Hi my name is Olen, most folks in the hobby know me by Dozer. I play primarily Infinity (Nomads or JSA) out of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. That means I spell some words with “ou” instead of just “o”.

I guess my post of my Black Talon forces on Discord caught someone’s attention. I was asked about my minis. It’s very flattering to be asked about my hobby work so I wrote it all (story and process) down.

BACKGROUND

A couple of mates and I decided to pick back up Heavy Gear again. We decided on a basement escalation league of four players. We would play each other once, before moving to the next point value of army size. We also looked over the suggested base sizes and standardized between each other. We focused on using only round bases and keeping the sizes the same across the board.

SELECTION

Most of us have been playing Heavy Gear when it first came out. I’m talking about Heavy Gear 1st Edition, surviving the scale change, and two great games next to a bad cartoon. We are also all military - some retired, some still marching. The escalation league allowed us to meet up at least once a month, in the gaps of our calendars, to start getting more time at the table since COVID started to calm down.

For our escalation league I picked Black Talon because it felt like my favorite faction Peace River, the model count would be low, and I had never played with small expert units.

I decided on keeping with Talon Works 2nd generation Gears over the retrofitted 1st generation Gears when Black Talon first was launched. I also wanted the team to be able to fit in one of the Black Talon Fury transports, a future terrain piece I’m keen to design and build.

So I picked up 2 packs of the Eagles, Raptors, Vultures, Owls, and Ravens with a plan to add two Shinobi. I’d be splitting a four pack between my Peace River and Black Talon armies. I threw in a Black Wind as well because it’s a nice show piece for my force and I imagine that my Black Talons would have one on standby when in mission planning. Air support is something I came to appreciate in my 20 years in uniform.

The paint scheme was something I wanted to pop without having to labour over such a small collection of minis. With the range of paints in both colour and type I did some testing and found the following to work well.

PAINTING

First off I based my Gears with an Airbrush using Vallejo 70.625 - Azul Ultrmar Surface Primer. I’ve gone through a few cheep airbrushes but recently I upgraded to a fancy Harder and Steenbeck Infinity hopping to up my game. Airbrushes have changed the hobby for me, allowing me to get less failures when basing my minis and trying out more advanced techniques.

I then added a coat of Army Painter Grim Black Speed Paint. The black comes out beautifully. Enough of the blue from the base comes through and gives the black a depth. When doing stealth black panels or armour, I normally glaze with a black blue mix for the same effect. These paints have been a game changer for me in shrinking my piles of shame.

Next up, I dry bushed the whole model with Vallejo 73.601 - Grey Surface Primer and blocked off a few panels and equipment with the same colour. This makes the black look even better framing the mini with gentle edges to enhance the effect the black over the blue base.

Lastly, the details were brushing on Vallejo 72.729 - Sick Green Game Air for the sensor suits and cockpit panels. I felt some inspiration from the Splinter Cell video game series. I really loved the effect, the pop of green felt subtle and augmented the body rather than distracting from it.

I followed up by adding a second pop of colour by brushing the tips of rocket packs and such with Vallejo 71.107 - US Interior Yellow Game Air. This is my only meh moment. I like the second accent colour but it went on quickly and poorly. I may redo these sections at a later date.

BASES

Due to my low numbers and unsure what to use to base my minis I hit up a LGS out of Toronto and ordered up some pre-painted bases for my minis. I picked the GamersGrass Battle Ready Bases: Badlands for both sizes in case I needed to expand. The name was perfect for my force as I figured they would be based out near Peace River in the Badlands. Plus the quality of the bases were top shelf, they looked so damn good, and it saved me a lot of time getting my Black Talons based. The odd green tuffs added the perfect pop of colour to the reddish arid bases.

The only issue was when I glued on my Gears, some gaps showed due to the uneven terrain and the non flat feet of the gears. I had a set of Self Adhesive Tufts by Brushwood that I got playing at Rumble of Route 66*.

Lastly I varnished with Vallejo Acrylic Matt Varnish and let them dry overnight to finish off.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So that’s it. An ADHD fueled story that got to showing a really simple way to paint my Black Talons. I sent updates at each stage to my mates and it took me including paint drying times, about two hours to do all ten Gears and a single Black Wind before letting the varnish dry overnight.

They came out really well even with all the shortcuts. I could go into a more detailed brush, fix some errors, clean up some lines. Something I’m looking at doing once I add the two Shinobi to the list.

Good luck with your projects and stay safe - Cheers

Dozer (Olen)

*A quick shout out to Dan and Joy who organized it with a great crew of volunteers for six plus years in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I went three times before COVID changed things. They were super welcoming along with the rest of the Infinity community. From Garcia, Mark, Ethan, Joe, Dutch, Tom and Kip, Luke (RIP), the rest of the four corners folks, Krug ambassadors, and everyone else. Hope to see you across the table, be it with minis, drinks - or both.