Vallejo Game Colors: Black, Night Blue, Magic Blue, and about a 50/50 mix of Hexed Lichen and Dead White. Metal parts used Gunmetal Metal. The center torso-mounted medium laser used Livery Green. The arm-mounted heavy small lasers used Squid Pink and Warlord Purple. The cockpit canopy used Bloody Red mixed with different amounts of black.

The parts were removed from the sprues and then filed down to remove the mold lines. The mini was assembled with superglue (and pins in the hips), and glued to the hex-base. The base was filled in with spackle, then sanded flat when dry. The mini was then primed and allowed to dry.

 

This locust IIC is going to be painted in a Clan Star Adder Omicron Galaxy scheme to show the basic CSA colors of black and dark blue. Since I’m using Vallejo paints that “cover” well (only a few coats to totally cover what’s beneath), I could have really started with black but I wanted to illustrate one point: if your paints don’t cover that well, you should start with the lightest colors first. Darker colors are easy to paint over something, but the reverse is a lot harder.

Therefore, I started with Night Blue.

 

 

Step 3: Blocking in the colors  

Since the canon description mentions black and dark blue as the main colors, I decided they should each account for roughly 50% of the area. The purples were chosen to fill parts front-to-back, and the lighter blues filled the accents on the sides. The canopy was painted black at this time since I already had the paint ready to go. 

 

Highlights were applied by adding white to each specific color, except for the black, which was highlighted using Delta Ceramcoat Storm Gray. I decided I was basically done with the large portions, so I painted the top of the terrain in Delta Ceramcoat Rain Gray, knowing that I would be basing this mini on a gray tundra/ash waste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I painted the cockpit with Bloody Red, then added bits of black to the mix to shade it toward black; probably in about 4 steps. The heavy small lasers started with a dot of Squid Pink which was then washed with Warlord Purple…the pink makes the lasers “pop”. The medium laser used a dot of Livery Green. Small white dots were added to represent the glare on the cockpit and laser lenses.

Woodland Scenics fine buff was glued to the base, then Gale Force 9 Ash Waste flock was glued on top of it using watered-down Elmer’s glue (PVA glue). Finally, some GF9 Winter/Dead static Grass was superglued onto the base to add some color.

Fighting Pirannha Graphics CSA decals were added to finish the mini, then it was given a spray of Testor’s Dullcote to kill any glare.