More painting - the Ba'kash get dirty!

A couple of weeks ago I put up some pictures of my Ba'kash getting their first touches of paint - an overall coat of Army Painter Weapon Bronze. I then gave them a coat of Strong tone to knock this back a bit. This worked as intended, and my original intent was to then dry-brush, detail paint and then weather, but I then found after a test I really needed to weather first before drybrushing to knock back any over-application from the weathering stage.

Now of course, space "weather" is really just variations on subatomic particles and radiation, with maybe some ionised gas thrown in for good measure. This is rather immaterial, however, because what I wanted to do was to create the "feel" of a raider fleet that used rather aged and worn - if still perfectly serviceable - ships. As I'd gone for a bronze base, I decided to spot wash a three-stage weathering mix - a dark blue-green, followed by a lighter turquoise and finally some Vallejo Green Wash. This produces a very distinct finish;

I also went mad on one cruiser just to see what it'd look like...

So after this had dried I decided it probably should have been more dilute for the effect I wanted (the original ones I tried were)...oh, well, just chalk it up to experience! This is why I definitely needed to drybrush after weathering, which I did...

This absolutely improves the look, although the photographs don't really capture the look that well. Anyway, I then went on to drybrush with Greedy Gold to add some lustre.

Finally I added a Shining Silver/Bronze/Gold mix (all Army Painter colours) to further accentuate the worn look and give some detail highlighting. Overall I'm pleased with how this turned out.

The next stage was to detail paint the "stripy" banded elements on the main body and arms, which I envisage as some sort of inorganic ballistic or ablative plating. This I did in Vallejo 70.896 - German Extra Dark Green.

The destroyers had a similar treatment on their exposed pipework, leaving the "collars" in the base metal

This was followed by a Strong Tone wash and highlighting with 70.890 Retractive Green.

I'm pretty happy with them so far - just need to add engine and weapons glow to them now, which I'll do by airbrush, with final highlights by brush...then my raiders are ready to fully support the Zenian League wherever needed!