It’s actually (what I consider) pretty streamlined.
The main stage was the drybrush, done with makeup brushes. Made sure to make it fairly light. Then I reenforced it in critical areas, most especially the head, chest, and upper facing legs with a manual application of color on the panels.
After that the workflow becomes a free flow. The camo pattern was chosen mostly to hide print imperfections, but you could easily just do some selected highlights for a reflective look.
Don’t be scared! Camo, especially a dot pattern adds a lot of colors to a mini. A mech can look great with just a body main color and a highlight color mixed onto it.
Here’s a mini I ultimately went a different direction with, but at this point it just had blue and increasing white mixed in, then white highlights. I swear it’s easier than it looks, mechs are very chunky and angular, which make them wornderful for adding bright highlights. This mech could have easily just been full body blue.
I got an airbrush kit from my wife for Christmas, which I almost didn’t want because now I have no excuse not to jump into my pile of shame. 300+ mechs/armor.
Really good job! How many colors did you end up using?
Let’s see, off the top of my head.
Black prime.
Dark brown all over basecoat.
Light drybrush and touchup of a khaki.
Rust red dots.
Grey dots.
Olive Green dots.
Metallic steel with a black wash applied.
Two shades of blue, and white for the cockpit windows.
Base was black, then dark grey, then light blue drybrush.
Yellow and orange wash on the front of the base. Then back to black and white for the letters.
And some metallic brass for the AC ammo.
That’s so much work! I’m amazed and intimidated.
It’s actually (what I consider) pretty streamlined.
The main stage was the drybrush, done with makeup brushes. Made sure to make it fairly light. Then I reenforced it in critical areas, most especially the head, chest, and upper facing legs with a manual application of color on the panels.
After that the workflow becomes a free flow. The camo pattern was chosen mostly to hide print imperfections, but you could easily just do some selected highlights for a reflective look.
The rest is just basic detailing.
The best mech I painted had I think four colors total - I really need to step up my game. Thank you very much for the advice!
Don’t be scared! Camo, especially a dot pattern adds a lot of colors to a mini. A mech can look great with just a body main color and a highlight color mixed onto it.
Here’s a mini I ultimately went a different direction with, but at this point it just had blue and increasing white mixed in, then white highlights. I swear it’s easier than it looks, mechs are very chunky and angular, which make them wornderful for adding bright highlights. This mech could have easily just been full body blue.
I got an airbrush kit from my wife for Christmas, which I almost didn’t want because now I have no excuse not to jump into my pile of shame. 300+ mechs/armor.
I’ll let you know how it turns out…