Painting The Brakiri

 

Greetings all. I'm busy painting my Brakiri fleet for use in A Call to Arms. Its a nice and simple scheme of Green, Yellow and white that is surprisingly speedy to paint. The most difficult part is getting the yellow to look smooth rather than patchy.

I do not profess to be the best painter out there, so this is just a step by step of how I am painting my miniatures. this is not a definitive guide, but if you like what you see, if you follow these steps, hopefully your ships will look something like mine.

I am including a full list of all the paints used at the end of this article.

The miniature used is a Brakiri Avioki Cruiser. It is 3d printed. The miniature has been sized to be 100mm tall, and the STL is by Tyrel Lohr and available on Cults3d (currently free)

Step 1 Priming.

Primers are specially formulated to adhere to miniatures and provide a layer to which subsequent paints can adhere better than if it were the bare miniature. It also allows you to have very early control over the brightness of your miniature. I usually prime my miniatures in black, but for the Brakiri I wanted it to be a little brighter so I chose grey. Just give it an all over coat using your prefered method. I used an airbrush but rattle cans are a good alternative and you can use a brush as well

Step 2: Basecoat.

For this I applied an all over coat of Tamiya Deep green through an airbrush. I applied 2 thinned coats to get an even coverage. You can easily use a brush for this part, just thin your paints and apply several layers so the colour is consistent. If the paint is too thick it will obscure detail and may leave brush strokes.

Step 3: Recess shading

This particular miniature comes complete with lots of recesses. For this part I used a 3:2 mix of Citadel Biel-Tan Green and Nuln oil. Use a narrow tipped brush and let the paint run into the recesses. If you have any overspill, dont worry, you can wipe away any excess with a paper towel or correct any issues with the base colour when the wash has dried.

Step 4: Applying Grey 

Yellow is a very difficult colour to apply to miniatures. It has low pigmentation so can end up patchy. It doesn't go at all well over darker colours, so we need to lighten the areas first.
For this I used Citadel Adminidstratum grey. Take your time, and if you have to, apply several coats. to get a smooth(ish) coverage

Step 5: Yellow

This is the hardest part, not applying the paint, but resisting the urge to slap on a thick layer. I used Tamiya Flat-Yellow, thinned down with Tamiya thinner at a 1:1 ratio, and then just went over the parts painted grey previously. It took me 5 thin coats to get a smooth yellow. 

Step 6: Windows

I used Tamiya White for this. Thinned down at a 2:1 ratio, and just dapped the brush into windows to let the paint fill the crevice. try to resist the urge to apply too much or go too quickly, but don't worry if you do. you can clean up any mistakes with the base colour

Step 7: Edge Highlights.

We are getting very close to finished now, and this is a step you can easily skip if you want to.

For the yellow i used a 1:1:1 mix of Tamiya White, Flat yellow and thinner to get a lemon yellow. Then I applied it to raised areas to add a bit more depth. For the green I used a 1:1:1 mix of  yellow green, Deep green and thinner and edge highlighted the panels. you don't need to highlight all the way round. pick 2 sides and then paint these sides on every panel to maintain a consistent look. Take your time, Long flat surfaces are very hard to do right, but again don't worry about making mistakes, you can easily go over them with the base colour, or leave them since it will look good enough from 4 feet away

Step 8: Finishing touches. 

I used Vallejo Black for the weapons and base. You can add some highlights to the weapons if you like, and I would recommend either blue black or a dark grey. but I didn't think it was necessary.


I hope you found this quick guide useful. If there are any questions, please let me know, and I will see you next time.

Colours used

Vallejo Ghost Grey Surface primer 74.615.

Vallejo Black 70.950

Tamiya White X-2

Tamiya Flat Yellow XF-3

Tamiya Yellow Green XF-4

Tamiya Deep Green XF-26

Tamiya Thinner X-20A

Citadel Nuln Oil

Citadel Biel-Tan Green

Citadel Administratum Grey