The Showcase - " Baranov's Zeus by Ray Arrastia (Gideon)"

You can't have a showcase of CBT minis without including a mini that made it into Harbinger magazine, which is one of the premier magazines about miniatures in the world. Especially when Harbinger usually features minis from the "other" gaming systems such as GW, Rackham, Wargods, etc.

Ray thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions.

RA - No problem Jimmy, I'm really honored to be on here.

Let's start out with a little background material. What was your inspiration for painting up the mini in this specific scheme?

RA - It was Chewie's (Mike DuVal's) interpretation of the Tikonov Guards scheme that inspired me. I was a beautifully simple, yet striking scheme, and it seemed to have a real "old school" feel, as if it belonged right in the old OOP CamoSpecs booklet. Since Baranov and his guards are rogue Tikonov Republicans, I figured I could get away with using this scheme for them, more or less.

Does that mean you have a unit painted up to this high level of work?

RA - I do have a reinforced company painted up, but not all to this standard. I guess you'd say they were done to "play" or "table-top" standard.

It must have been some honor to be selected to appear in "Harbinger" magazine considering that the usual winners have mainly been from the "other" manufactures like GW, Rackam, Reaper, etc. How do you feel about that?

RA - It was a real thrill to see my work in print like that, but I did feel out of my element. While few miniature lines have as large of a range of miniatures or history as BattleTech, it seems to be an outsider when it comes to miniature painting. I'm happy though to have added a little bit of BattleTech visibility to the magazine, and I hope that this might inspire others to send in their BattleTech miniatures to the Harbinger Showcase.

Sweet! You have a mini that's red and black equally distributed; what color did you paint first? Did you "mask" off the different sections before painting each color?

RA - First off, I start with a black primer (I like the negative area it creates), so I focused most of my effort on the red halves. I had a fair idea of where I wanted the divisions to be, but I went ahead and over painted the red a bit. When that was complete, I just cleaned up the divisions with black paint, and then proceeded to highlight the black areas.

The cockpit really stands out and has that "pop" that brings the mini to life, but why did you use green?

RA - Green is a complimentary color to red, so a little hint of green on red looks sharp without clashing. The best place for that on this miniature was the cockpit, and hopefully I achieved the right effect.

Tell me about the missile launcher and gun barrel...that's the non-metal-metal (NMM) style you used, correct?

RA - That's correct. This was inspired by Hyena?s work (Mark Myestas). He had done up a version of Baranov?s unit as well, and what struck me the most was the chromed out weapon barrels, so I had to go back and try it on mine. I still don't have the hang of NMM, and it?s rather hit or miss for me. For example, I redid the missile launcher three times and was disappointed with it - but in retrospect it actually looks decent, whereas the gun barrel only works (barely) from certain angles.

Can you give us a little more insight into this NMM technique and a few suggestions where this could be applied to CBT minis?

RA - NMM in general works best if you're good at blending techniques. I believe what I attempted here is "Sky-Earth" NMM, where you try to make the surface appear reflective. For the basics of SE-NMM all you really need to know is the "horizon layout" - medium dark to light to dark horizon to medium dark again. If you get the basic look down, there is much, much more to explore with NMM techniques. For BattleMechs, any shiny or reflective surfaces could be candidates for NMM. This would be on a per-scheme basis, but most likely would only be seen on parade schemes. If you're really ambitious, there are several canon parade schemes that are all shiny metallic.

Your painting technique has more of a "40k-feel" to it. Do you find it easier to paint CBT minis this way more so than the traditional dry brushing methods? Or is it more time consuming?

RA - Oh no, dry brushing is much, much easier, and less time consuming. I just get more enjoyment out of painting when I spend more time experimenting and enhancing techniques. I often use dry brushing for basecoats (or under-basecoats). But, I rarely "stop there" with dry brushing and call the job done. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. To each their own - the only person you really need to please when painting is yourself. I know there are paint jobs I've "had" to churn out real fast that were well received, but in the end I did not enjoy painting them and felt no connection to the work.

A lot of folks would probably like to know what brand of paints you used to get that deep, rich reds and what kind of brushes do you prefer to paint with.

RA - I use GW, Vallejo, Reaper, IWM, and the "cheap brands (Apple Barrel, Americana, etc). I use whatever shade works best for what I have in mind, or depending on the properties of the paint. For reds, specifically, the GW reds are the best, and they are what I used on this miniature. For brushes, I almost exclusively use Loew-Cornell. I use a size 4 or a 6 for any drybrushing, usually a 0 brush for most rough work, and go from a 3/0 all the way to an 18/0 for detailing.

Any reposing done with the mini? It doesn't have the normal "standing at attention" stance that a regular Zeus has.

RA - I tried to match the cover to Kings & Pawns (a free scenario pack should be released sometime this year), which was more or less a re-coloring of the old BMR cover. To achieve this, I bent the missile arm outward (as if he's ready to fire from the hip), then I cut the gun arm at the elbow, bent it nearly 90 degrees, pinned it, and sculpted the elbow cowling with green stuff. Lastly, to move even farther away from a static pose, I cut the left leg at the hip socket, and at the knee. I reposed it standing, elevated, on top of various debris (including Phoenix Hawk bits painted in Dismal Disinherited colors). Again, I had to re-pin it and clean it up with green stuff.

One final question, if you don't mind - a few of the folks on the boards express the opinion that CBT minis and artists do not stand up to snuff with the "other gaming systems" artists out there and CBT paint jobs are mainly just for the gaming table not for display. How do you feel about this?

RA - This is a subject that I've actually thought about for some time now, so I hope I don't ramble here. I believe the perception is partly true, but I don't think that it means there's anything inferior about the products (miniatures or underlying game system), the players/collectors, or the people who produce the products. I think there are two reasons for this. - The first reason is the background of BattleTech players themselves, as opposed to the backgrounds of most miniature enthusiasts. For most CBT players, their first introduction into miniature gaming is CBT itself. They may have been brought in by one of the many iterations of CBT - CCG, Computer games, MWDA, novels, etc. Or like me, perhaps it was the first miniature game they discovered and fell in love with. For many others, they come from a military and/or wargaming background, and/or a model-building background, where not much thought for miniatures and painting is needed past realism, accuracy, and scale (and nothing wrong with that). For the rest of the miniatures gaming community, miniature artistry is actually a major part of the hobby. Whatever game you are first introduced to (besides CBT), you see that right away and can look at other games and products with an eye for miniatures and the way the companies (and their consumers) display their products. As a miniature gaming enthusiast you can't help but be introduced to other systems, miniatures, and painting techniques. But for CBT, many of us come in with a fairly ?XXXX? mindset, and new players pick that up as well. It may be in part that what drew us into CBT is not congruent with other systems and miniatures out there. But those of us who become miniature enthusiasts should be aware that there's a "bigger world" out there to draw inspiration from, and to interact with. The second problem that I've noticed is that CBT has never been marketed as a miniatures game. BattleTech has always seemed like a Hydra - one head is novels, one is computer games, one is fiction, etc. These separate parts have never really worked together and supported each other properly. I have almost no knowledge of how this worked in the past, but I am happy to say that the new management is working closely together, and trying to support the miniature aspect of the hobby along with the other core products, but I still think they could do more. I think there is some fear that promoting the miniatures side to the game would alienate the fans that only enjoy fluff, fiction, or just gaming with ?bottle caps.? I disagree...