Painting Log: Mercenary Edition - Pan-O Starter

After hitting a decent stopping point with Malifaux, my original painting plan was to move on to painting Convergence. However, a friend made me an offer that I decided to indulge him on: paint half of the new Operation: Icestorm starter set (the Pan-O models) in exchange for the other half (the Nomad models). As I'm interested in starting Infinity, and even more interesting in doing it while spending as little money as possible, I decided to take him up on the offer.

Join me after the break for pictures of how the models turned out, my thoughts on the models, and promises of more mercenary work.

These were really fun models to paint, especially as a break from painting the models I've been working on over the past however many years (mainly WM and Malifaux). The models themselves are very high quality - excellent details and sculpts, backed up by great production quality (very light mold lines, no significant casting issues, easy to assemble even though they're metal).

One thing that did throw me off painting these models is that they're a smaller scale than what I'm used to. Not dramatically so - it's not like I went from painting WM to Flames of War, or anything - but it's definitely a smaller set of surfaces to work with. One of the things that WM models do is spoil you with relatively large details and surfaces; even the smallest models are usually easy to work with compared to other model lines (though PP tends to make up for that by covering the models in bells and whistles).

Speaking of bells and whistles, these models were surprisingly straightforward to paint. Some model lines interpret sci-fi as "throw all kinds of bits and bobs on the model to make it look fancy". I appreciate that Infinity takes a more refined approach, instead communicating that technology in more low key, painting friendly ways (lights, hard edges, general shape). It kept the models from being a massive chore to paint, while still allowing them to look very cool once everything is finished.

As far as painting goes, I didn't do anything fancy: take the paint scheme from the official images and dumb it down a little for speed. I think the outcome still looks good, without driving me absolutely crazy (whomever paints the Corbus Belli miniatures is some kind of painting sorceror).

The one thing I want to improve on is how my whites turn out. I have two issues with painting white: 1) the white I use (P3's Morrow White) kind of sucks as a product, though I'm saying that under the assumption that any company makes a really good (read: not too thin or too chalky) white, and 2) I think I need to paint more things off-white instead of straight up white. Very few things in life are actually the stark brightness of pure white, and so when you paint something white like that it never looks right. I warmed up to it (and it looks fine in the pictures) but I was seriously displeased with how it looked on the first model. Going with an off-white will probably look better, and be easier to paint to boot.

With this set of models out of the way, I have another, different set of Pan-O models to work on. I agreed to paint more of my friend's models in exchange for enough Nomad models to make up a starting force. It's a pretty good deal overall, and it's probably the only way I was going to get an Infinity crew together in any reasonable amount of time. I'm taking a break to put together Wrath of Kings models (impressions from those at some point in the near future) and assemble the remaining models I need for my Directrix list. Once all those models are together I'll be diving back into Pan-O painting.

Keep an eye out for the next Mercenary Edition of the Painting Log, where I hopefully can present the remaining Pan-O models I had to work on. This set is going to be....trickier than this one.