Plamo: The “Purple Force” Inner Sphere Lance (BattleTech, Catalyst Game Labs)

The story so far. Having decided to paint my “Armored Combat” miniatures, I'd settled on two contrasting Leo inspired colour schemes of green and purple. The green ones proceeded well-enough, but the purple hit a few problems. I am pleased to announce that these have been resolved.

The "Purple Force" Lance List

Locust LCT-1V 432

Shadow Hawk SHD-2H 1064

Catapult CPLT-C1 1399

Awesome AWS-8Q 1605

4500

So, to go on a tangent for a paragraph, at the time of writing, I'm in huff about Citadel's Contrast Paints. At present, I'd only rate half of them as satisfactory, and when the Contrast Paints don't work work, they really don't work. Sadly, both of the purple contrasts proved to be in the bad category. I'll admit to part of that being my own limitations as a painter, and what I'm attempting to paint, but these aren't working for me. Paints either don't dry properly and look bad, or the white undercoat sets off my perfectionism, so any time savings are lost. Of the ones I've tried, the only ones I'd recommend as a legitimate convenience to use as advertised are Administratum Grey, Black Templar Black, Blood Angels Red, and Iyanden Yellow. Otherwise, you either use one as slightly fancier ink wash, or if you need to pick out a detail of significantly different colour from the rest of the model, and the contrast paint would allow you to simplify the process. So, after trying 5 or so combinations of purple contrasts, I went back to dry-brushing.

Purple Team was therefore sprayed black, before successively lighter brushes of Citadel Xereus Purple and Vallejo Blue Violet were applied. This combined well with techniques practised on earlier projects, so this write-up may be familiar to you. Vallejo Dark Grey was used for detailing and to highlight areas like the feet and hands. Vallejo Gunmetal was used to... Well, I dunno. What do you think? Agrax Earthshade was used as a general wash, where as the canopy glass was Citadel Wraithbone, followed by Iyanden Yellow and 'ardcoat. This is an area where where I must admit Contrast Paints work well; cockpit glass can be a right pain in the fundament, and otherwise requires mixing of different shades to get the reflective gem affect. The base was once more Stirland Mud, then Earthshade again, then a Zendri Dust drybrush. This was about a day's work, including drying time.

Now, this was a much better experience for me. I got a good purple out of this, and the other colours worked just fine. Possibly the canopies are a bit rough, but its tableworthy. Mind you, something that I didn't intend was home much these ended up looking House Marik forces. I am unsure as how terrible that faction is, although they appear to be prussian capitalist aristocrats to some extent. That kinda works given how OZ was in Gundam Wing, but I wasn't aiming for that.

Where next? Not sure. I may just rework my green scheme into something more like the above. I.e a controllable drybrush method. But there are famous mecha with green and purple colour schemes...