Ajax Battlemechs - Simple Weathering ft. Anvil Industry [How I Paint Things]

Painting big stompy robots is easy! Though the game 'Afterlife' from Anvil Industry isn't currently available, the Republic and Unity Council sculpts and designs are being given a new lease of life in resin and digital STLs for home printing. This is great news, because they're awesome designs!
Check out the Anvil Digital Forge over on Patreon: / posts
Or find previous digital releases and an incredible range of physical resin products at their store: anvilindustry.co.uk/?affiliat...
00:00 - Intro
00:52 - Painting Time!
13:48 - The Finished Mech
Thanks to Producer level Patrons Alan Nuttall, Kyrie Crawford, Trainboy, Fred, and Jimmy - as well as all the other Patrons that made this video possible, and Exit23 Games for recording equipment that helps keep the channel ticking over! Find out more at the following links:
/ sonicsledgehammer
/ sonicsledge
/ sonicsledgehammer
ko-fi.com/docwholigan
exit23.games
THE BASE: Vallejo Earth Texture Brown Earth, drybrush Vallejo Dark Sand, tufts to taste, paint rim with Citadel XV-88.
PAINTS USED:
PRIMERS:
Matt Black (Army Painter)
CITADEL:
Necron Compound (Dry)
Iron Warriors (Base)
Balthasar Gold (Base)
Retributor Armour (Base)
Mephiston Red (Base)
Corax White (Base)
"Marine Juice" - Equal parts Nuln Oil, Reikland Fleshshade, Lahmian Medium.
Agrax Earthshade (Shade)
White Scar (Layer)
Evil Sunz Scarlet (Layer)
VALLEJO:
Grey Blue (or Army Painter Wolf Grey, or Citadel The Fang)
Red Leather (or Skrag Brown is quite close)
ARMY PAINTER:
Gun Metal
VARNISHES:
Vallejo Matt Varnish

[@johnkelley9877]

That is so cool! I will steal , I mean barrow, your scheme for my CAV Special Operations stompy robots. Thanks for sharing this.

[@loupiscanis9449]

Thank you , Troy , Nice mini, nice job . 🐺

[@WeAreNotHomeToday]

I just finished Scaling and Printing these bad boys

[@justanothercaptain6566]

As always, very cool to see how quickly and easy to got that to a high end table top standard. Cheers 🍻

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

You know the story! Don't need to muck about to get serviceable models on the table. :D

[@euansmith3699]

That's a very cool mini; and the paint job gives it extra grit and weight.

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

Cheers! Once the shade started to settle, somehow it stopped looking like a man-sized power armour suit and instead seemed way bigger. I should have put this sucker on a hex base!

[@leeperry7068]

Man, that turned out just stunning. I've watched the video like 4 times now. I'm not one to really meticulously follow a tutorial video, but I think I might just step by step through a few of these exactly like this (and maybe a few recent battletech minis I have ready to go as well). Signed up for that patreon this month as well, then dropped a ton of cash on their old models with the patreon discount. Love their work!

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

Cheers! The beauty of the method is that it's really so simple; just swapping a colour or two would let you feasibly paint any number of things and still get a similar result. I'm sure the Anvil team will be well pleased to hear someone decided to take the plunge! There's some really awesome stuff in that back catalogue. :D

[@goattrain]

ahh, I love a good giant robot!

[@h347h]

Going to grab some of these for Stargrave for the power suits in the game.

[@PulsefiredGaming]

Wooo love the paint job. Thanks

[@mal2ksc77]

Those stripes made me think of Mass Effect. Well done.

[@Thunderplunk]

God, it's almost alarming how much of a difference those stripes make! Very nice work, Grey Blue always turns out beautifully IMO.

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

It's a really brilliant colour. It's a touch more grey than it looks in colour swatches or even in a closed bottle, but it really is old-school Space Wolves in one go!

[@nickdavis5420]

Mmm I like they would be great for grimdark future

[@bullnut2013]

Always good to see the old Royal Armoured Corp ID flash on a model.

[@JZStudios2]

For House Davion! Seriously this was a great painting video, I did see this in Anvil being introduced and I might just pick up the files for them. Also really need to settle down and make those wash mixes you keep showing off.

[@alessiodecarolis]

This is one of the best of your eccellent tutorials! I bought some of the older versions, I always liked the aspects of these minis, no fancyness/skulls or bright colours, these PA are realistic, hulking brutes.

[@thegreatwave1]

Always good to see a new Sledgehammer video spring up on my feed!

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

I'm glad to hear someone's seen it pop up! There's been some weird changes to notifications recently, so knowing that you do get to see it is a little reassuring. 😅

[@beardgoblin1090]

@@SonicSledgehammerStudio Popped up in my YooChoob notifications, too - though I did notice it on the bird-site first ;D

[@thelonepainter4760]

Awesome as always!👍🏽

[@alexwhite2247]

You're back! Amazing Video, love your tutorials. Hope you're well :)

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

I've been around a little bit! I think KZbin is playing around with notifications lately. 😝

[@alexwhite2247]

@@SonicSledgehammerStudio I have lots to catch up on!

[@buntsbanter1380]

Stellar job - I'm going to have to give the marine juice a go! Anvil sure are cracking out some smashing miniatures.

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

It's good stuff! I've used it on some WWII figures as well, it's got tons of uses beyond just machinery and Marines. It's less yellow than sepia or Soft Tone, and not as stark and brown as Agrax for certain things.

[@stevepickering5978]

Very nice figure and very well painted indeed.

[@blakec1924]

Really clean print job also sir. Great job!

[@timothyyoung2962]

That turned out fantastic! Really makes me want to paint up some mechs.

[@TashiMortier]

The result looks so good, love the gritty look! :)

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

I hesitate to say "more realistic," but I do tend to prefer a little less gloss and shine on my armoured suits!

[@andrewbeasley]

Neat result - love the stripes. As for using fingers to wipe the rust paint - still trying to get my phone to recognise my thumb after a little superglue 'issue' last week!!!!

[@euansmith3699]

I too have experienced this issue 😆

[@hoteckkan]

That looks fantastic. You're so skilled ! Your use of washes is really impressive - I always have trouble with my washes settling too much in flat areas and dulling everything down too much, but your washes always seem to settle right where they ought to.

[@braustrupkastell2945]

Are you working with acrylic washes?

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

In this case it's really a combination of the added medium to thin out the shades, but also moving it around from flat surfaces where it's collecting as you apply it. If you're finding it settles too heavily in some areas, move it around while it's still wet.

[@hoteckkan]

@@braustrupkastell2945 I am. Agrax and Nuln mostly.

[@hoteckkan]

@@SonicSledgehammerStudio Thanks for the tips! I think I need to switch to a flatter brush like yours. I just look at my project from last night and the wash is really uneven, I'm even missing some areas completely.

[@braustrupkastell2945]

@@hoteckkan I could recommend the wash medium from Army Painter. It is great for thinning down theire washes and much better than using water. I usually mix it with 1 part medium to 2 parts wash. This way the surfaces don't get darkened too much but the crevices are still tinted enough. You could experiment to your liking. Unfortunately I do not have experience in using it with washes from GW.

[@wolfehoffmann2697]

I'm so happy these are available again. I regretted not getting any when they were released before. Also, a major nitpick. The Ajax isn't a mech, or a big stompy robot. It's power armor. Proper hard sci-fi power armor. Not gothic bell bottoms, not body armor that we're just told is made of super dense materials, but proper, meaty looking armor with multiple weapon systems.

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

True that there's a difference between powered armour and robots, but if the 'mech' name bugs you, that's one to take up with Anvil themselves - they gave it the name Ajax Mech Suit in their posts, so I figure that mech in this case leans more on just something which is mechanised.

[@owenrice5510]

How do you get trid of the horrible pools of shade that sometimes form?

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

The easiest way to do this is to avoid them forming in the first place. If you see any big pools, move them around with your brush while the shade's still wet. Don't just throw it on and expect it'll settle exactly as it's supposed to - it still needs a little work! ;D

[@RaVirrTheTrader]

Cute lil' Gipsy Danger

[@patrickschuffelers2272]

Nice tutorial and color scheme. I have one question. I found the Vallejo Grey Blue (70.943 model color) and the GW The Fang. But the Vallejo Grey Blue is two colors lighter then The Fang. Is the color in the video Vallejo Grey Blue from model color or is there another one?

[@stefan020290]

Little question, you seem to mostly use citadel paints. Why exactly? Many of their paints are completely inferior to their competition. Especially for metallics, Vallejo seems to be ways better. Same for some colours like corax white (worst white colour out there). I mean, I see the paint rack with dropper bottles in the background and just wondering.

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

I wouldn't say this is really a little question; there's a lot to unpack here. The short answer would be "Because they work for me," but that merits further explanation. Corax White 'the worst white colour out there' is just not my experience at all. As long as you add an agitator and shake it thoroughly before use, it's a white paint that covers over any base colour or primer in one coat. It's got a slight blue tint to it so I do keep other white paints handy for different purposes, so I use those for specific purposes as well, but for coverage you can't beat Corax White. Vallejo's metallic range is another interesting one. Their Model Air Color metallics are brilliant and I use those regularly. The Model Color metallic range? I'd sooner use Citadel or Army Painter's line - it's rare that I get even results from VMC metallics, so I don't use them. Otherwise, it's a case of the best paint for the right job. Sometimes that is Citadel or Army Painter, since their finishes tend to be more vibrant and saturated in colour. Other times it's Vallejo, where the coverage is superior in most respects, or there's a specific historical line I'm trying to replicate.

[@stefan020290]

@@SonicSledgehammerStudio thats that's rather weird. I used their Game color line quite offen, Because it also contains the more poppy colours. Especially the gun metal works amazingly for me. I have mixed results with citadels opaque colours. For example Zandi dust doesn't work at all for me. Even after several coats, it still looks streaky. Ushabti bone is even worse. Maybe I am just a bad painter, but I am never satisfied, if I use these two.