The Achtung! Painter! -crew had a little weekend challenge. As some of us are huge Battletech and Mechwarrior fans we decided to paint a couple of ‘Mechs! The schedule for the challenge was very tight (only 30 hours to complete the minis) and there was no time to order stuff, so we had to dig through our closets and make do with any old miniatures we had lying around. The sheer brutality of this challenge proved too much for Immolaattori and Oakleaf, so they were assigned the task of judging the results. The Battle’Mech smackdown would be Von Wirtzenau vs. Panzermonsch.

Von Wirtzenau:

I have a few vintage Ral Partha ‘Mech boxes in my collections. I chose a Rifleman miniature dating back to -86 to be my entry in this contest. I had basecoated it sometime in the nineties, and the result was less than satisfying. The time limit was so harsh that there was not enough time to do anything properly, so I had to speed process the piece. After basecoating with Vallejo’s Panzer Grey urethane primer I airbrushed a three-tone camo on the ‘Mech. The tones were a very light grey, Luftwaffe uniform blue and dark grey. On the hindsight, I should have chosen more contrasting colours, as the end result could be more striking.

As there was barely any time at all to let anything dry properly I had to break some rules. I even resorted to the dreaded “acrylic varnish over wet oil”-technique. That lead to some of the paint peeling off as I tried to apply an enamel wash. I managed to somehow cover it up with oils, tho, but it gave me a scare.

I hastily threw together a scenic base of red metal and a concrete block and covered it up with snow. I allowed the miniature about 10 hours to dry before the final varnish. All in all it took me about 3-4 hours to paint this piece, the majority of which was spent on masking the camo and tiptoing around inadequate drying times.

Panzermonsch:

I chose an opposite strategy to Von Wirtzenau. Despite the obviously tight time frame I decided to go all the way and sculpt myself an Uziel BattleMech. I started the project from the ‘Mech’s lower body and it turned out quite good. Then time ran out and I lost.

The Uziel’s gonna be kick ass, tho!

This weekend’s winner is Anton von Wirtzenau!