Chest of Colors forum

I decided to go with somewhat non-traditional scheme for this guy. Tradition or rather FW insists on this guy being pale-green. I decided that he will be very corroded copper instead. The idea was proposed by my son who looked at this model then pulled up series of underwater pictures of the Titanic and said that he wants it to be painted just like this... So here is the start. Critique and opinions are appreciated as always.
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

Holy rusted metal Batman!

I am really impressed with the corroded metal bits. How did you do that?

I can only
perhaps green parts should have a stronger highlight on highest points (like edges or "warts"), but that's a minor remark.

I'll wait for Demi to chime in
But for now I must say it's VERY impressive!

It does look very convincing, i like this alot

Holy crap, those corroded metals looks bloody awesome!

have to agree with every body else the blight part is done very good. Looking forward to seeing more.

Wow, that is off to a fantastic start, very realistic looking and spot on for what you are trying to do!

Rusted metals!

Thank you for commenting.

Now, how it was done. I didn’t take any pictures while painting and I often do it in almost semi-random way using a lot of washes and glazes, so, I remember colors I use (they are still on my pallet after all) but I don’t remember the precise order, in fact order does not exist

1) Prime white
2) Several layers of very dilute GW tin bits until you get solid coverage
3) Then the frontal portion and sharp edges were picked up with VMC copper, blended into tin bits by series of metallic “washes” with either VMC copper or GW tin bits to get a smooth transition. Those who don’t have VMC Copper can use GW dwarf bronze.
4) At this point the “basecoat” is done. To make it less shiny I glazed everything with VMC Smoke diluted ~ 1:3.
Now this is where it gets complicated and more interesting. If you look at images of oxidized copper you would notice that on a generally brown background you have essentially all possible colors – shades of brown, greens, blues, yellows, oranges and reds.
Click to see full-sized image
Click to see full-sized image

Also you probably see that pattern is almost (but not quite) random. So, I will have to break the rest of this tutorial on color subsection, and show on the drone image just where these colors were applied.

5) Rust: This is my standard trio: MIG old rust then MIG standard rust, followed by several layers of very dilute bubonic brown to indicate the most affected area. Now, after I did this I gave all rusted part a wash of VMC flat red diluted 1:5. Certain edges after this were glazed with several layers of VMC deep yellow diluted 1:5
In some places I glazed with several layers of very dilute VMC Flat red, and Reaper Master Burgundy

Click to see full-sized image

6) Green-blues. All green blue is a blended progression from GW Hawk Turquoise, through 1:1 mix of GW Hawk Turquoise:VMC Park Green, to 1:1 VMC Park Green:GW Camo green. The later mix was lightened up by adding GW bleach bone (along with Grave yard earth it is one of the best and most universal desaturators, much better then skull white). On the darker side this was shaded by P3 Coal Black, on a lighter side highlighted by pure GW bleached bone

P3 is a privateer press line. The name is misleading this paint is not really “black”. With GW you can get this paint by mixing Chaos Black and Hawk Turquoise approximately 2:1. I used to use this mix as almost a universal cold shade. Now I don’t have to mix this thing anymore.