The Showcase - "AT2 Minis by Brian Benzing"

For the next "Showcase" I wanted to feature something a little different and showcase someone other than a CSO artist. So, I remembered the great AT2 minis that Brian Benzing (Cache) did awhile back and was truly impressed. Brian has been a major contributor to the CBT community especially on the LOTB website. In addition to the site work on LOTB, Brian is a very good artist in his own right as you can see with the pictures that follow.

Brian, thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions.

BB - Not a problem. I'm honored you chose me for this.

First off, awesomely sweet work on the AT2 minis. They are some of the best ones that I've seen done so far.

BB - Thank you. It was challenging but fun to paint them.

What really stands out is the way that you mounted the individual fighters...how did you do that?

BB - That's a modification of the method I learned from Charlie "Switch" Tanner for mounting fighters and VTOLs. I never liked the static look of mounting aircraft on a straight rod. That makes the rod stand out like a sore thumb. Supports like that should be as invisible as possible. Mounting aircraft on a curved wire gives them a sense of forward motion while helping to blend the wire into the scene. The first time I saw the small fighter minis I knew I would want to find a way to use that basing method. The original triangular formation of the AT2 scale fighters is a bit of an eyesore to me. The mount is almost as large as the fighters are and the formation is very two-dimensional. I decided to use two fighters in a staggered formation because the base would have looked overcrowded with all three. It also works well to represent a standard air lance. After separating each fighter I cleaned up the area where the mount was attached and etched details using an exacto knife and dental pick. The supports are standard straight pins, cut and bent into position. Using an old style flight base gave me more room on the underside to secure the end of each pin.

Nice. I like the "flames" on the exhaust ports where the stands are going into the mini. Did you intend that to be modeled that way or was it just something that "just happened?"

BB - Simply attaching the support pins to the exhaust nozzles was my original plan. I didn't think of the flames until I dry-fit the first set of fighters. At that point I noticed they would need a little more support to keep from "rolling" if not handled carefully. I have seen fighter models mounted on clear plastic rods that simulated exhaust and I realized I could do similar here. There was plenty of room around the pin within the exhaust nozzle so I decided to fill the areas with extra epoxy and camouflage it as flames. I just had to be careful to blend the epoxy down to a point while it cured.

Great detail work on the minis. I have some of them and they are not that large. Can you give us a step-by-step on how you painted them?

BB - Technically speaking, most of the work was very simple--basecoat, wash, drybrush, detail. I used a gray primer and put on a coat of light gray for the base. Then I painted on the dark gray splotches and blackened the cockpits, followed by a black wash. The wash is approximately one part black, one part future, and four parts water. I was careful to soak up any excess wash with the brush. Next I repainted individual panels and raised areas with the same light gray as the base coat, being sure to avoid the darker gray splotches. The flames are a base of yellow followed by uneven orange and then red streaks. Before attempting the logo, I sprayed on two thin coats of satin sealer. This makes it easier to clean up any mistakes without trashing the paint underneath. I made the red field as close as possible to that on the standard Gray Death logo and then painted the winged skull using black. I followed up with very thin white to paint the bone around the eyes and grin, and to make the wings appear feathered. Before the final coats of sealer I painted the base and wire supports. I was intentionally sloppy with the yellow base for the flames so here I was able to clean it up and make the tips of the flames sharper. After the final matte coat I went back carefully with two coats of Future to gloss the cockpits.

Hand drawn logos and symbols?!? That's just insane on such a small surface…very well done. Any suggestions on how one would go about painting their own symbols up?

BB - Heh, I would've used decals if I had them available. These were my first real attempts at hand painted symbols (except for the Davion logo on the Avalon) and I really doubted I had it in me. Oddly enough, tips on brush care I picked up around the miniatures forums were probably the most useful part of the process for me. I always had trouble keeping my detail brushes from curling and quickly becoming unusable for any fine work. I finally learned how to take care of my brushes properly and they've been serving me very well since. The only true detail brush I own is a 3/0 Vallejo. Rinse your brush often. The smaller the detail, the more often I rinse. For the winged skulls I would paint one stroke and then rinse. After rinsing I pop the brush tip into my mouth, licking it to keep a good point. I only use acrylic paints because they're easy to clean and they won't kill me if I eat them. For detail work it is important to thin the paint. All I did for this was to keep my brush wet (but not dripping wet) when I dipped the tip into the paint. I shake a lot so I never hold the minis in my hand if I can keep them on the table. Most often I stick them to a plastic bottle cap for a little extra height. I was able to keep both hands on the table when painting. My left would brace the mini and my right thumb would lay across it slightly--only my two fingers and thumb that held the brush would move. Layering is also important. I knew I didn't have a chance at making the black lines on the skulls as thin as they needed to be by brushing them on. The only way around that was painting the black first and then painting the thicker white detail over the top. This also produced some subtle shading that would have been near impossible for me to produce any other way. Be patient and don't get upset if your work isn't perfect. Mistakes are going to happen. If you can, dab them up with a wet brush. Otherwise paint over them carefully. It is also good to learn when to say, "It's finished." I could've spent hours more trying to perfect the fighters but I realize that not too many people are going to look them over with a magnifying glass. To add to that, if you are taking photos, it is a good thing for your sanity to be careful about how much you enlarge the pictures when showing them off. With a decent digital camera it is tempting to use the high resolution to make the photo large. All that will do is show mistakes you can't see with your naked eye. These fighters are small and so are the photos, but the photos show them over twice as large as they are in person.

Did you use any different techniques when you painted the capital ships?

BB - My techniques are a little different due to the size of the minis. They are very similar to what I have been using for 'Mechs. I screwed up on the base color originally. For whatever reason I was under the impression that the FCS Simon Davion (Avalon cruiser) should be in a Steiner scheme and had based it in a dark blue. With one last check of some source material I realized that it should be a Davion scheme. Since I didn't have time to strip and re-prime it I just painted over the blue with bright yellow before I restarted the base colors. Orange may have worked better but yellow seemed like the thing to do at the time. I detailed all of the low spots with dark gray and then did a light black wash. Next I painted all of the raised panels in IWM red. It has a slight orange look to it and matches Davion red the best as far as I'm concerned. For highlights I lined all of the red panels with a thinned down IWM orange and lightly drybrushed the dark gray with light gray to bring out the details. After two coats of satin sealer it was ready for detailing. I drew on the numbers with a mechanical pencil first so I could get the size and shape down right, then over the lines carefully with white. I finished up with the decal, two coats of dull, and two coats of gloss for the bridge view ports.

What do you feel is the major difference in painting AT2 minis compared to "regular" mech minis?

BB - For me there is little difference between the two. Both generally have flat panels and sharp edges that I highlight the same. I may tend to be less subtle with highlights on warships in order to show their scale and I don't think I'll ever paint a warship in camouflage or give it muddy feet. The small fighters are painted with the same techniques I use for battle armor and small vehicles. I guess the only true difference for me is how I base them.

I noticed a "theme" going on here with the different units. Was this scene inspired by some CBT novel/sourcebook fluff or something that you came up with?

BB - A friend has been trying hard for years to get me to build/paint a 'Mech battalion to take on his 4th Skye Rangers battalion in a large-scale game. Since I am incredibly slow when it comes to actually finishing miniatures and I knew that the monotony of a full battalion in the same scheme would slow me down more, I wanted to break the battalion down into at least company-sized units. I did a little research on the 4th Skye to find some of their rivals and noticed their participation in the latest battle for Hesperus. There were enough loyalist units opposing them for me to choose three distinct schemes so I slowly began building units for a "Last Stand of the Gray Death Legion" battle. Fast-forward about a year to December of '03. Drew Williams came to the Lords of the Battlefield forums with a request for BattleRom style shots of AT2 miniatures for an upcoming Classic BattleTech product. My friend and I had already discussed adding an AT2 scenario to our Hesperus defense/invasion and this opportunity fit perfectly with those plans. I painted up a small Loyalist force and he worked on the Skye rebels. Drew liked what we submitted, forwarded the pictures up the chain, and they made it into the color section of the AeroTech 2 rulebook.

One final thought on the AT2 mini line - do you feel that there is enough support in the CBT community for this line of "specialist" minis or is this limited to just a few folks that like aerial combat action? Please feel free to answer from both the hobby and gaming sides…

BB - That is a tough question. I do see a lot of support in the community for the AT2 mini line but not nearly as much as for standard BattleTech. Many players that I know love fighter combat, especially space combat. The original AeroTech rule set didn't appeal to them though. The AT2 (revised) rules are good but they are still fairly new and I think it will quite a bit more time and effort to expand the player base. Unfortunately I think the popularity of aerospace combat has a permanent handicap due to the nature of the BattleTech universe. BattleMechs are the center of that universe and I don't think anyone can see that changing. In the beginning BattleMechs were rare but aerospace assets were even more so. I don't even remember hearing about warships until BattleSpace was released. BattleMechs are a dime a dozen in the current time line with aerospace fighter and dropship numbers increased fairly well. There are only extremely limited quantities of warships though, with those numbers apparently dropping rapidly during the Jihad. That will create some interesting scenarios but if ships are destroyed with no replacements, the outlook for future warship combat appears bleak. This alone will keep some gamers from investing in the game. I am hopeful that future "Historical" sourcebooks will provide some needed support.