Christmas present for a friend who loves 1) the Lyran Commonwealth and 2) Land-Air Mechs, for which there are very little stat blocks and almost no models. Especially since 1992 FASA was accidentally ripping off Robotech designs and Harmony Gold was suing them over it and the Phoenix Hawk LAM was very obviously a Veritech. Apparently, from what I’ve read, FASA was licensing kits in good faith from Twentieth Century, who was licensing (perhaps without legal right) from Studio Nue, who was working with Tatsunoko Production on Robotech, so Veritechs and some Destroids semi-legitimately (and at least FASA was blameless) showed up in BattleTech. But then they were removed due to legal battles with Harmony Gold- mostly I assume because Carl Macek, whatever he did for the weeb scene, had the self-awareness of peat moss and the artistic integrity of a Borgia. Anyway, Veritechs showed up as the Wasp, Stinger, Valkyrie, Crusader, and (printed and painted here) the Phoenix Hawk. Destroids came out as the Rifleman, Archer, Warhammer, and Longbow, and the Marauder was so clearly a Zentraedi pod I laughed the first time I saw it.
Long story short I’m not super into BattleTech still but I may very well end up painting a couple lances of classic Unseen designs for my own benefit because rolling a BT lance of Robotech-painted Skull Squadron Veritechs with some support Destroids tickles my fancy an awful lot. In the meantime here’s a Phoenix Hawk LAM in all three forms, plus a fan-sculpted/extrcted AXM-2N, in Lyran Guard colours.
First I printed the models. Then I spent a full weekend involuntarily learning how to do very basic supporting, because the vast majority of BattleTech 3d print models out there are ripped directly from MechWarrior video games by 3d artists or fan-nerds, neither of whom generally have a goddamn clue how to support a model, if they go so far as to offer supports at all. I’ll have a longer post about my frustrations in that area later, but long story short I did a couple rounds of printing before I got useable models. I then dropped and shattered the Kurita mech, which infuriated me so much I went out and bought $30 of fuzzy Ikea rugs to absorb impact, and haven’t broken a model since. Also, I tried 3d printing flight stands and after several hours of fucking around and snapping resin supports I now use superglue and paperclips painted matte black.
Airbrushed a very light blue-grey (technically super desaturated blue using white) so I can edge highlight white nice and sharp, then made some homemade speed paint as close to Lyran blue as I could manage- not exactly where I wanted, but white and blue and black are all very powerful pigments and getting close was the best I could manage with firehose saturation. I’ve since acquired much better white and black paint and suspect I could get a lot closer now. Panel lined with a dark grey, and the Axeman got some more love because those juicy details deserve it.
To say I’m happy with my freehanding of the Lyran Guard symbol would be overstating it. I’m very much not an artist, my brush control is sufficient for 28 and in a limited sense 6mm scale models, but trying to freehand teensy horse details… Well, these were the best I could do and I’m proud of them, they really demonstrate how far my mini painting’s come, but they also made it clear to me that I had reached the limit of my “$1 synthetic brush” tools. Since then I bought some Kolinsky brushes and I’m sure I could to a better job- but I guess we’ll find out the next time I freehand.
