Another lance in the can! This time it's from the Marik Militia, with its
absolutely correct and best choice of a purple base color.
Everything's stock, except the
BattleMaster that's a 5M model inspired by Savage Coyote's 1st Regulan Hussars CSO model. Though saying "stock", I'm never sure what variant the Plastech
Locust is supposed to represent...
This was such a weird lance to paint, for so many reasons. I got it done in like, less than two weeks, which is absolutely a land-speed record for me. The real reason it was weird though, was how it got there:
1. Airbrush VSP White. As usual, it had perfect coverage. Then things got
wacky.
2. I was gifted a set of
Minitaire Ghost Tints for Christmas, and this was my first time
really putting them through their paces. I wanted to use the Purple for my base color, and for some reason when it was coming out of my airbrush it was only hitting the high edges and panels of the miniatures;
it simply refused to blow into the crevices and panel lines without really overdoing it. So, after a couple of passes at it, I called it sufficient, even though there was barely any coverage in the creases. And
then I got another bright idea.
3. I used some purple Adirondack Craft Ink I had as an all-over wash. It's got a beautiful purple tint,
but when it thins it has a strange orange tint to it. Then, because the base coat of Ghost Tint was uneven, the combination of the two had an even weirder uneveness. Like, dark purple in places, and a bright
orange-pink in some other places.
4. Also, that made the figures
hyper glossy, which I wasn't expecting. No big deal, as I hit everything with Dullcote at the end anyway over two coats of Gloss Varnish.
In the end, after detailing and topcoats, the color looks
super fantastic to me. I'm just afraid I'll never be able to replicate it precisely again!
More pics over at the Imgur post!Side by side with a 'Mech from my last purple group; I really like the saturation of the purple on the right, but the purple on the left was so much faster, and the drybrushing makes the details pop way nicer.
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering what the hell's up with that basing: I'm calling it "yellow poppies". It's a Woodland Scenics floral cover; I tried it out as an experiment, figuring it'd compliment the purple of the 'Mechs.
