Ral Partha: Battletech Locust circa 1986 or so.

Edit: 30th May ’23: Accompanying background story

My first paint in, well, let’s not go there.

This old Locust has been repainted many times and the last paint job was on it since it went into the box decades back. Striped back, lightly wire brushed and then steel-wooled, this mini was quite hard to paint. Even after so many paints and strips, there’s plenty of fine detail left but the minute paint goes on a lot of that detail starts vanishing, unlike the new plastics, where the mini is not only bigger (this Locust casting is quite small), but the detail is very pronounced. As such, this has ended up more of ‘table top’ quality, as from a distance it works well but up close all the issues start coming out.

I am keeping these old metals mostly bare and painting a lance as if they have been patched and bodged over their lifetimes, so the slightly haphazard colouring I think works quite well for the intention. And keeping in line with the concept of a lifetime of patching, the small little cannon originally fitted was turfed and replaced with a Henschel Hs 129 B-3 inspired monster canon, for which I am working out a custom spec for.