Whilst hunting for ideas for my 15mm forces, I came across some good ideas on The Special Corps blog. I particularly like his re-use of a Star Wars miniatures Crab Droid, re-painted as a mining droid.
Browsing e-Bay, I came across some of the Mechwarrior clicky game stuff. Although this is in 10mm scale rather than 15mm, I decided to buy a few vehicles and a 'Mech or two to see how they'd fit in. Even if the tanks didn't look quiet right with 15mm figures, they'd still be useful as super-heavy tanks for some of my 6mm games such as Classic BattleTech games, Dirtside, or GW Epic.
When I told the seller "Nelson's Underpants" what I was intending to use the models for, he kindly threw in some other broken bits which he thought I might be able to use as scenery.
A construction 'Mech was the item that immediately grabbed my attention. Although pre-painted in green and grey colours, I could picture it in my mind's eye in standard yellow "JCB" style colouring.
Once it arrived, I got busy by trimming off exhaust pipes, the cockpit hanging under the front and cleaning off the mould lines all over. A pair of jury-rigged machine guns on the right arm were removed, as this is going to be a civilian demolition robot rather than a fighting machine. At some point I will get around to adding something to this arm - possibly a pneumatic drill fitting or a demolition ball on a chain.
The 'Mech received an undercoat of Humbrol Matt 34 white enamel, followed by a base coat of matt lemon yellow. Some old GW "Spearstaff Brown" acrylic was used for some basic shading (despite the name it's actually a sandy yellow colour), and then the piston casings were painted black. Exposed metal areas on pistons etc. were painted with Humbrol metalcote aluminium for a nice shine, and red warning stripes added where appropriate.
Finally, the whole thing received a wash of watered down brown acrylic to give a suitably "used" appearance and to bring out the detail.
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