WIP: Alpha Legion- All About that Base (coat)

Despite a super busy week, I managed to find a nice block of time to power through all my base coating.  I've also continued messing with my color tests and am getting close to starting these Alphas full speed. Check the progress after the break.

I knew from priming all these models it was going to take a nice chunk of time to base coat and highlight all the parts for 23 models. With the girlfriend out to dinner with friends, I got a good 3 hour block to power through.  It's really satisfying making that much progress in one sitting.

After posting my first color test here and on several boards around the interwebs, I got mostly pretty positive feedback. I'm still waffling a little bit on it though. I thought the green washes looked OK from a color standpoint, but I didn't completely love the muddy transition from green to blue. I also am mindful that I'd like to get the best look I can in the shortest time possible, and several layers of washes being careful of how they blend and pool on each and every part, plus NMM on all the metal parts...that's a lot of time investment.

v2 Left, v1 Right

I decided to start a second model to see how it would come out with some faster techniques.  Instead of washing the greens on, I mixed a little Waggah Flesh in to the Medium Blue base and did some lowlighting with the airbrush in a few places. I can now use the washes a little more selectively to get my corrosion, safe in having some nice tonal variation in my base coating. I also decided to try this one model out with standard metal trim.  I'm liking it and will probably stay that course. Still have the rust and highlighting to do as well on version 2.0.

Still a ways to go to completely decide the final direction.  I bought some blue oil paint for getting a nice deep blue wash to tie everything together.  I'll give that a shot soon before I make a final decision.

~Deet