Mobile Brigada

After a long hiatus, I finally have photos of my Mobile Brigada. Currently, they have a gloss coat on them, but I may overlay that with a matte varnish, at least on the armour. I like them shiny, but I'm not certain I like them quite so shiny.

First up is the converted Mobile Brigada with Combi-Rifle. For the sake of Ice Storm, he has this weapon for most of the time, so I figured I might as well convert him with one. It's also convenient that there's a profile of this with tinbot, who I'll have fun converting in a little while.

His look, since the red-paint blog post, now has select white shin guards, a unique number (which I intend to carry across the entire cluster of them), and white detailing on either shoulder pad, as well as on the mask. There's multiple layers of faceplate, and I wanted to make each one distinct. The gun's a basic matte black, and the glowy vents are my usual light turquoise over white. Much like the Geckos, my figuring is the Mobile Brigada are meant to take heat from enemies, letting lighter armed infantry get away with minimal shots, so they're bright red, rather than a typical combat-subtle drab.

Next up is the converted Multi-Rifle armed Brigada. I didn't want to just do same pose different weapon, so this guy's been converted to actually be holding his gun. It was an interesting conversion to make, and was done before the box was announced with an HMG pose almost identical. The shoulderpads' insignia is the usual Nomad symbol, combined with the one for Corregidor. The upper right arm is scratch-built in essence, attempting to mimic the armour plating already there, and the head reposition was remarkably easy, needing minimal puttying.

Those guys aside, let's talk for a second about the new Mobile Brigada box...

(Taken from the Corvus Belli store page)

First, I love the look of the HMG and Boarding Shotgun versions. Very aggressive, very combat-but-not-shooting.

Then there's the female models. I don't mind the Missile Launcher's pose, but why. Why are there boob-plates? They're so ineffective, and unlike light armour, where you could argue they need to not be massively clunky, heavy armour has no similar problems!

That, and why is the hacker variant directing traffic? Why is she armed with a pistol? I think this could have been a time for CB to make really interesting combat-pose models, distinctively female without boobplates, and a hacker who is first and foremost a heavy infantry with a big scary gun, and a hacker second. I would love for them to take more influence from Ghost in the Shell, and less from Minority Report!

Also, final issue, and this is a big one, for the Mobile Brigada hacker: she doesn't have a backpack. Somehow, unlike every single other MB soldier, she has no power plant, no heavier weapon I guess, and if you ask CB, they can't even send one as a backup. Heck, they couldn't even send a fourth in the box and let me decide whether I want it or not. We've seen such an increasing standard from Corvus Belli over the last while, and this seems a step back in an annoying way.

Anyway, next time I shall have Grenzers or Spektrs, (or both, I guess) almost rounding out the Icestorm adventure!

How I Paint Red

I've had a bizarre month, with cat-sitting, trying to build a bunch of minis, starting back up full session at work,and the Rotten Harvest minis, but I figured in the meantime I'd highlight how it is I achieve a bright red.

This is a surprisingly difficult thing, and I struggled with it for a long time. It's really easy to either end up orange-looking or pink, or just not to get it vibrant enough. I finally found a setup that works for me, both airbrushed and painted!

To show off this method, I figured I'd use my Mobile Brigada (recently finished) as templates. (Though the Geckos, and most other of my bright red figs now use this method.)

First, I apply a 50/50 of Vallejo airbrush black and red mix, highlighting up to straight Vallejo red. (71.003 Scarlet Red) - I find the "Flat Red" doesn't have the same power.

This is done generally, and spread, and I'll start doing as much as possible of my zenith highlights here, just as a guidepost once everything starts getting mixed.

Next up, I paint pure white liberally on the edges of armour that will catch the light (or sections) - you can see the figure on the left has not had it done, and the figure on the right has the white edges (and white knee armour).

Here's another shot of the same, with a bit better lighting. You can see that the initial highlight on the left is fairly okay, and that the right side seems a bit too extreme. But that's because we're not yet done!

Next up everything gets a wash of red. On the Right is the Citadel Bloodletter glaze, which gives a more muted red. On the left is just the Vallejo Scarlet Red again, thinned to the point where it won't leave the white looking pink, but just barely.

The reason this works is that a layer of paint is not entirely opaque: some of the light goes through it to underlying layers, and is bounced back by the undercoat. This is why you can hear some modellers going on multi-page debates over what is the best primer colour! In the above, we've done a hard white line (as opaque as one can get) on the highlight edges of the armour, and as a result of the wash over top, red light is filtered through, but all that filters through is bounced back. On the areas without white, the red light filters down through the layers (being bounced back as it goes) before hitting the black undercoat. It'll leave the overall colour seeming darker, and help enhance the light-to-dark.

From behind: Again, left model has Vallejo wash, while the right is the Bloodletter. Personally I prefer how intense the Vallejo looks, over the Citadel. The final highlight is a VERY light, corner-only highlight of white if you want to truly indicate that this is some shiny bit of red!

Final pics of the Mobile Brigada (and others) should be coming soon, when I can get the time. I hope this helps someone else figure out what I took years really nailing down, and feel free to sling questions my way!