ShimmeringSword

Mad Cat Mk II Concept

I've been itching to show this one off since I finished it, or even earlier when it first came down the assignment pipe.

The Mad Cat Mk II. One of my favorite mechs that we hadn't gotten to yet.
I was a big fan of it in MW4, and the Matt Plog lineart has stood the test of time also. Even the old IWM sculpt looks great, if a little funky proportionally. I also had a few fanart takes of my own from years past. Those definitely weren't peak Mk II.
With that in mind it was a balancing...

Fulcrum Hover Sculpt

Ok here's starting the rest of this months catch up posts. I took a couple days pause and that teleported me forward 3 weeks.

Resuming with renders of the Fulcrum hover tank sculpt. Modeled by Alan Blackwell.
Still quite a funky little tank visually, but it has a fairly solid weapons load out while zipping about. I'm sure many will make use of that TAG it carries to rain down artillery and semi guided missiles. I like the concept of TAG, but not so much the range limitations, so a fa...

Grand Titan Concept

With the release of Big Red 40tech's reveal and deep dive video, here's my design sketch for the Grand Titan that went into it.

You guys asked pretty regularly when we'll be getting one of these, now you can thank Big Red for twisting Randall Bills arm about it and making it happen. He wanted his video art to be based on an official design, so we got to work.

So far I'd say people have received it pretty well, insofar as I mostly see complains about the head not being a Hasbro law...

Thunderbolt IIC

Here are the final renders for the Thunderbolt IIC.

It came out looking excellent in my opinion, with Eliza Gibbs handling the 3D modeling task. It's so chunky and sturdy looking.
I was very tempted to make this my main Masters and Minions mech for GenCon this year. It is an extremely hot build though and I feared how quickly it'd get torn up in brawling range. Instead I opted for a Jade Hawk, which managed to dish out roughly 50 damage a turn for 6 turns straight. Dying in a fiery j...

Ostwar Concept

Here's one requested, the Ostwar. Designed by Eldon Cowgur.

The continuation, completion, and historical origination for the ost line.
A bit less elegant than the Ostroc and Ostsol, but still intended to look cool, we combined favorite features from previous art iterations and evolved from there. I had a preference for the offset tube arms, rather than the straight paddle or squared pattern. Past breaking up the straight shin line of the originals I feel we still managed to stay pret...

Wendigo Sculpt

Here's the Wendigo sculpt by Alan Blackwell, who also worked on the design stage.

I think the shapes came out really nice on this one. It's got both heft and sleekness to it.

With a very serviceable weapons loadout I wonder if we'll see more use of this one now that it's in plastic and a bit more elegant looking. I might have to paint one up for myself eventually.

Shiro Concept

Here's the final concept sketch for the Kurita force packs, the Shiro.

I recall doing this one before the Rokurokubi to establish the visuals a bit, then I could pull them over to use on both. The most similar parts being the legs, especially lower, and the arms.

As with the Roku, I wanted to maintain the overall design shapes from the originals, but try to work in a little more accurate Samurai armor details, particularly with the helmet designs. Though the realities of miniature...

Peacekeeper Sculpt

Ok back at it! I'm going to try and cram October full of posts to catch up on my ghosting of Aug/Sep. Apologies again.
Feel free to drop special requests in again for things I can whip up past the usual "sculpts being worked on".

Here's the Peacekeeper sculpt from Ray White. One of the last few to post from the Star League sets. Still not in my favorite designs, but I like where it is now compared to where it came from.

Of course some of you should already have this one on hand...

Downtime

Hey patrons! I believe I totally missed posting anything in August. Whoops! But embarrassingly not my first time.

After gencon I've been in a whirlwind of out of routine errands, primarily, buying a house! We closed on the purchase last month, and got the keys this month. It's been a big stack of cleaning, painting, packing, and still moving to go.

Not only do I want to get back to my usual posting once settled in, going towards next year I want to try doing a much better job of s...

Leopard Concept

The Leopard is one of the first items I jumped on when the orders came down to finish all redesigns needed for TRO 3025. I wanted at least a few of the new redesigns to go through the usual full 3D process, and this had to be one of them.

There has been a lot of variation in Leopard renditions over the years. Some are more sleek, others are more boxy. Some long, some stubby. I wanted to balance a modern look with the old shuttle basis, and keep the silhouette clean and simple. I also wa...

Union Concept

Now onto the drop ships! The Union.

Along with the Leopard, it was really important to get this one right, being so prolific, popular, and appearing a lot in art already. I have always been bothered with how rare (almost never) the weapons and external equipment listed for dropships and warships actually matches on the art. Part of this comes from the FASA era where artists didn't always know what the stats would be for a unit they're working on. I also know understanding dropship recor...

Transgressor Concept

This was a fun one, the Transgressor.

Right at the finish line for the project we realized I'd missed 2 pieces from the needed list. This was one of them. Marco was going to handle the concept and lineart for the Transgressor, but after leaving me with a basic sketch to check over for the night, I sat down and ended up sketching out the entire thing in one go. Sometimes you just get in the mode.

Much like the Riever, it's another aerospace fighter that in art looked like a light s...

Stingray Concept

Here's the Stingray. Had I not posted this one before?

This concept was done quite a while ago, along with several others to fill the need for more aerospace reference designs for artists to use in illustrations. Can't only have Shilones everywhere :D

It definitely took the edge off the work rush on this TRO by having a few overlap designs ready. Several other early art focused redesigns were clan fighters, so there's more waiting in the wings.

Riever Concept

I wont be posting every sketch for every fresh (to current BT art) unit in our 3025 re-release, as many have been done by other artists than myself, but I'll start with at least the ones I handled.

The Riever had an issue that many aerospace fighter art suffers from. The implied scale within the art being at odds with the tonnage in the stats. The old Riever looks like a lighter fighter, while being one of the heaviest in the book.
Keeping large glass pannels it tough while selling ...

Phoenix Hawk LAM Concept

Before I ship off to Gencon, how about I drop some concepts for the imminent TRO 3025?

Let's kick it off with the Phoenix Hawk LAM. To push a little variety, I took up this one as the basis for the 3 in the book, then assigned the other two to Marco Mazzoni (Wasp) and Patrick Wagesreither (Stinger). Some of you may know Patrick on Instagram as PatsoCatso.

I wanted these LAMs to have a big more realistic thought put into their mechanics than in the past, but not so far that we sacr...

Rokurokubi Concept

Here's a fun one, the Rokurokubi. Along with the Shiro, it was our entry into Dark Age Kurita totem samurai mechs. The Hatamoto-Chi is no longer alone.

I really like the head concept on this mech, but the MWDA and IWM versions didn't quite pull it off for me. Either too oversized or not feeling integrated into the mech. So it might not be liked by all, but I built the helmet style cockpit into the torso more, making a better time for the pilot, and a more sleek flow from the head down t...

Excalibur Sculpt

Here are the 3D renders for the Excalibur.

Some visual features include the fake right hand, and including arm pods that can work as sensors or lasers depending on variant, and opening up more wysiwyg options for future refits.

I hope the mixtures of curves and cuts lead to some nice paint applications. Though it does get a bit harder to drybrush details on smooth areas like the shoulder and chest. At least from my experience painting up a falconer.

Avatar Concept

I believe Bishop Steiner has had this posted over on his patreon page for a bit, but I wanted to drop it here too for more to see. The Avatar.

Definitely one I've looked forward to our team getting to, with IS omni's in general. It's definitely a looker, and had room to get that little bit more pretty.
There are so many sources to pull from for this design. The original art, and modern Vulture/Summoner bits.

I think it came out really nice. I'm looking forward to these Kurita p...

Savage Wolf Sculpt

It's been a year and a half since I posted the concept sketch for this one. Now here's some 3D renders. The Mad Cat mkIV, Savage Wolf.

The IWM model has been out for quite some time now so plenty of you might already have one. Hopefully the Star League pack plastic version isn't too far off from release. In a perfect world it would have released late last year.

Now the question is not do you want to field one, it's can you afford the BV to field one :D
I enjoy taking one out wh...

Chimera Concept

Time for more MW4 nostalgia mechs. The Chimera.

Here's another one that at least for me, has that perfect ugly industrial look that I like. It's got a lot of nonsense shapes, but they work. Of all the previous concepts and looks I liked the MW4 concept art version the most, so I referenced heavily there. After that some details from the TRO artwork were worked in. Most depictions have slightly different missile launcher depictions, so in the model we'll have a detached missile door opti...

Malice Sculpt

Why can something look so good and be so bad? The Malice is a primary contender for that. I'm probably still going to play it on the table despite that.

Ray White worked on the sculpt for this one and it came out looking solid. The ankles even kind of work now, almost! :D

If you were to oversee a new variant created for this mech, what would be some key weapons or equipment changes you'd make?

Venom Concept

Here's one I know people have been wanting, the Venom.

This one is fairly straight forward, being built up from a Spider I dug up that sketch and worked from there. Beefed it up to represent the gained tonnage, working in Venom details while maintaining links to the new Spider for lineage.

The question is not if you will plop one on the table, the question is how many? How many friendships will burn?

J-27 Ordnance Transport Sculpt

Everyone's favorite work commuter, the ammo carrier J-27 Ordnance Transport. Thanks to those that pointed out that is indeed a different word to Ordinance :D

As alluded to in recent product packaging. The tractor and trailer come as different parts, allowing you to put just the tractor on a base for compact play, or mount both and accept a big overhang.
One nice thing about large vehicles though, is that they and mechs can typically go base to base without issue, as they intersect at...

Peacekeeper Concept

Forgot to post this one. The Peacekeeper from the final Star League box. Redesigned by Dale Eadeh and myself.

For me this is a pretty funky looking mech, but it has grown on me a little since working on it. We decided to make the arm PPCs share the same barrel shapes, and have the shoulder SRM launcher hatch closed to maximize variant compatibility. I think it can cover all of them this way.

Who's been a user of this one in years past?

Hammerhead Sculpt

This isn't so much a new design or sculpt, but going into the Star League packs I decided to give it a little sprucing up. Seems to be a very positively received mech so I'm happy to see it coming in plastic, as I believe it's only available in "premium mini" siocast form.

Who's been running this one?

Akuma Concept

Here's a fun one I'm sure many have been looking forward to, the Akuma.

I remember way back enjoying the color illustration Alex Iglesias did with one in it. Maybe a bit skinny but great looking. I wanted to make sure this one had a good demon mask head.
I also initially designed in the stock loadout, then reread my assignment and realized it calls for the 2XC, so I nixed the Streak launchers for sensor pods and the bigger MRM40 launcher.

Looking forward to seeing this as a Kur...

Jackalope Sculpt

This unholy mech has arrived, the Jackalope.
It's not a bad mech stats wise, but it sure does look funny. Harri did a nice job updating the look a bit. I'm sure those that use it enjoy being a menace with that combination of high jump and clan weapons range.

Who's a fan of this one? Show yourselves! :P

Fulcrum Concept

Here's a funky one, the Fulcrum. It's going to show up in the first Aces box.

A nice high speed large laser zipping around the map. And uh, an LRM hair cap :D
Like many of the oldschool hovers, it's a bit of a blob covered in lines, so I tried to clarify shapes some. Though I also let this one retain a bit more of the blob.

Is it a positive or negative that the weapons are depicted accurately now? I couldn't make the odd number missile hatches work.

Kintaro Sculpt

I know some have been waiting for this one. The Kintaro. One more for the scrappy mediums that aren't optimal killers, but still desirable.

I think a nice balance was hit on this one between the old classic looks, and the quite blocky but otherwise nice MWO version we've had for some years. Sorry funky hip flair lovers, this one has working legs :D
Designed by Harri Kallio and sculpted by Aaron Harris.

I realized too late that last month had flown away on me. I'm about to move ...

Excalibur Concept

Ok lets get this one kicked out the door. The Excalibur.

I'm still not quite sure what led management to want this mech in our modern lineup, but here we are despite my groaning haha. It did and still does look funky, the ugly step brother of the Black Knight. It also has pretty meh stats, somehow feeling under gunned, with paper thin armor with an XL engine, and not being fast enough to justify the two previous aspects. For sure, it's a true second liner that will need to avoid direct ...