ShimmeringSword

Scheme Planning

My local demo agent and buddy George Paresa offered to help get my miniatures painted, so I handed him my stuff and a mountain of art prints to trade. I just... took forever, until now, to get him an idea of how I want them done.

Which is your favorite?

Right is my default, how I ran my mechs in MWO. Middle is more realistic. Left is the most eye catching

Alpha Shift

Hmmm, I don't remember the Marauder in this scene being red. Anyone else seeing this?

The last time I painted anything in color was about a year ago, and I think the last time I painted a mech was two years ago. It's crazy how sucked into mech design I've been ever since pre-production started on the GoAC box so many years ago.
Then, since we lit the fuse on the kickstarter idea I've done almost nothing but sketch mechs, model mechs, and sketch over mech models.

Something big i...

Highlander 3D Renders

Here you go. Multi angle renders of the new Highlander.
He's an absolute unit.

Who's OCD is going to be eternally rattled knowing the lower CT block is off center? :)

As usual the patreon link tagged images can be shared around.

Comstar Command Level II Renders

Here is the usual set of single renders. These should be going up on the KS page pretty fast.
I'll probably do a bunch of angle shots on the Highlander soon. I know you all want to see that.

Comstar Command Level II

It's tricky fitting this many mechs into one shot :D
So many great mechs though. We took a group of mechs ranging from good in the Highlander, to silly medieval Black Knight, hatchet egg on legs Exterminator, and the trio of flat out "why" bread roll mechs in the King Crab, Sentinel, and Mercury... and made them all awesome (but not Awesome).

A Tale of Two Lances

Between the rush of work, thoughts of saving certain mechs for special patreon composition ideas, thinking a lance/star might finish soon, or just being straight up forgetful. It doesn't take long before a bunch of mechs pile up in the finished stack without being shown off here or anywhere else.

I decided to just grab all/most of said mechs and throw them in a render for you. While this grouping is fairly large owing to a few factors, including plain old fast production speed from our ...

Blackjack Prototype Print

Here's another amazingly painted prototype print from Dale Eadeh.
So glad how the Blackjack came out every time I see it now. Looks so good in physical form. A chunky workhorse.

King Crab 3D Sculpt

Just got this model in from Alex Immerzeel. I ran the fix-up stage for it by myself to free him up for bigger stuff he's got on his plate. 

Doesn't this King Crab look amazing? The plain grey/white renders give it that Comstar look right out the gate.

Are those AC20s chonky enough?

Too Many Mechs

I used to be able to do a render like this and semi reasonably have all the mechs in line be visible. Now they're starting to phase into the horizon haha.
Still more to add.

Cougar 3D Sculpt

Cougar renders requested and delivered.
I've always been a fan of this mech due to it's appearance in Mech Commander games and the MW4 series. It's a great example alongside the Mad Cat on how to design a mix of sleek forms and robust shapes into a non humanoid machine.

The art for this mech has always looked pretty good, and even has a decent resculpt, but I took this as a good opportunity to squeeze the maximum out of the design and make sure the sculpt process delivered perfectly ...

Marauder II Lineart GIF

Here's an animated gif of the lineart process for the Marauder II.
Alan renders out the lines from 3D for everyone, he also did the first frame of ink here.
Unfortunately I didn't think to save out more file iterations on this one, so you'll notice a huge progress jump at once stage. Does show a few things well though:

- Even though we usually have finished 3D models to start from now, there's still a lot of work required to take it from an obvious 3D output to something that look...

Sentinel 3D Turntable

Another turntable in from Chris Lowrey.
Seems the Sentinel is landing squarely in many peoples "most improved" short lists.
Looks great, as pretty much all the turntables do.

Jenner 3D Sculpt

Here's a chunky boi, sculpted by Alan Blackwell. The Jenner.

I can't wait to redesign a Jenner IIC and do an even bigger saucer cockpit.

Nova Cat 3D Renders

The post bomb continues. Trying to manage one a day until I've cleared a bunch of content requests and renders of finished sculpts. Sometimes I just let a sculpt sit until I've got the complete pack to post, but we've got a few mechs that have been waiting for a while.

Nova Cat render angles here, as requested by a few people.
The surfaces are extra chunky on this one for miniatures production, but should be smoothed out a bit in TRO lineart.

Goshawk Concept Sketch

Here's an interesting one. The Goshawk.
I think this is one of the stronger cases where the phoenix redesign is almost entirely better than the original, so I leaned pretty heavy into that while still trying to retain some of the original and not obsolete the phoenix visual entirely.
It should gain a lot more dynamic once posed too.

How do the Goshawk fans feel about it?

Black Knight Turntable

Another turntable in from Chris Lowrey.
Such a sweet looking sculpt. Ready to lance that PPC right into another mech and pull the trigger.

Prototype 3D Prints

Here are some more prototype prints painted up by Dale Eadeh. They look amazing don't you think?
Keep in mind these are artist level prints, not production prints or plastic prototypes, so the details will look a little different in final production.

-We've seen a LOT of painted Warhammer protos over the last what, 4-5 years? But I don't think anyone has done it better than Dale's here.

-Crusader looks slick, for as slick as such a chunky mech can be. Nice to see it physical.<...

Sentinel 3D Sculpt

Sentinel came in from Chris Lowrey. He rendered out these test shots to show here.

How's it look?

Warhawk 3D Renders

Squeaky wheel, meet grease. A few of you have asked for more Warhawk renders since the model was first shown off way back and I have continued to forget to post any :D
So, have a bunch of them!
You may also share around the close cropped one with my patreon link on it.

Aside from the bits that were straight pulled from Alex's Daishi, Jon Paulson sculpted this one. Was fun to get him in for at least one, as we've done a lot of miniatures work together in the past, only this time we...

Content Requests?

It's been somewhat a chaotic flurry of work lately that I haven't really had the focus to make sure I'm delivering the more unique bits of production here.

Anyone got special requests?
Additional renders of a certain mech sculpt is an easy one.
Might be able to make a progress gif of the Marauder II lineart.
Animated King Crab claws was mentioned earlier, though that one does take extra production time.

Hit me!

Black Knight 3D Sculpt

The Black Knight model just got finished by Chris Lowrey and he gave me these sweet renders to post here for you.
I think it came out looking amazing.

We'll have several more comstar mech models coming along soon.

Lancelot Concept Sketch

Bishop wanted me to post this one up so that you can all check out his work. (Still laughing that pirates are saying I'm stealing from him, as they steal from him)

I may have lined over much of this one, but a lot of it was shifting bits a little, or converting a curve to a straight or vice versa. He got the core idea down pretty good.

As Bishop mentioned on his patreon page, this is his last assignment for the KS. We've only got a few mechs left to design and they're all assigned...

Marauder II Lineart

Been a while since did any lineart myself, back when finishing off the Awesome, Commando, and Catapult for the GoAC box.
All our KS mechs need to be inked up not just for the KS project, but also the new Recognition Guides coming out, so we're working away on quite a bit.

The Marauder II had a slightly different design process which caused it to lack a more subtle reference sketch/art, making it hard for an artist to know which 3D model details/seams to size down. Especially now, our...

Crockett Concept Sketch

Here's an interesting one. The Crockett.

I had a few of my other designers a chance at this one but it proved to be a uniquely ugly mech that can be tough to break away from in the right ways to bring it into a modern image.
I won't even claim I came upon the perfect solution either, but I think it'll look good on the table.

What's interesting to me is how it both still looks like a Crockett, but also feels very different. It looks somehow fatter, without being fatter. More pul...

Sanctioned Patreon

A few people have been asking so I wanted to make this little informative post.

I worked in close and very specific communication with CGL in order to post Battletech IP to this page and accept money for it. It took quite a while of nudging and careful planning / terms discussion haha.
No doubt, it's a scary and slippery proposition to allow another party to accept money related to their IP, money out of their control. All patron funds here go in my pocket.

But yeah, everything...

Raven Sculpt

Have a Raven render. Alex Immerzeel sculpted this one, I'm just putting a few final touches on it.

I've already posted this image publicly on FB in a discussion about supporting the people doing real work for this IP, so feel free to post this around.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled piratepocalypse :)

Resin Prototype Prints

Here are some personal prototype prints Chris Lowrey had made of the mechs he's worked on.
They all look amazing, but once again the Hunchback really sticks out.

Clan Trio

You've probably seen all of these as prototypes by now and painted in one form or another, but here's another shot taken by Dale Eadeh of his work.

Mongoose Concept Sketch

Bishop has been nudging me daily to post this one so that y'all can talk about it haha.

The Mongoose is a tricky one because it has a very unique look that can't easily be tossed without it losing everything that makes it recognizable. At the same time, I personally find it quite ugly :P
So I set out with Bishop to see how well we could push the design without going the easy nuclear option of switching it to a primarily angular design.

This look here passed the gauntlet, coming...

Sales Taxes

This month Patreon started charging patrons part/all of their State local sales tax on their pledge.

Anyone want to give some insight on how that looked on their end?
Were you charged any extra?

It seems like I had a bit of a dip on my end but not much. It may be all deducted on my end, not sure.
I believe the way I itemized by patron benefits reduces what is taxed.

Anywhoo, how goes?