From there, I drybrushed with Games Workshop's Space Wolf Grey over the whole miniature to lighten it up, which allows colors to show through the black better and still give me the panel lines for details.
Now, I mixed up equal parts of Catachan Green and Snot Green (both Games Workshops paints) for the base green.
Now you'll have to forgive me as - in a time crunch because of real life - I've done a lot in the next photo. I'll outline it to make it easier!
- First, highlighting all the green. I mixed some Sunburst Yellow (GW paint) in for the first highlight of the panels, and then added in small amounts of white to bring it up. In the end, I don't think I got it as white as I'd like, but I'm now unfortunately on a time budget.
- Next, I did the blue. Straight Enchanted Blue (GW paint) is the base for the camo, then to bring it up, an equal amount of Skull White (GW paint) is mixed to the blue and painted into the camo splotches, leaving some border around it.
- I used Codex Grey (GW paints) to paint the areas that I decided wouldn't have any paint or be a grey metal color.
- I hit the details with a .005 Micron Archival ink pen. Doing this, I discovered that I had primed it too heavily and had filled the lines in too much. Consecutive passes in the lines got me the right effect, but I had to wipe away some of the ink as I went to keep it looking semi-realistic.
- Then I drew on the bat from the photograph with the Micron pen, and painted it in with Testors Flat Black - getting us to the next picture:
Now we detail the bat. Taking my Skull White and a 18/0 brush, I went to work outlining the bat and then doing its muscles and eyes. We'll worry about the teeth later! This step took two passes to get it solid because of the opacity of the white.
Here's the red (GW's Blood Red), which took two layers to achieve the desired thickness and brightness. I painted the mouth on, and dotted the eyes.
Now, I cheated again. Sorry, guys. These are the finishing touches and tying up odds and ends. Time for the bullets!
- Now, I paint on the teeth using my white; might take two layers for a good solid effect.
- I went in and highlighted the Codex Grey from a few steps ago.
- Cockpit: The Jinggau's cockpit is huge by IWM BattleTech miniature standards, so I marked off my usual complementary color jewelling. Instead, I went for a black jewelling to tie in with the black bat. Staring with Testors Black, I simply highlighted up using white. It's not an effect I'm particularly happy with, but the size of the panels and overall size of the glass makes anything really hard to pull off. Maybe the next Jinggau I'll toy with something else.
- Wow, we are getting really close!! Now I went ahead and glued the arms on, since I'm done with the interior painting and detailing.
- I don't like the similar intensity of the grey-black cockpit and the grey barrels and internal parts, so I paint them Chainmail (GW paints). Once it dries, I mix up an ink of 6 parts GW Blue Ink, 4 parts GW Brown Ink, equal parts water and Future Floor Wax, and ink the areas. Finally, after that dries, I go back in and edge the Chainmail with more Chainmail for some subtle highlighting.
- We paint the base black, then Bestial Brown (GW paints). Glue on some grass, dirt, flock, and small pebbles from outside my apartment, and we are golden on this part.
- Now to the evil part that might give a few of you a cardiac arrest! I broke out my decals. I can paint symbols, but a combo of time and the fact I want this to look sharp had me decaling on the Cappellan Confederation faction symbol, two numbers, and six caution stripes at various places. It's a pet peeve of mine for people to handpaint elaborate insignias and they turn out looking like... well... hand-painted micro insignias (AKA un-sharp and rather amateurish).
- Two coats of Testors Dullcote and this bad boy is ready to rumble.
Thanks for the opportunity to share this miniature with you. I appreciate any and all feedback, even if I don't end up using it later. Painting's a learning process, and I can promise you I have a long ways to go! Constructive criticism is always welcome. Again, thanks, and hopefully I'll see you next month!