Best Approach to battlemechs?

[Ruleslawyer]

Most of the painting I've done has been at 15mm, I'm starting to paint some battletech stuff that is more like 1/300 scale. Most of the techniques I developed for 15mm just aren't working well, and things are just coming out looking muddy. I've been basing white, black wash and then panel painting, and blacklining. I'm just not super happy with the results. Any methods to give a shot? The rest of them are here. http://www.ruleslawyer.bellguard.com/?p=779

 

[airhead]

Base coat.
Panel paint.

Save the wash for last. Use a light gray wash to bring out the panel lines.
Other washes for gun blast/jet blast areas.

 

[freakinacage]

http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/showthread.php?44751-Airbrush-Video-Guide-(Tank-Camo)
handy guide

 

[Ghudra]

White undercoat base with thinner paint overall. That orange looks pretty heavy in your pic given the visible cracks.

I'd lose the blacklining & use washes to bring out detail. Oil washes can work out really well for showing subtle 1/300 detail. A poly dip would even work out better than blacklining for tabletop quality stuff.

 

[Ruleslawyer]

The cracks happened when I left them out overnight in sub-zero temps in my car. I think it was a thermal issue, not a paint thickness issue. I've been thinning my paints more than I used to and even then never had cracking issues from thick paint.

By oil wash, you mean from oil paints? Don't oil paints take months to dry?

 

[ktooloo]

Try Here It covers various minipainting basics, but it's on a 'Mech painting site so it's all from that perspective. It even covers some ways to make your photos look good for posting online. The site in general is the place to check out for painting BT minis. It's super nifty.

 

[Ghudra]

The cracks happened when I left them out overnight in sub-zero temps in my car. I think it was a thermal issue, not a paint thickness issue. I've been thinning my paints more than I used to and even then never had cracking issues from thick paint.

By oil wash, you mean from oil paints? Don't oil paints take months to dry?

You'd want to use the oil wash in a targetted way, just running the tip of you brush around things like vents, rivets, joins in the armor, etc. Drying time for an oil wash is minimal because most of the wash is turps/white spirit. For broader general washing, I'd go with something similar to the Citadel products.

It's not Battletech, but you'll find some good examples of small scale paintwork HERE .