This tutorial is an article I wrote as part of the Last Painter Standing II contest on The Miniatures Page [TMP] in October 2006.
"It was precisely when our work was most firmly grounded on the book of Euclid that the uninitiated were the most positive that the ships were being painted haphazard by a group of crazy Cubists." --Everett Warner, on his WWI warship dazzle schemes. This theme was unusual in that there was a link provided for reference. Using the link and other resources, I was able to find a wide variety of historical "dazzle" schemes to choose from. The one below is a pattern referred to as a "Type 25 Design". It's the inspiration for my piece this time.
As you can see, this is a pretty confusing pattern. The idea is not to hide the object, but rather to break up its lines so that an observer has a hard time judging distance and orientation. I looked through my selection of minis for something that had a confusing appearance and was suitably large, to retain the "warship" feel. The Vanquisher is perfect: it's a big, blocky 'Mech that is not particularly humanoid in appearance. Here's a pic of one properly assembled (from the IWM site), followed by a pic of the parts on my workbench.
I decided to modify the pose to give a more dynamic feel. Since the feet were fused to the same base plate, I started by cutting them apart. Next, I cut the legs at the knee joint so I could change the bend angle (more on this later). I also drilled out the barrels of the big guns (which are light Gauss rifles, btw).
Page 1: Starting | Page 2: The Base | Page 3: Modification | Page 4: Disaster | Page 5: Painting | Page 6: Finishing