This article is part of a larger series on how to paint Battletech. To return to that series, click here.
The Dawn Guards are a Dark Age/ilClan era Federated Suns unit formed out of Republic volunteers, so are generally using a mix of modern ‘Mechs from both factions, with some additional Capellan and Kuritan salvage.
Officially, their paint scheme is a diagonal split from right shoulder to left ankle, with yellow on the upper section and white on the lower. I’ve decided that that’s far too annoying to paint, and I can get broadly the same scheme with much lower effort by just painting the right arm and leg white. That said, there’s no masking going on here, so nothing stops you from painting the white in the canon scheme.
You can see some other examples on Camospecs here, and read more about their (limited) history on Sarna here.
Painting Dawn Guards
Step 1: Primer
I start with Vallejo Desert Tan primer. This isn’t the nicest primer to work with, but I haven’t found anything else that’s about the same color and works more nicely. You need even coverage, so a couple thin layers is the play.
Step 2: Preshading
I preshade with Vallejo Model Air Mud Brown. This is applied primarily to the undersides of arms, knees, and the the torso, but also sparingly anywhere else shadows would build up. You mostly want to be spraying up at the model while applying it.
Step 3: Pre-Highlights
I use Vallejo Model Air Insignia White to build up a couple passes of a slightly off-white highlight. I want the highest points like the top of the head and shoulders to be pretty close to pure white, and lower spots like upper arms and knees to be just a touch darker. I’m not actually using a pure white for this as I found it to end up desaturating the yellow a bit more than I wanted, but this is very close and using a pure white also works fine – my preference is Proacryl Bold Titanium White.
Step 4: The Yellowing
I’ve finished all my undercoat work, and am ready to take this from browns to yellows. I do thin coats of Vallejo Model Air Medium Yellow until I’ve built up a tone I’m happy with – usually around 3 coats but sometimes it can take a bit more.
Step 5: Light Grey
I’m going to build up the right arm and leg using light greys into offwhite. From the yellow going to straight to our offwhite is a lot of layers, so I start with two coats of Proacryl Bright Neutral Grey.
Step 6: Almost White
I’m not going all the way to white here because then there’s no room to highlight, which leaves the arm and leg feeling flat compared to the nice gradiant we have across the yellows. Instead, I’m doing a mix of about 1:2 Proacryl Bright Neutral Grey and Bold Titanium White, which gets close to white while leaving enough room. Much like the previous step, this will be 2-3 layers to get a clean coat.
Step 7: Ooh, Shiny!
Gloss varnish. Get a good smooth coat, it’ll make pinwashing much easier.
Step 8: Pinwashing
There are two options for pinwashing, depending on how much effort you’re willing to put in. Mixing up your own thin oil wash with a mixture of Burnt Umber and Lamp Black will give you slightly better results and more control, but I’m not convinced its worth it over using Agrax Earthshade. It doesn’t work as well if you’re trying to blend a nice transition across a panel as working with oils, and takes a bit longer, but I’m too lazy to mix up oils every time. Carefully touch it to the crevices and let capillary action do the work.
On the white sections, use Apothecary White contrast, which gives a nice contrasting cool tone to the shadows. Matte varnish once it’s done.
If you made any mistakes here, use a couple thin layers of Army Painter Fanatic Daemonic Yellow to hide them, then Vallejo Model Air Medium Yellow to tint the color to match.
Step 9: Highlights
To really make it pop I’m going to go back through and edge highlight all the upper surfaces. On the white limbs I use Proacryl Bold Titanium White, and on the yellow I use Army Painter Fanatic Space Dust.
Now that all the base colors are done, I can go through and paint up metal details, windows, and lenses using the techniques I describe on the main page.
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