My winning entry for the DP9 2005 Heavy Gear Combat Squad painting contest

DP9 was running an online painting contest until 11.11.2005. I was fortunate enough to win the contest. There is a corresponding topic on the DP9 forum and I also put the minis on CoolMini.

The contest was a good opportunity to dig out my Gear models, dust them off and finally paint some of them. Since I like the round look of the southern Gears a bit more I decided to paint an Southern Elite Combat Group.

• 1 Command Gear - King Cobra
• 3 Heavy Trooper Gears (2 Black Mambas)
• 1 Specialist Gear (1 Spitting Cobra)

So how to paint them? Recently I bought the two “The Art of Heavy Gear” books. I noted that most of the Gears in the artwork are coloured in pastels and bright tones. Camouflage is used but is not standing out. I also wanted a bit different posture on the minis. Some small conversion were done. Twisted waist, realigned legs; etc.

So I decided to use lighter colours and NO camouflage at all on my Gears. All in all I like the effect. Compared with the 2 artwork pictures above the  minis seem to justify my decision.

Scroll below to get a more detailed view of all 4 minis from every angle.

Black Mamba supporting fire (Heavy Trooper Gear)

The first Black Mamba is just out of the box. I only sawed the Torso in two parts to twist the Gear a bit at the waist.

Black Mamba running mode (Heavy Trooper Gear)

The second Black Mamba was a little bit more challenging.

Again a torso twist, but in addition I also sawed the right leg at the knee in two parts.

The leg was reattached using some wire in a slightly bend (running) posture. The gap was then covered with Greenstuff.

BTW: The bases are covered with Milliput to achieve a rocky surface.

Spitting Cobra supporting fire (Specialist Gear)

Time for the big guys... The first Cobra is like the first Mamba just out of the box. Again I only sawed the Torso in two parts to twist the Gear a bit at the waist. The arms are also a little bit realigned (I pinned them with wire and Greenstuff) to have the gun along the same line as the head.

King Cobra scanning the area (Command Gear)

OK, last mini, time to pull the breaks and do something special.

The King Cobra is a bit of a challenge IMO. Many people did not like the look of the reinforced leg armour. I loved it right from the beginning, IMO a nice and subtle Samurai armour reference. The only problem, the Gear looks not very dynamic out of the box.

So once more I sawed the mini in pieces. The torso was removed and also the right leg was sawed in 2 parts. I did not want the running look, this time I wanted a look as if the Gear is is going on his toes to get a better overview of the battlefield. A very natural behaviour of the pilot that is transferred via the neural net to the Gear.

Again I used all the techniques described above. Pinning the separated parts with florist wire and covering all gaps with Greenstuff.