ShimmeringSword

Thunder Hawk Concept Sketch

For those who missed the poll or how it ultimately went (I can get insight from polls but ultimately can't make final decisions with them), the flat chest did indeed win out in the board room.

Management seems to be gauss happy lately, after the Pillager and other gauss carrying mechs from the Mercs KS, it was decided one or two wasn't enough, we need three!
Personally I consider the original Thunder Hawk extremely ugly, and propose that most love for the mech is derived from the wea...

JagerMech

Glad to finally get this one rendered out. I think the JagerMech is a sleeper mech of the kickstarter, delivering a utility mech that many will want in their forces even if just for the lore aspect. But I also know some of you out there will be deploying these in numbers and betting on enemy complacency to lay down withering canon fire.

I think the redesign came out really well, and Chris Lowrey did a good job on the 3D sculpt. It's still a clunky trashcan but it's no longer disproporti...

Sabutai Concept Sketch

What's this? More aerospace?
We can't keep spamming Shilones in official artwork, so we've been working on expanding our selection.

The Sabutai was assigned to Bishop to work on, but when I went to apply my desired edits early in the process I'd largely finished it off by the time I was done, so I did the final polishing also. That's an odd bit with fighter designs, because they're innately cleaner designs to work on, there's not too much to them beyond the initial shape groundwork.&...

Gunslinger Sculpt

Digging through some of the render backlog. Definitely easier now with the new render setup. Wanted to get something out before I ship off to GenCon for a week. I've been crushed the last few weeks working on something very special for Battletech, and also temporarily moving as I had to vacate my last place before finishing approvals where I'm trying to go. Chaos!

So here's the Gunslinger. You've got the mini, now you can see the crispy source goodness.
A collaborative design between...

Hawkish

I'm working on a something something and having a back and forth on the direction to go. I lean for the Egg because I like jutting smooth torso shapes, but the Block is overall more faithful. I'm only afraid that block isn't as appealing to anyone who lacks the nostalgia goggles. So if you may take those off for a minute, which one is better?

No sharing on this one please.

IS Standard BattleArmor

Sorry I didn't post this sooner, distractions abound (I'm a broken record)

Here's the Inner Sphere Standard Battlearmor that many have been requesting to see.
Sculpt by Alan Blackwell and myself.

As can be seen here, as with the Elementals, the level of detail we can put into the 3D sculpt is drastically lower than what we've designed into it. But this time around with experience from the Elemental minis I think we've increased the level of detail we can pack into the tiny figu...

Hatamoto Chi Sculpt

The man in armor Black Knight now has a friend to battle against, the Hatamoto-Chi. I think after this the only new KS mechs I haven't shown are the Pillager and Jagermech. But I also know people have been demanding to see the IS BA, primitive mechs, and KS variant mechs.

I think this one came out spectacularly. Aside from the complexity of getting the chest curvatures right, this sculpt came together matching the sketch quite nicely. Chris Lowrey did the sculpting on this one.
I'm c...

Mauler Sculpt

Almost there! I think after this Mauler I only have the Hatamoto Chi to show off for new KS sculpts. Then it leaves resculpt items if you guys would like to see those.
Another design by myself and sculpt by Alan Blackwell.

While the Blood Asp took some massaging to get the same energy out of the sculpt as was in the sketch, the Mauler seemed to slot right into looking great in 3D. It's another design where I feel we've nailed the best iteration yet with few compromises, but that's a ...

Blood Asp Sculpt

Here's a favorite of mine, the Blood Asp.
Designed by myself and sculpted by Alan Blackwell.

Initially made for the Recognition Guide series, I lobbied for this one to be added to the kickstarter when they were brain storming an extra salvage box mech, and here we are!

I put some extra time in pushing bits around to make sure this sculpt felt as good as possible (though nothing is perfect), and getting to see it rendered now harkens back to the early 2000s with fan sculpts/rend...

Battlefield Support: Heavy Battle & Sweep

Here's the final vehicle set of the kickstarter!
J Edgar, Drillson, Patton, and Pike.

I feel this one (like all the vee packs) is gonna be a great seller. The Patton looks amazing, and Drillson is a scary hover. The J Edgar is a good mook filler, and while the Pike isn't a glamorous item it puts guns on the table.

For those who have been picking up the recognition guides too, you've seen almost every vehicle in the KS get rather terrifying upgrades.

Pike and Patton sculp...

Charger 3K Sculpt

I've had the Charger sitting near the front of my renders list for a while now. But as we're so far along with the Kickstarter now, I'm just gonna jump to the Charger 3K variant that will be coming in the Legendary II pack, being piloted by Jeremiah Rose of the Black Thorns.

Initially thinking we'd only get the base Charger, I had it designed with torso door panels to help/imply conversion to missile/ballistics of other variants. When the 3K was conformed this paid off nicely, getting t...

Battlefield Support: Rifle & Command

These sculpts aren't complete but wanted to show them off for some final KS hype as we close in on the finish line.

Bulldog, SturmFeur, Von Luckner, and Hetzer. It's a big winner of a pack for me, with all very desirable vees inside. Scary ones too.

I know many of you are going to be stocking up on Hetzers to run alongside urbies in city fights.

Mauler Concept Sketch

Here's the other new mech from the Somerset Strikers pack, the Mauler.

This one I WAS excited to work on. My nostalgia for it is it's the first assault mech you acquire in MW4 Vengeance (if I recall right) so I drove it a fair bit with all my playthroughs. Always found it to be one of those "good ugly" mechs with a fun balance of weapon types. Of course that balance doesn't translate to "good" on the tabletop, so I look forward to what comes of it in the ilClan era.

I'd usually as...

Hatamoto-Chi Concept Sketch

Now that the secret is out on Kickstarter, here's the Hatamoto-Chi concept in full view!

Was fun refining this one. Not a favorite mech of mine, but one I had a good idea for working on. I also did a commissioned piece of one waaaay back in time. I wanted to better work in the samurai armor slat styling without going overboard. More accurate details rather than more detail overall seemed to work well.

One more mech knocked off the beggars list haha.

Battlefield Support: Battle & Fire

Time for more renders! I'm really behind on these.

Some people having been asking for more sketches, though I must admit there aren't many to go around at the moment. Many such as designs from the Proliferation Cycle pack are done by artists other than myself so I don't always post their work.

Here is another vehicle force pack, one I'm sure many of you will be wanting to get your hands on. The Manticore, Vedette, and LRM/SRM carriers. The carriers all share a common main chassis,...

Timber Wolf Gold

Before I ship out for Adepticon and the Kickstarter launch event, here's a post!

Much like the Marauder, we just gave the Timber Wolf a face lift, though not as intensive as the Marauder.
This one mostly focuses around the nose geometry, which wasn't toleranced well for production, but there are detail cast-ability enhancements all around.
I also adjusted a few proportions, a hair more torso size, and more beef on the lower arms. It was me who fought to keep the arms smaller origi...

Firebee Concept Sketch

The most oddball of the proliferation bunch, the Firebee.

I have no love for this mech, but it's such an ugly ducking that in the production rush to get this force pack out I took on the task. An inside scoop is that this project landed on my teams plate with a very short window in order to squeeze it into a retail window. Even I'm impressed that CGL has managed to get copies in for Adepticon (I would guess flown in). Everyone involved crunched hard to get it done, and we're here.

Ymir Concept Sketch

Time to reveal more Proliferation Cycle force pack art since it's public now.

For the Ymir I really liked Matt Plog's existing fan redesign version, so I asked him if he or I could make some changes to push it through as an official design. He deferred the task over to me, so I got to work on it.

It's extremely lanky for an assault mech, but has a really cool look. I gave it the proper weapons loadout, tweaked some torso shapes, and made it a bit more 3D modeler friendly perspecti...

Phoenix Hawk Lineart

More housekeeping art time.
This one is pretty simple, updating my old Phoenix Hawk art to have the current version of head and chest plate. Alan Blackwell and myself took on the task.

The original lineart was made long before the first kickstarter launched, and by that time I was no longer happy with the sculpt, especially the head. Those of you who have been patrons for several years might recall my post about that head redesign.
Matt Plog made new Phoenix Hawk lineart for the k...

Marauder Gold

Interesting bit of trivia, it's been about 7.5 years since this Marauder was first designed and sculpted. We were gearing up for all this craziness that far back!

But, time flies, and our skills improve. While even some of our previous kickstarter mechs already get refinements when being reused, our GoAC era mechs especially need full work overs to bring them up in quality any time they get a fresh use. With the recent merc force packs and some IWM releases we've done this for mechs lik...

Drillson Concept Sketch

Here's another for the Rec Guides, the Drillson.

This is another vee (particularly with hovers) where I felt the old design shapes were so generic and it's one I rarely hear people talk about, that blowing it up big time was warranted so that it can be a more memorable design going into the future.

I changed the main form from square soap to hexagonal soap, and gave it a central hull shape that was a simple wedge.
Then, rather than try to make it some elegant mixture of forms, ...

Blood Asp Concept Sketch

The Blood Asp! IT'S REAL! Another one you probably weren't expecting yet.

I love this design so when it came up in the Rec Guide design queue I slapped my own name on that sketch assignment without shame :D
There are so many versions of this mech, from the original TRO art, the IWM resculpt, Mech Commander 2, Mech Assault 2, Mechwarrior Online, and decades of fanart. I wanted to combine the best of them into one definitive version, putting a lot of effort into the proportions, and fi...

Hetzer 3D Sculpt

I showed off the sketch in time for the Rec Guide it featured in, but here's the 3D sculpt for the Hetzer that Alan Blackwell worked on. Not only do these sculpts make a good base for lineart, they can then go into any future color illustrations in Battletech books. Not all of our Rec Guide models are 100% complete, just good enough for inks, but they're easy to finalize should they be needed as minis.

With the Recognition Guide and Mercenaries Kickstarter productions wrapping up we've ...

SM1 Tank Destroyer Concept Sketch

Here's a bit of a different one.  SM1 Tank Destroyer hovercraft.

As CGL dives deeper into the new ilClan era, we can't just rest on revamped succession wars units. Dark Age units need some love too sometimes.
Earlier I was given a more cinematic/rendering grade model that I spruced up a little for artist use.

More recently it was decided to give it a more substantial go over, but not a complete redo. So I took that 3D model and drew over it, a big time saver. I think mere...

Merlin 3D Sculpt

Here's one that's been seen around a bit, but here are some nice clear 3D renders. The Merlin.

It wasn't a standout favorite mech of mine, but Harri Kallio had a really nice design sketch of it laying around that he was able to spruce up into this final form.

Eliza Gibbs then did the 3D sculpt you see here, with final edits and posing by me.

Feel free to share around the mood image!

Hellhound II Concept Sketch

Anyone see this one coming? All the way back to the first kickstarter I was wanting the MW4 style Hellhound brought in officially, but at the time the bosses wanted the unseen version. It was agreed on we'd circle around to this one though, and here it is!

Still a little bummed due to the resulting TRO loadout not being able to have the double left arm and right torso barrels, but I did keep a generic greeble barrel on the torso to offset.

Otherwise I've always considered the desi...

Visigoth Concept Sketch

Here's the Visigoth sketch everyone saw on the box art prototype. Usually they'd put a final lineart piece on the boxes but we don't quite have the model done yet, let alone lines.

For a little peek into how our design team has been going last year, we'd have likely had all kickstarter 3D assets done already, but as CGL announcements and releases show we really went hard on straight to retail products such as the new Beginners Box, AS Box, coming Merc packs, coming Urbie lance pack, and...

Requests!

Been a bit since I polled y'all on what you'd like to see more of. I know I haven't delivered on everything requested, but I have back filled a few missed items.

So, what do you wish? Feel free to mention again anything I didn't hit for you previously, and I'd particularly like focusing on Mercenaries Kickstarter related items.

Side note. Apologies for the slow few months again. Every time I get on a good roll, something knocks me back again. I can't make the excuse I was busy thi...

Objectives Vehicle Renders

With the Mobile Long Tom finished recently I can finally put this interesting group together. The Battlefield Support: Objectives force pack.

A key pack for anyone running a campaign. Mobile Long Tom, MASH, and Mobile HQ vehicles bring a lot of flavor to the battle map, whether they're stationary tokens, or on the move. Or in the case of the Long Toms, somewhere off map being menacing :)

All oddly scaled items too. The Mobile HQ and MASH feature a lot of internal volume for their ...

Loki MkII Concept Sketch

Sorry for the slow month everyone. I may be able to squeeze in a final post or two for the year still, but I'll be away from home so no guarantees.

The Loki Mk II was called on. A bit of an odd pick but I was glad to see it done as it allowed me to retcon away the situation of a new mech looking drastically worse than the original haha.

I took my original Loki sketch and drew over it, pulling in details from the Mk II that I felt worked, and also grabbed details from the MW4 Loki ...