yellows were used, just khakis and browns.”

Daniel Corrigan

Mobile HQ Vehicle
Assignment: Dazzle, Foundry

“Thanks again for letting me be part of this fun exercise! My draws were Dazzle and Foundry. I tried something completely different for this fig and did drawings and made plans. After many stops, stops and reversals those plans went out the window and were replaced by my usual seat of your pants process, ending up with a result quite different from my original plan.

I appreciate the opportunity to think outside my box and find it pretty amusing that this paint job fits so nicely into it. Cheers!”

Jonathan Shore

Nightstar NSR-9J
Assignment: Blocks, Galactic

“I wanted the Nightstar to live up to its name. I imagined it as a large predator, hunting down anything and everything. With a carapace that harkens to its name, and block patterns on the legs to break up its outline. A killer whose grin means death.”

Chad Nabors

Boa Protomech
Assignment: Stencilled, Foundry

“Shiny. And chrome. Lots of gray, dark wash and pigment powder on the base. This ended up pretty far away from my initial idea of an all-over transparent candy coat over a metal basecoat. But I’m happy with the aesthetic in the end.

Metallics used extensively over save the panel lining, sensor domes, butt pad and forearm on the laser rifle. Paints are a combo of Vallejo Model Color, Vallejo Mecha, Vallejo Shifters, and Army Painter Fanatic. I subtly highlighted the upper surfaces with increasing amounts of silver and aluminum for more pop from ambient light. Colorshift paints on the lenses and canopy, but the latter is so recessed in the head it is in hard shadow all the time.

A fun piece I’ll use as a leadership element protomech in BT, or for its intended purpose as an ultralight HE-V in Steel Rift.”