Challenge Day 78 - Crusties Test Paints

Before getting onto the meat of this post, there's some gravy for you.

My submission in the Nautical bonus theme round came out in joint 3rd place, which was rather pleasing and unexpected. To see the results announcement, click this link.

I did manage to finish painting and submit the four Aztec priests yesterday. You can see the post here.


But now for the meat of the post. I've spent a few hours today doing test paints for my Crusties. Let me know what you think of them.

Crusty light walker (and test of basing scheme):

Colours used:
Walker - Basalt Grey, German Grey, Sky Grey, Black, Dark Vermillion, Orange Red
Ground colour - Saddle Brown, black wash, damp-brush of Saddle Brown, dry-brush of Saddle Brown/Light Grey, wash of selective areas with 2:1 red/black mix.

Crusty armoured infantry:

I haven't done the bases on this or the rest of them yet.

Crusty scout on large scutterbug (test of the bug scheme):

I'm now wishing that I hadn't glued the riders on - painting the saddles would be much easier!

The base-coats were Khaki for the fleshy bits; saddle brown spotted with hull red for the carapace parts of the legs and the lower shell plates; hull red dotted with saddle brown for the main carapace plates. The whole bug was given a sepia wash.

Crusty Infantry:

I did two tests here, just for the base colours - I'll leave the weapons and bandoliers for when I paint the rest of them.. One was comparing sepia and umber washes over a tan earth base. The other was comparing four different base colours (Medium Grey, Iraqi Sand, Tan Earth and Middlestone; all with sepia wash).

Sepia wash on left, umber wash on right

L to R: Middlestone, Iraqi Sand, Medium Grey, Tan Earth

My conclusions:

The four base colours I've used for the infantry all work well and look good with sepia wash. The umber wash doesn't look as good, so I won't be using that. I might try a couple of other base colours to add some variety.

The colour scheme for the scutterbug looks good. the one thing I might go back and do is to add a different colour to the end of the "eye" stalks. I could also try varying the spot colour on the carapace plates.

I'm happy with the colour scheme for the walkers and the armoured infantry. The one question remaining is the ground colour on the bases. I'm happy with the colour of the earth, but I'm not sure about the colour of the stones. I could just leave them the same as the earth colour but the bases would then look rather plain. Maybe a grey-green tinted with the red/black wash I used in my last step?