Northern Hunters...

To continue my spurt of painting inspiration, after having completed my Averlander Warband for Mordheim, I decided to tackle some of miniatures for Heavy Gear Blitz!

Since the box of goodies, fresh from Dream Pod Nine's Kickstarter, arrived, I've managed to put together all my Northern Heavy Gears, play a couple of games, and plan my next set of purchases to round out my Northern Force. Of course, it's always nicer playing with painted miniatures, and being on something of a roll (by my low standards at least), I was keen to get some paint on these guys to see how they came up.

So far I have managed to paint my 8 Hunters...

I based my Gears on 30mm round lipped bases.

Using a palate knife and some wall putty, I added some detail to bases to both fill the base slot and give it the appearance of uneven ground.

After the bases were done and dried, I painted the lot with a slightly watered down PVA, in the hope of making sure the putty stayed put...

The miniatures themselves were a joy to put together, a dab of superglue worked almost too quickly. I wrote about the assembly a while ago here.

Wanting to cut down on prep time, I decided to try a Dunkelgelb spray-on undercoat. It looked good enough on my test model, but I left it a week or so to see if any started flaking...

No flaking? Good to go!

All sprayed (some a little heavily).

Some base coating done. Pretty simple scheme: dunkelgelb base, with white sections and metal for the engine and most of the weapons.

The first base coat and a wash with Army Painter Dark Tone (black wash essentially).

Highlighting complete with skeleton bone over the dunkelgelb, white over the white, plate metal and shiny silver over the gun metal and lastly red and blue for the missiles and 'eye' or lens.

All done, except for some basing material like static grass...

I'm still waiting on some basing material to arrive before completing the bases, including some highland static grass and winter grass tufts. Combined with the transfers (which I'm still deciding whether I'll use), the ensemble should be finished nicely.

Overall I'm happy with the scheme and think they came out well. Some simple colour variations mean they are not too bland, and they fairly well copy the paint schemes in the book. I think they'll look nice on the table.

One sour note to this endeavor was the fact that the sealant I used afterwards (paint on matt varnish), softened the putty I had used as basing material. When I pulled the bases off the painting stands I use several of the Gears broke free of the bases with clumps of putty on their feet. These Gears were fairly easy to glue back in place, and you can't tell the difference now between those that did and those that didn't, but... If I hadn't already based my force I'd be changing the material I used, and I don't think I'll be using wall putty again. Having written that, I do have to concede that with the lightness of the miniatures, I can't see it having any impact in the future, but just to know the bases are a little weak is annoying. Still, ce la vie!

Now, I am really keen to get onto my Jaguars... but I have school reports to finish and some work for Modiphius, for the Infinity RPG, to complete, so they'll just have to languish a little longer! Hopefully I don't lose my desire to get things painted over the next week of not painting!

Incidentally, for anyone keen on the Heavy Gear universe, Fushion Core Studios has just launched their Kickstarter for Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts! The game is all about the land ships vital to the Heavy Gear setting. The miniatures look great, and I for one am very excited!

If you're a fan of the RPG, Heavy Gear setting or Blitz, this is well worth checking out!