Painting

The purpose of this page is to act as an FAQ, for all the miniature painting questions that have been asked and to allow access to resources for painting Full Thrust Miniatures. The advice here is collected from the GZG-L mailing list. There are other good starship painting resources but a lot of these are on Facebook groups these days. 

How was the ship on the More Thrust Cover Painted?

Jon Tuffley

The FT108 on the MT cover was painted by Dave Garnham (who now works for us at GZG), many years ago. As far as I can remember, it was painted overall blue and then each raised panel individually painted in white (with a brush), which is the way Dave likes to do ships - yes, it's a slow method but one that gives very good results.

Painting Board Game Miniatures

@SquidmarMiniatures

A Billion Suns or Full Thrust PAINT GUIDE

@RottenleadGaming

THE SLAPCHOP TECHNIQUE

@TheHonestWargamer

HOW TO PAINT BATTLETECH (APPLIES TO SHIPS)

@DuncanRhodesDRPA

Inspirational Full Thrust Painting Websites

Check out these great examples of painted fleets.

How do you paint your Full Thrust miniatures?

What follows are the what color schemes and tips members of the GZG-L mailing list have used to paint their fleets. These posts are from the 90's and the advent of contrast paints and other technical advancements have overtaken to some extent. That said the basic techniques still hold. For those wanting to paint their fleets quickly I would look up the slapchop technique on YouTube.


Larry Fausnach

If you are planning on keeping with the typical light grey "panel" scheme, a good idea is to give it a base coat of a medium-ish gray (not too dark) then bring up the highlights with successively lighter shades of gray, finally with white. Try to drybrush unevenly to avoid an excessively even coloration. 

Look at the Star Trek movie U.S.S. Enterprise and you can see that its not a solid shade of gray. Since this is science fiction, you can really go hogwild if you want. Fine examples of this are Babylon 5 ships which have mottled appearances. Try a tiger- or zebra stripe pattern. If you stay with the typical white ships, try painting the weapon blisters red for good effect. 


Tim Jones

I use the pictures on the front of Full Thrust and More Thrust as initial inspiration. I also studied 'Return of the Jedi' as it has the most capital ships in it (Mon Calamari cruisers, Frigates and Star Destroyers). The newer Star Wars Micro Machines contain a Mon Calamari cruiser with a simplified scheme that can be adapted.

This procedure can be trimmed down if you want a fleet fast. The drybrushing technique is very good for doing batches of ships. Detailing can be skipped or minimal. Decals are optional.


Rick Rutherford

I used the standard "basecoat - dark wash - drybrush highlight" technique to paint my ships, and it works great if you use a lot of contrast. I wasn't sure if I could do it with colors, so my ships are grey with black shadows and white & silver highlights. I also tried painting them blue, and they looked good after drybrushing them twice first with light blue, and then with light grey on top of the light blue.

I was mostly concerned with making the ships look like they're huge, because at that scale (1/2400) a 1-inch ship model would be 200 feet long in real life. So I made sure the shadows were pure black by painting in the little lines and crevices with black paint, and I made sure the highlights (all the bulges and edges) were white (or silver) by painting them on top of the drybrushing. 

The thing that helped was that after the standard paint/wash/drybrush I sealed them with acrylic spray sealer and then went into the crevices with black paint using a very thin brush. The black paint flowed easily into the crevices because the layer of spray-seal made the surface of the figure very slick, and when I made a sloppy mistake I could wipe the excess paint off the figure with my fingers. After that, I sealed them again.

Mcclure 

I have a number of spaceships ranging from some old Archive and Valiant designs, Superior, RAFM's Traveller's stuff and even some of the FT line. What I have used as a guide in many instances are the sci-fi illustrations done by the artist Chris Foss. In my case, almost all of my ships are individualized so there is really no consistent theme. But you could easily adopt one. You could either apply it as a "fleet theme" (all ships of your fleet carry the same color scheme) or a "type theme" (your fleet escorts are all blue and black banded, the cruiser types are a menacing grey, etc). Another idea is to just scan the net or the library on naval camo used during WW1 and WW2 and take a variation off that.

Darren Douglas

Look at some aircraft books, the best ones are the WWII German ones they did some very interesting things with camouflage for their bombers and ground attack aircraft.

Brent Jacobson

I prefer what I call the hack paint job to get the ships to the front lines. It pretty much involves only dry brushing techniques and requires little time. I usually base coat with a black primer and then do two layers of dry brushing over that usually with white and off-white(first). I then add small details as they come to me over the course of using the miniatures.

Beth Fulton

Glad to here that yet another has discovered the joys of minatures. I find that the easiest (and often one of the nicest) ways of painting craft is to undercoat with black matt spray paint and, when the undercoat is dry, then dry brush with colour of choice (starting with dark hues and working to lighter shades). Then you can pick out a few details (e.g. exhaust nozzles etc.) with a solid colour and if you have a steady hand you could add nose art or the like (by hand, decals don't seem to work - well at least not for me).

Mark Kochte

I use gray Krylon primer for the base coat of my ships. The NAC and NSL, and most of my Superior Ships then get a coating of Gunship Gray (Testor's Model Master spray enamel; #1923), the ESU and my Superior Entomolians get a coating of Burgandy Red Metallic (#2905), the Kra'Vak a coating of Green Metal Flake (#1630), the Sa'Vasku a coating of Black Metallic, and the FSE I paint a 'standard' Ral Partha Gray. My Hyperions and Battlestars also get the Ral Partha Gray treatment (my Omegas will once I get them put together). 

The Vorchans I coat with an Anthracite Grey (closest thing I can get to bronze-ish at the shop I frequent), then coat the wings in a Ral Parth Dragon Purple. I have a handful of miscellaneous ships that I have painted in gunship gray, Ral Partha gray, and flat black. And for the most part I paint my fighters the Ral Partha gray, then add various details.

I really haven't done much to highlight my ESU ships, except add yellow funky symbols to differentiate the ships from each other (I kinda borrow Narn writing for it). The Kra'Vak and Sa'Vasku I haven't added any additional details. My Entomolian ships I've added some Testors gloss dark blues, reds, golds, and silvers. The other Superior ships I touch up some details with gold, silver, dark blue, flat black, and gloss yellow. My NAC and NSL ships pretty much get similar treatments with various bits and pieces being touched up with Ral Partha grays, whites, dark greens, reds, orange, purple, blue, and various shades of yellow. And some ships I've even added Ral Partha glow-in-the-dark paint to some of the raised parts for fun.

As for decals and such, I haven't resorted to any. I either differentiate my ships with slightly different highlight schemes, or one some of the larger ones (mainly the NSLs) I actually write names on the ships (yes, okay, my hand isn't that steady, I know; they're not going to win any contests ;-)

As far as kitbashing...haven't done too much. I've made some minor additions to the NSL superdreadnought and dreadnought, and the NAC CVL, with some of the odd bits that are included in the packaging. Gave the NAC CVLs some added superstructures, for example. But haven't gotten around to doing any of the other fun stuff (yet).

Haven't gotten around to perfecting any drybrushing yet, so don't use it much.

Tony Francis

I go for an undercoat darker than the intended final colour of the ship, then heavily drybrush the main colour over that, followed by a much lighter drybrush of a highlight colour. For multiple colour camo' schemes this still works - paint the camo' scheme in dark colours, then (carefully) drybrush the main and highlight colours. Follow this with picking out specific details (eg engine, guns) and then add markings and finally a coat of varnish.

What kind of primer do you use?

Personally I don't - the dark undercoat serves the same purpose.

What color patterns and details seem to work well for you?

The traditional spaceship colour (battleship grey) works fine, which is the colour of my NAC ships. The ESU are in dark green (actually Rifle Green over a very dark undercoat) and Kra'Vak are a brick red colour. I also have a fleet of blue ships (EE Space Fleet mainly) and another in yellow / black stripes (Irregular ships). Colourful schemes work well (just look at the paintings of Chris Foss and others for inspiration), although in the end expediency tends to win the day and I go for single colour schemes because I just want the models on the table quickly ! I tend to steer clear of metallic colours except for small details.

Do you use decals?

No - I tend to find that there aren't enough flat areas on the models to put decals on. Decals lift too easily when the models are handled a lot. Rub-down lettering / shapes tends to work better IMHO.

Do you kitbash or add other accessories to your ships?

Not yet, but I'm about to try. The Model Aerodrome chain here in the UK has been selling off a huge number of Fujimi 1/700th naval kits very cheaply recently, and many of these come with an additional sprue of superbly cast accessories such as gun turrets, torpedo tubes and AA mounts. The AA mounts especially look as is they'll make excellent ADAFs and PDAFs for FT ships.

Allan Goodall

If you don't want to get into drybrushing techniques (which I'm only so-so at) there is a good technique that uses basic painting. Basically, pick two contrasting or complementary colours.

In one set of Star Frontiers ships I did, I first sprayed them with black primer (important: always prime). The ships had a lot of detail that consisted of a hull with gun turrets and engines on top. I painted the hull metallic (metallic red or metallic blue), leaving the gun turrents and other detail parts unpainted. I then went back and painted the detailed parts platinum. This takes care, but not an incredibly steady hand. If you slosh a bit, just do some touch-ups later. When this is done, the platinum bits stand out against the darker hull. Up close it's no hell, but from a distance it looks pretty good.

In the other set of ships, my wife did the painting. Hers was a much more basic, but in some ways more stunning, technique. The ships had little in the way of detail, as the ships were mostly smooth hulled. She took a metallic green and painted the main hull of the ship this colour. The booms leading to the engine nacelles were painted metallic, uh, pink (the guys at the mailing list game at GenCon last year called it the Revlon fleet, but it sure looks alien). The engines she painted metallic green, except for the one end of the nacelle, which she painted metallic pink. She went over the ship, painting the detailed bits the contrasting colour. They looked quite good.

To figure out which ships are contrasting or complementary, go to a house paint store or a craft store and buy a colour wheel.

If you have detail you want to bring out, particularly on light coloured ships, you can do a wash. You water down paint, usually black, and paint it into the crevasses of the ship. The paint will settle into the cracks. The highlighted areas may have a little bit of paint residue on it. To fix this, you can just touch up the raised areas. If you learn a drybrushing technique, using it on the raised portions is good. You can also do a black wash on engine outlets, air intakes, and exhaust ports to give it a sooty look.

Mark Siefert

Well, I'm not the worlds greatest painter in the universe, but here goes.

Primer: I used to use some generic brand of gray primer. However I use Armory brand white primer now. It dries faster and it grips the paint better.

Paint scheme: Well, it depends on the mini. For my FT ships, I tend to stay to a standard battleship gray color scheme. For genre specific ships, I try to get as close as possible.

Detail: forget it! I can't paint detail for the life of me. My hands are not steady enough. (Remember Gene Wilder in Blazing Saddles?) So decals are my only source for letters, numbers and insignias. My local game store sells W.W.I aircraft decals for Hostile Aircraft miniatures. They would work great for NSL ships. Right now, I'm painting some minis for Heavy Gear and I am using decals from... gulp... the evil empire. The chests of my Hunters and Grizzlies proudly bear the regalia of the the CNCS' 63rd Heavy Gear Regiment--Prophet's Swords. (Ok, they're Dark Angles decals. I dare GW to sue me!)

Finishing Touches: Of course, the whole mini gets a nice coat of Krylon matte finish. For ground pounders they get some flock glued at their feet. For starship minis I like to use large based flight stands for BIG ships (Carriers and SDNs) and normal bases for everything else. My large flight base supply is running dangerously low now that the Evil Empire has done away with Space Fleet. However they do have some new large bases that they use for their Falcon Grav tank and Necron Destroyer minis. I hope they sell those separately soon.

Brian Bell

I also use an easy paint job. I use Armory black primer. Then I use Tamiya Color acrylic paint (because of its thickness) in dark colors to paint "nebula stripes" on it. I have used cobalt blue, French blue, deep woods green, burgandy, and very dark grey. I use ONE color per ship. this allows me to differentiate between the ships. 

It also allows me to divide my small fleet into multiple fleets to game with miniature impaired friends. The "nebula stripes" are NOT straight lines, nor are they parallel to each other (though they rarely tough or cross). They are closer to zebra stripes. I usually try to paint these on after the primer is dry to the touch but within an hour of priming them. This blends the edges of the "nebula stripes". I do NO (or almost none) detail to the ships. This is very quick and looks good on a black mat or starfield.

Tony Christney

While I don't have any ship painting experience, I do have a fair amount of experience painting miniatures in general. Painting usually consists of several stages: cleaning, priming, basecoat, shading, highlighting and detailing. The amount of time spent at each stage, as well as the techniques used, will determine the overall quality of the job.

I'm not going to bother with in depth descriptions of each stage, but I will go over some of the more technical stuff.

Kevin Walker

I start with a base color, use a watered down ink in the panel lines and then slowly dry apply dry brushing (about three to four levels) starting with the base color and progressively getting lighter. The secret is to go over the same area with multiple strokes of the same color. Each stroke is so light (in touch as well as amount of paint) that it takes a number of them to deliver any noticeable color to the area in question. With this gradual build up everything seems to gradually blend and look a bit more nature in effect. I realize that I've just described the basics of dry brushing (sorry to those who got bored). I found my most common mistake was trying to rush the dry brushing processes. Once I slowed down things seemed to fall into place - that and the brush manufactures love me as I'm going through brushes faster than ever now.

Beth Fulton

I find that the easiest (and often one of the nicest) ways of painting craft is to undercoat with black matt spray paint and, when the undercoat is dry, then dry brush with colour of choice (starting with dark hues and working to lighter shades). Then you can pick out a few details (e.g. exhaust nozzles etc.) with a solid colour and if you have a steady hand you could add nose art or the like (by hand, decals don't seem to work - well at least not for me).

Shading

Basically there are three ways to get shading on a model: an overall wash of thinned paint or ink, selectively adding shading to particular parts of the model, or by highlighting. The first two methods are very similar, differing mainly in the method of application and consistency of the paint. Washing is accomplished by painting the surface of the model with a very thinned down layer of paint. The paint will accumulate in the recessed areas of the model. When you first try this out, you will likely be tempted to apply too much paint, flooding the detail. This will look good when the paint is wet, but once dry it won't look so hot. You shouldn't need anymore paint on the brush than you use to paint the rest of the model. I usually use a mix of ink and paint and water when shading.

Highlighting

This consists of painting lighter shades of your base colour on the raised portions of the model. As an example, to highlight red, you can either mix a bit of yellow in the red, or alternatively you can mix white with the red. Note that highlighting is not the same as drybrushing! In general, highlighting takes longer, but IMO gives a much nicer finish, especially on flat surfaces like starship hulls. Good highlighting techniques lead naturally to blending of colors, which is  very tricky to do well.

Drybrushing

This works best on rough surfaces like chainmail. On flatter surfaces it tends to leave a rough texture on the model which some may find undesirable. This is much less noticable on small miniatures since the flat surfaces are very small. The key to drybrushing is to get the brush _really_ dry. I use an old towel to remove the excess paint. The thinner the paint you use, the longer it will take, but the surface will be less grainy. If you use more than one stage of drybrushing, remember to use a lighter touch on each successive stage for the best results. A lighter shade will help, too.

Don't rush. Use plenty of layers of very fine drybrushing. Don't spare the brush. If you plan to apply a wash, go lighter in shades as the process procedes.

Details

Use a very small brush ;). Another helpful tool is the technical pens. They come in a variety of colours and are very helpful for lettering and insignia designs. Makes blacklining a snap! The main drawback is they don't work very well on dark colours. The way to get around this is to paint the area white and then make the letters in reverse with the pens. I have also known people to carefully cut out letters from stickers, paint over the stickers, then peel them off. Works very well but takes forever. Imagine doing "New Anglian Confederation" this way...

Are there any official color schemes for the Full Thrust background?

Ground Zero Games have two versions of the fleets the earlier Copeland models and the later GZG sculpts.

John Tuffley

When asked how the "official" FT ships should be painted, my usual response is "paint 'em any colour you want, they're your ships!!" However this question has been asked so often now that it seems I am going to have to make some kind of pronouncement on the matter. Before giving the colour ideas, though, I must stress that these are ONLY IDEAS - they are suggestions as to how we see the various fleets, and you are still free to paint your own ships any colours you like. If we ever get to the G*m*s W*rksh*p state of saying "you can't play our games unless your figures are the right colours" then I think it'll be time for us to hang up the ol' laser for good.....

So, here we go. In some cases these colour schemes are the ones used in our own demo fleets for show games, in others they are just what we think looks good.

Overview of ship colour theory in the FT universe

WARNING! High level of PSB (pseudo-scientific bullsh*t) follows.... There is no "ideal" paint scheme for combat ships in the 22nd century, and as a result all the major powers have adopted different ideas. As optical detection is still a significant part of most sensor suites it would seem to be sensible that a ship is painted in dull, dark colours to minimise visibility against the starfield; this has problems, however, in that as well as not providing a reflective target for enemy sensors it can also not reflect solar energy, beam weapon energy or anything else - result: a hot ship that you are forever having to cool by some means, which of course gives off a big IR signature anyway. On the other hand, if you make a ship bright and reflective so that it does not needs such effective cooling systems, and you have something that stands out like a sore thumb against a starfield, shining in any little bit of reflected starlight.... So, space naval colour schemes come down to part compromise, part aesthetics - a smart looking ship looks good on the holovid newscasts back home...

Islamic Federation (IF)

Jon (TC)

Free Cal-Tex (FCT)

Darren Douglas

Half white, half red and a Blue piece at one end. Like the flag with a white star. Surfer patterns and loud colours. I am currently building a free Cal-Tex fleet and have already named one of my scout ships the "exellent adventure".

John Leary

The FCT fleet is light gray base with white highlights.

All ships are base coated with light/medium gray. The overcoat is an offwhite/cream (drybrush) color with a final coat of snow white (drybrush) lightly applied. Trim on panels is in red, blue and yellow, The engines are steel with silver highlights. The FCT has been the subject of extensive modification for nearly every class and ship. Number 6 and 7.5 lead shot is useful for domes, if you can get it. The Wings and things pack comes in very handy when doing the FCT. The favorite ship for modification is the Battledreadnought.

Tony Wilkinson

I've thought that a Cal-Tex fleet done in a similar fashion but using Indian motifs might look really good.


Federal Stats Europa (FSE)

These ships are part of a Euro centric power bloc. The colors are predominately blue, grey base and yellow and white for details and highlights. 

Ground Zero Games have two versions of the fleets the earlier Copeland models and the later GZG sculpts. 

What follows are the what color schemes and tips members of the GZG-L mailing list have used to paint their fleets.


Jon Tuffley

Either an overall mid-blue (French blue), or else a blue base with white or pale blue paneling overlaid.

Darren Douglas

I have just finished these the other week, I tried using an air brush on these and sprayed them all a dark/panzer type gray. I then when they were dry spray fine lines of a light gray over them like camouflage. I then took some black paint/ink and painted it carefully into the panel lines to make the ship not look so flat. I then painted on the markings, for the FSE I used blue with yellow stars like the European flag. The stars again were done in various sizes and all the ships even the little ones have them.

John Leary

Well, for the FSE I have painted (Front to back) my BC black, yellow, and red: the CAs are blue, white, and red: the CL is red yellow, and red: the 2 DDs are green, white, and red; and green, red, and red. Tri-colors, this means that the entire fleet is made up

of flagships. (It's a visual joke, you really need to see it.) The joke going around the FCT and NAC fleet command is that FSE stands for "French Snobbery Everywhere".

Jon (TC)

Primary grey

Sean Bayan Schoonmaker

Black, drybrushed dark grey, with red and yellow detailing

Beth Fulton

Base coat black, heavy dry/wet brush of royal blue then indiviually paint the panels in one of three different shades of blue (patch-work like). Then pick out all the arrows/ triangles/holes/engine interiors/some of those straight ridges in red, and all lights and remaining straight ridges were white. Very time consuming, but quite nice - even if I do say so myself ;)


Eurasian Solar Union (ESU)

The ESU ships are similar green to the Romulans and Klingons in Star Trek but also have red in their color scheme. These are a space communist power block so green and red are the common color schemes. That said there is a variety of approaches for this fleet. 

Ground Zero Games have two versions of the fleets the earlier Copeland models and the later GZG sculpts.

What follows are the what color schemes and tips members of the GZG-L mailing list have used to paint their fleets.


Jon Tuffley

Eurasian ships are generally mid-green or yellow-on-white (both look effective, so its up to you); as with the NAC suggestions it is best to use a base colour of a darkish shade and then panel-shade or drybrush with lighter colours. Markings could be traditional red stars, with some IDs in either cyrillic or Chinese!

Adam Delafield

These are usually painted 'yellow' as far as I can tell. Despite sounding odd, it actually looks quite good. Light brown works too.

Darren Douglas

I painted these for the NAC player when we first got FT. They are white with red markings. For them I used a base, wash and dry technique like the others, but instead of washing with a light grey I used a cream/bone colour and dry brushed white. This made them not look dirty and dull and made the white brighter, another colour to wash with could be light blue. The markings were lines and stars, god do I hate painting stars after these. I used big ones in the centre of cruisers and little ones on the wings and small ships. I also painted on the battle ships one big star surrounded in a circle by lots of little ones.

John Leary

The ESU ships are steel with red panels and yellow trim. Not quite standard, but then my ships are not quite standard. (In particular the Kra'Vak and FCT.)

Jon (TC)

Well I use 'C.B.K' which is russian for 'Solar Naval Ship' for the ESU (which is written EEC in russian) c.f NAC and their CNS. All the ESU have an initial on them (which is the ship type) and no. (so it looks as if they are part of a bigger fleet) and fleet logo. The initial is in the russian script. My ESU frigates are in red & black tiger stripe that just suits the mini to a T.

Sean Bayan Schoonmaker

Dark Rust, drybrushed red, with yellow and tan detailing


New Anglian Confederation (NAC)

Colour schemes for the New Anglian Confederation. These are similar to the Star Trek federation. Light grey panels with darker panel lining. The primary colors are white, light grey, red and blue.  

Ground Zero Games have two versions of the fleets the earlier Copeland models and the later GZG sculpts.

What follows are the what color schemes and tips members of the GZG-L mailing list have used to paint their fleets.


Jon Tuffley

New Anglian ships use a predominantly grey/white scheme, though blue/white is a good alternative if you prefer it. a good technique is to paint the ship an overall medium grey (or blue), then either i) pick out all the raised panelwork in white, or ii) simply dry-brush in white (not quite as nice, but a lot quicker and easier!). A finishing wash of a dark shade (blue-black or black) will bring up the surface detail and give a "used" look - not strictly authentic on a spaceship I know, but all the movie modellers use weathering so why shouldn't we?

Adam Delafield

I think would be Blue/Grey. I'm going to paint mine pastel shades of blue, and add the arrowhead insignia that one of the lads here suggested.

Darren Douglas

A friend has a growing NAC fleet and has painted them in medium blue with half a union jack on the blub bit at the front and various red and yellow detail picked out. This has been done for all size ships and looks very good. They have been painted with a base coat, wash and then dry brush technique and then the detail added.

Geoffrey Stewart

I first prime the metal with white metal primer / undercoat, which can be obtained in car accessory shops. Then I paint the ships mid range blue, then use dark blue ink and carefully ink all the cracks and depressions in the ship. Finally I dry brush the ships a slightly lighter shade of blue, and carefully paint a triangular union jack on the arrow head of each ship. The final result is very effective, and doesn't take too long to do.

John Leary

The NAC fleet is Dark blue and Black/gray in a large mottle

Jon (TC)

Primary wite, secondary blue/black, Logo NAC symbol

Sean Bayan Schoonmaker

Light Grey, drybrushed white, with yellow & grey detailing


Neu Swabian League [NSL]

These have a Germanic theme and a common scheme is to use World War I dazzle camouflage patterns. These ships are grey and black as primary colors.

Ground Zero Games have two versions of the fleets the earlier Copeland models and the later GZG sculpts.

What follows are the what color schemes and tips members of the GZG-L mailing list have used to paint their fleets.


Jon Tuffley


Neu Swabian ships are usually a functional mid-grey with lighter grey panelwork, though some squadrons have been seen in "dazzle" patterns of diagonal dark gray, white and pale blue-grey stripes. 


NSL command is often surprisingly lenient about special paint schemes on certain ships, especially if the commander and/or the ship has suitable aristocratic connections (for example, there may well be at least one of the new Richtofen class Battlecruisers painted overall bright red.....). 


One important note concerning the NSL: according to our background, they are not Nazis in Space, so no swastika markings! Think in terms of noble Austro-Hungarian and Prussian aristocracy - use WW1/modern German crosses if you wish, though we prefer stylised eagle symbols.

Darren Douglas

Another friend has the NSL and has painted them in panzer gray like WWII tanks. The models were mounted on their bases and then spray painted black all over (with a spray can). They were then high lighted with a panzer gray and then a lighter gray, detail was then picked out in white. He is going to added German crosses and swastika recon flags. (Can we say "Space Surf Nazi's) The black stands look IMHO much better than the clear ones and we are going to convert all the stands we use to black, try it.

Dave Lavictoire

If the watchword of the NSL is 'efficiency', then you might colour your ships as NASA does, and paint 'em white. A FoaF (Friend of a Friend) told me that NASA spaceships are white so that fuel leaks, etc. are easily visible, especially against the black background of space. Sounds good to me - and they'll look sharp on the tabletop, too. As for German Crosses, I've been eyeing the roundel decals from Hostile Aircraft (1/144th scale). They're expensive, but very nice.

Adam Delafield

Last time I saw GZGs models (Ragnacon) they had a couple of NSL ships painted in what I can only describe as baby-shit yellow. Needless to say, I don't recommend this.

The NSL strike me as sticklers for efficiency. This gives me two possible colour schemes.

No paint. The NSL may well decide that their ships could well do without being covered with several hundred kilos of paint. Paint the models up as metallic, with the occasional flat white panel. I've found metallics to be very difficult to get done well.

Military. A general, all grey, anti-corrosion paint scheme. Don't know how valid this would be on a SPACE ship, but it gives the right feel. A nice matt slate grey colour scheme. I've got my 40K Space Fleet painted up like this, and it looks non too bad.

Insignia would probably either be a German flag or an Iron Cross with a string of numbers. Warning flashes near drives and hanger bays (and possibly mark out some airlocks this way.

I think the 'Feel' you should go for is a Flat, Efficient fleet with very little in the way of flare (leave that to the FSE). Well disciplined and confident. They should treat warfare as a grim chore rather than the gung-ho attitude that some fleets have.

John Leary

The NSL ships are basic black with lighter gray highlights.

The base coat is black with at least two or three progressively lighter grays dry brushed with less 'force/paint' in each application. The NSL is divided into groups, the NSL proper; with the Austrian flag painted high on the rear of the ship w/ black eagle added (from decals). The FSB (Frei Stadt Beyern) has the Bavarian flag at the same location, again from decals, applied over a painted white field. The heavy cruiser has been a favorite for modification of the design.

Jon (TC)

Primary black, secondary red/gold, logo WW1 cross

Sean Bayan Schoonmaker

Olive Green, drybrushed green, with grey and black detailing

Kra'vak

Jon Tuffley

When we mentiond a "shifting, green-purple" scheme in More Thrust, this  was  because a friend of mine had painted up a few KV ships this way using  shades of green, cyan, purple and even pink in places. Believe me, they  DO  look good! Since we haven't yet let on just how the KV society works,  you  could get away with almost any scheme - probably different   clans/tribes/packs (or whatever groupings they use) have different ideas  anyway.

Adam Delafield

Are supposed to be Green and Pink. Although this sounds like it might be garish, try this. Paint the main hull a Matt Drab Olive Green. Make it quite dull if you can, you know, the sort of colour that was popular for the camo stripes on '70s aircraft. For the 'pink' use a sand brown. This changes what could have been disgusting into a distinctly military look.

Darren Douglas

I painted these in purple as the background said. This was also a base, wash and dry brush technique. Detail and markings were added I used a Japanese symbol as marking. Look OK Not that pleased with them.

John Leary

The Kra'Vak are flat black with gloss black trim, weapons are steel and the domes are metallic red, green, and blue.

The Kra'vak-D'rk is my clan. The ships live up to the name with the flat black, gloss black, and steel paint job. The D'rk are a small and disadvantaged clan that frequently do not have adequate supplies of railguns for thier ships. Most of the escorts only carry class 1 railguns and the cruisers class 2, the capital ships do have class 3 railguns but normally mount fewer than the mass would normally indicate. The D'rk ships are subject to frequent modification and salvage so they do not conform the the normal Kra'vak ship profiles. (The points ratio of Kra'Vak to Human of 3:2 works quite well during a game/campaign.

Sa'vasku

Tim Jones

A very common color scheme is to paint them black and dry brush with medium purple and pink. Other schemes are based around the Shadow ships in babylon 5, black with light grey dry brushing or squiggle pattern.

Another alternative is from the Night Brood ships from Silent Death. These are similar bio-ships and are painted with merging bright color washes in red, cyan, magenta and green.

John Leary

The Sa'vasku are painted a very dark brown base coat with not less than four lighter browns in lighter applications (drybrush), the last two layers are yellow and a pale yellow very sparingly applied to the highest levels on the model. The tips of the points are drybrushed deep red with brighter reds toward the very tip. If you want a larger ship, take the nine point heavy cruiser and attach the six point cruiser below. I tend to bend the tips very slightly down, this gives the ships a grasping/claw look.

From bottom to top.

All of the above are flat colors, for the 'knob' on the carrier and 'exhaust' areas use a semi-gloss medium brown. For the last 1/4 inch of less of the spines.

All the steps, except the base coat (#1), are dry brushed in progressively lighter applications. Note: I normally bend the tips of the spines down about 1/16 of an inch to get a 'grasping hand' look.

John Crimmins

(Oh, and I found my Sa'Vasku paint scheme; an amalgamation of several of the suggestions that I received.

The result evoked a heartfelt "Yuck" from my fiancée, so I think that it's a success.

Beth Fulton

So far we've painted up to Sa'Vasku "fleets". First one (painted by Derek):

Second one (I painted it for a friend).

This looks good (very organic), but takes a while. I wouldn't mind getting some Sa'vasku myself and use a scheme which is essentially black with that irridescence effect you get on beetle shells - yet to figure how to do that with paint. Either that or you could always go for a "shadows" inspired appearance (I must have a thing for painting very fine lines with 20/0 brushes!!)

Mark Kochte

Me, I took the simplistic approach: base coat grey, then painted over with metallic black. Very simple and easy.

Alex Wanderer

Shadow vessels are easy.

Looks just like the ships from the show.

Jonathan White

Mine are a purple base with varying drybrush highlights (lots of green or yellow + purple) going out to pure yellow/green at the spine tips.

Mottled with whichever of the two highlight colours I used least on the particular model. With, agreed, a couple of layers of gloss varnish.

They actually look errr... pretty gross. Which I suppose is the effect I would be after - I wanted them to look organic. If you're going for the 'ancient alien stealth spider' look I think yours would be pretty close.

PHALONS

The Phalons are based on the Outlanders manga and should have an organic feel to them.

Colors to use:

There are some example fleets for inspiration.

Images from Ordo Helicana
Outlanders
Outlanders