Painted Grizzly for Heavy Gear

Last month Heavy Gear enthusiast and general nice guy Brandon Keith Fero organized a Heavy Gear painting competition over at the Terra Nova DMZ FB group (head on over if you are even remotely interested in Heavy Gear - it's a great group of people!). At first I felt too busy with Imperial Assault and Infinity to join up, but the more I thought about it the more I wanted to do it! For me the main reason was the motivation to actually get a mecha painted (I've found proper, hard dead lines are what works best for me) and also come up with a new way of painting as my old system, from six years ago, was a bit slow.

The choice of model was easy - the Grizzly is one of my favourite gears and as I had a couple of metal ones lying around I prepped one and got to work. I wanted a fairly relaxed look that nevertheless emphasized the size and weight of both the mech itself and the heavy autocannon it carries. Normally you have to put the cannon much higher, across the chest/cockpit, to get the two handed hold, but that didn't give me the "relaxed" look I wanted so I modified the waist a bit. Well, modified is a strong word - I pinned the torso to the waist in a way that propped it up and allowed me to fit the gun (just barely!) under the chest. The only problem is you can see the gap from some angles.

I like this picture the best as it reminds me of Ghislain Barbe's art. You can see the gap thouh! Doh!

Painting wise I wanted something fairly quick - a wash probably. After some consideration i went with VGC Khaki followed by a quick, lighter drybrush just to get the first highlights on there and then a strong tone wash. After that it was simply a matter of using Khaki/Bonewhite/Off-White to build up the hightlights. The weathering was done by dabbing German Grey around exposed areas followed by pure Off-White highlights here and there.

The black/grey areas are VMC Basalt Grey with a Nuln Oil wash followed by hightlights with Basalt Grey and Sky Grey. At first the guns also used this colour but that became too bland so I decided to do the guns with VGC Bastalt Grey/Steel Grey/Sky Grey instead for a metallic effect. Of course the guns would be perfectly maintained while the gear itself was somewhat neglected. Hehe! The missile hatches are simply Off-White and Khorne Red with some tiny highlights. For the dust effects I used Vallejo pigments Burnt Umber and Dark Yellow Ochre. And that was it! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Here's a good view of the Pack Gun and Grenade Launcher.

In the end I spent a little more time on it than I wanted, but I could easily cut back a bit on the weathering and the process would be much quicker. Then again, the weathering is what makes it pop I think. And it fits very well with the gritty Heavy Gear universe!

The scheme itself is fairly close to my old one although I would say it has been refined or rebooted. The old and new models could probably share a table without it looking weird.

Sorry for the slightly out of focus pictures. I'm still learning how to use my wife's new camera. :)

I really enjoyed putting this guy together and now that the Heavy Gear kickstarter box has arrived as well I have quite a bit of work ahead of me. I don't think I'll get right back into it just yet though as there are a number of games with higher priority waiting for attention. But now I have a colour scheme that looks good and paints quickly when it's time. Then again... I suppose I should really paint some opposition to my North forces so I can actually play the game!

Oh, and I was lucky enough to win that painting competition so now I have to decide on the grand prize - a tank or a gear strider. Hmm...