This 1:285 scale pre-built plastic model of a Shadow Cat is produced by “Catalyst Game Labs” and can be found together with a Dire Wolf, Summoner, Stormcrow, and Mist Lynx in the company’s “Battletech: Clan Command Star” boxed set. All the pre-assembled miniatures also come with an assortment of MechWarrior pilot and Alpha Strike cards depicting various colour schemes. But as I plan to use this particular sculpt as a Hawker class British War Walker for an upcoming Weird War Two campaign using some homemade rules, I decided to go with a predominantly light brown palette.
Employing the weight-saving technology of “an Endo Steel internal structure”, the 35mm tall figure was initially given a double undercoat of “Vallejo” Earth and shaded in “Citadel” Agrax Earthshade. It was then dry-brushed using (more) “Vallejo” Earth with a softly-bristled make-up blusher brush, and had its rather prominent cockpit’s windows ‘picked out’ with a dab of “Citadel” Abaddon Black.
So as to add a bit of interest to the rather bleak-pigmented model I decided to tie its colour scheme in better with that of the Hawker Hurricane, and resultantly identified a few ‘points of interest’ on both its arms and legs which could be ‘picked out’ using a combination of “Vallejo” Heavy Green and “Citadel” Biel-Tan Green. I later gave these areas a careful dry-brush of (more) “Vallejo” Heavy Green to help highlight the sculpt’s impressive details.
I also applied some “Vallejo” Gunmetal, and later a splattering of “Citadel” Nuln Oil, to the Shadow Cat’s formidably sized Gauss Rifle, its two Extended Range (ER) Medium Lasers, some air vents and knee-joints. Lastly, I dug out one of the smallest Union Flag transfers I could find within my collection of “Decal Details” and placed it just above the medium-sized mech’s cock-pit. I had also hoped to apply a roundel or two to the war walker, but simply couldn’t find any suitable locations on its Ferro-Fibrous armour.
I have however, managed to finish working on second plastic model of a Stinger to use as a Curtiss-Class American War Walker. This “Catalyst Game Labs” figure can be found inside the company’s ““Battletech: Inner Sphere Command Lance” boxed set, and was painted using “Vallejo” US Olive Drab in exactly the same way as the first small Allied mech I completed earlier this month.
In addition, I’ve been progressing some British reinforcements in the shape of a second Shadow Cat, and significantly smaller Adder. Both will predominantly feature similar colour schemes to that of my Hawker-class mech. But I have actually repositioned my duplicate Shadow Cat by ‘unplugging’ its carapace from its legs, filing down the square peg used to join the two parts together, and super-gluing them back having turned the torso around somewhat to face in a different direction…
Right OK you can stop this now!! or I'm going to end up buying some of these blooming things! Keep looking at them on the net, and "Travelling Man's" images of the box game keeps popping up in yahoo!!!
I blame you so hard for this! 😉
Cheers Roger.
(oh they are very nicely painted though, but that's no excuse!!)
Man, you're really churning out these guys and they look great! I like the look of the Adder's cockpit, it's reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon lol.
Very nice mechs. I like British ones a lot, both in terms of design and colour. I do like the US one too! Are you painting the red circle as the circular target motif that you see on British planes? That would be awesome! This is a great little project, loving it!
Great work on all your mechs Simon, the American one looks a bit dark, but that could easily be the photograph, the two English ones are progressing well, and nice little conversion