On the Painting Desk: Splash some Paint on It - Space Mecha

 My 2021 goals included painting up some anime inspired Space Mecha for my playtest games of Glittering Void.  I was intending on using some Dream Pod 9 miniatures from the With the Lightnings range.  However, I decided to take a leap of faith on some cheap plastic toy "Not Gundam" robots from Kikko on Amazon.  In a different post, I shared how I went ahead and customized each model and prepared them for painting. 

Recently, I spent time finishing them off with paint.  I was unsure how they would paint up, as they were never intended for painting had featured some shallow details and hard plastic.  Hard plastic used for toys often does not take paint well.  In addition, I had not given the figures a bath in warm, Dawn water so they probably had chemical residue left on them from the molding process.  

For paints, I decided to go with cheap, Big-Box store acrylics.  I had success using them in other projects, and since each mini was about 10 US cents a pop, I figures these were tailor made for the cheap stuff!  I used a brand called Apple Barrel and each bottle is about 50 US Cents at local retailers.  For brushes I also used old, Big Box retail brushes.  Nothing fancy for these guys.

No fancy Army Painter Paints this time!

 I decided to work with the New Olympian models first.  Other sources told me, they had been based on the Gelgoog suit from Gundam, but I have no idea what that even means!  In my head, I imagined the New Olympians to be a bit haughty and saw themselves as above other Solar Systemites.  Therefore, I wanted them to use a Purple paint scheme with Bronze bits, and an orange visor.  

I undercoated them with watered down white, and the paint seemed to hold Okayish.  Then, I gave them two undercoats of dark purple.  I then dry-brushed a lighter purple, and used an even lighter purple to add some highlighted panel lines.  As a final step, I washed the whole thing with Army Painter Dark Tone.  That gave me the general color scheme, but the Dark Tone wash did tend to cover the other painting work I had done on them.  

Next, I went back and picked out the weapons, and a spinal column on the sculpt in Bronze.  I also painted the visors an orange color, and added a white dot to the visor.  After that, I called them done.....

 Overall, they look suitably dark, intimidating, and still dark purple.  They look regal, mean, and ready to blow up some stuff in space!  The work on highlighting and dry brushing was mostly lost in the final effort though.  

Next, I took the Earth Alliance boys. I did not bother undercoating white this time.  Instead, I gave them two bases of a dark grey to start.  I then drybushed them two other shades of lighter grey on top, giving them a layered look. Next, I painted there weapons black, and then drybrushed silver on top of the undercoat of black.  Finally, I picked out some orange on the "Command Suit" on the shields to help them stand out a bit further.  Finally, I also hit them all up with a Dark Tone Wash.  

Overall, they look like utility suits churned out by a totalitarian state with no frills to the design.  Only what is needed.  Good, that is the right vibe for them.  

Since these are "Space Mecha" in a flying game, the last step was to get them mounted onto "flying stands.  That was not as easy as it sounds, because these models were never intended to be mounted on anything, much less a flying stand.  They did not have great contact surfaces, locations for base pegs, or good balance either.  Plus, some of the "flying" positions I put them in did not help my cause either.  

In this game, it is also important to be able to "rotate" the model to a different facing then the direction of the stand, so I needed them to NOT be glued in place permanently while on the stand.  Ugh! 

Here is what they ended up looking like.  

The New Olympians seen above, minus 1 down for repair work.  

The Earth Alliance, also down 1 for repair work. 

Not too shabby!  A big improvement over the paper standees I used, and much better than how they looked pre-converting and painting.  Now they look like actual gaming pieces and not just little plastic toy robots. Well, at least uniform looking..... 

I look forwards to getting them on the tabletop again soon!  Now, I need to figure out how to make some of the other suit types and factions for the game too.  

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