I'm following my rule of "no new minis until I've painted all the others of similar type"
(this does not preclude starting new genres and scales... ..heh) and as I'm eyeing off some
Dropfleet Commander ships I decided to see what spaceships needs be painted first to "clear the decks".
These are very old (5+year old)Terran
Cold Navy resins; a bit dodgily cast, with lots of mold lines and bits of miscast resin to be sliced off. However the designs are lovely.
I call this the "Bunnings Fleet"
(Australian readers will get this joke) due to the colour scheme; I wanted to use orange
(after realizing I had 2-year-old bottle of orange I'd never opened, let alone used) and as a contrast colour I briefly considered purple before deciding it was too 'High Elf' and settling on an aqua-ey blue.
I use my normal 15mm-and-smaller paint method; I call it "reverse drybrush"; basically I paint the ship; wash it to make it darker; then fully re-paint all the "open spaces" leaving the cracks dark. It tends to look ugly up close but "pops" really impressively at table-top range (i.e. usual 2-3ft away).
In hindsight I don't know why I didn't get more escorts; my task force seems a bit "heavy" without enough screening ships and scouts.
If you click and zoom in you can see how ick the paintjobs look up close; but this paint style is my favourite for "small things" when on the tabletop.
The "Delta Vector" blog got its start with a focus on space games; it's been a while since I revisited this genre (though I sporadically experiment with
homebrew rules inspired by the
Lost Fleet series; books whose somewhat cheesey plotting and writing is compensated by some excellent space battles where relativity/time-space distortion and velocity play huge roles).
Not sure what colour to paint the thrusters; my usual red and light blues won't pop well against the current paint scheme. Maybe violet thrusters?
Anyway while digging these up I found some Cold Navy Mauridians as well as demoralising myself when seeing just
how many unpainted LoTR I have
(for some reason; few dwarves - they were never popular locally and always seemed overpriced on eBay).
They look great to me! I see what you mean about the up-close but I too am on the "get it painted and on the table" bandwagon. I admire how you got color worked into the designs -- that's something I really struggle with. I just tend to think of starships as white or grey and I am trying to make my color choices more dynamic nowadays.
ReplyDeleteA more conventional drybrush is actually faster to paint looks better up close; but this style works better at range. Due to 15mms experinces, I tend to view it as: the smaller the minis are, brighter and more aggressive the colours, and the more exaggerated highlights.
DeleteI always loved the design of these models too. Colours look great at playing distances - they'll really pop on a black space background too
ReplyDeleteI love the designs but am hesitant to recommend them as they needed a LOT of cleanup. Albeit mine are old and I think the molds have changed owners a few times since then.
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