In the next step, there are a lot of little things going on as I try to wrap things up. First, I used small dabs of Delta's Toffee Brown to highlight the rust. I added a few dabs to the blast marks and a lot to the I-beam. I painted the cockpit (under the 2 small forehead lasers) purple using Citadel Liche Purple on the lower half and a mix of Liche Purple and Warlock Purple on the upper half. Then, I painted the laser lenses on the left arm with Citadel Red Gore, and highlighted them with Blood Red. I added a tiny little white highlight dot to each lens.
I drybrushed the I-beam very lightly with Reaper Steel Plate to show that the rust on the corners has been knocked off by recent wear. Since the mini represents a giant war machine, I added decals befitting of military hardware, including ID numbers, hazard stripes, and nose art (on the lower left leg). To avoid the feeling of new, shiny markings on a beat-up 'Mech I scuffed up the decals with sand paper before applying them (see the "24" on the right shoulder). The name "DAWG" at the top was applied with a black Zig Millennium Pen. I also added the logo for Clan Steel Viper on the left torso. Battletech fans may recognize the Matador as a common Steel Viper 'Mech (and hard core fans might note that melee weapons are used by the Vipers' Rho Galaxy, which models Inner Sphere tactics).
At this stage, I covered the mini in a varnish for durability. There are lots of good brands, and I have been using Delta's Matte Varnish (brush-on). It gives a shiny appearance which causes some photo glare, but we'll fix that later. The scraps I put on the base are parts of other 'Mechs, so next I painted them in different colors (see below left). I added a decal to the green arm for detail. Next, I painted the entire dirt of the base in Vallejo's Burnt Umber.
Now, to make the dirt look like dirt I drybrushed it sequentially with Delta's Burnt Umber, Toffee Brown, and lightly with Ivory for highlights. The main "dirt" color is Toffee Brown, so I also drybrushed the junk and 'Mech's feet with it (see below left). I finished the base by adding some static grass tufts to the dirt.
Finally, I sprayed the mini with Testors Dullcote and popped it off the bottle top I used for support. I hope you like the final product!
