Having got the bug for Dystopian Wars again after working out a colour scheme for my Ottoman Fleet, I have been looking for a ‘major faction’ fleet for my next project. I really like the Empire of the Rising Sun but as Pete already has these I thought I would look at the Russian Coalition. Without knowing all the fluff that goes with them I thought that if I went with a Black Sea fleet this would tie in with my Ottoman fleet. They may not be allies but they would be operating in the same area. After looking at several options I decided to go with the classic white / light grey colour but added some red accents to give the models a little bit more impact.
Because the overall paint scheme was going to have a light grey / white finish I started with priming everything with Vallejo Grey Surface Primer (74.601).
Hull, Superstructure and Turrets: Whilst the end result was to have a light grey / white finish I wanted to add some depth to the hull and superstructure so I started with an all over coat of Vallejo US Blue Grey (71.114). I then started to build on this by adding light coats of Vallejo UK Mediterran Blue (71.111), Vallejo UK Azure (71.108) and then Vallejo Blue RLM78 (71.101). With each of these coats I used a steeper angle with the airbrush so that the darker colours would remain in the recesses and under details to provide a nice shading effect. This worked quite well but was still a little bit too dark for what I was looking for so I added a light coat of Vallejo Pale Blue Grey (71.046) followed by a final highlight of Vallejo White (71.001), with this final highlight being sprayed from almost directly over the model. This all resulted in the light overall colour I was looking for but it still had a nice depth of shading to it. But whilst I was happy with the effect it still looked a bit bland. So I decided to add some red highlights to give the ships a bit of ‘pop’. To do this I used Citadel Khorne Red on the front bow section and the top of the tallest funnel on each ship. This was then highlighted with Citadel Evil Sunz Scarlet and then a final edge highlight of Citadel Wild Rider Red.
Decking: In keeping with the light overall colour scheme I decided to go with a light wood effect for all of the decking. This was done by using Vallejo Light Brown (71.027) which was then washed with Citadel Orgryn Flesh wash to pick out the details and add some ‘texture’ to the decking.
Pipes: For the pipes on the hull and superstructure I used Vallejo Copper (71.068) as a base coat and then highlighted this with Vallejo Bright Brass (71.067). For the bands that hold the pipes in place I used Vallejo Gun Grey (71.072) which was then highlighted with Vallejo Aluminum (71.062).
Fittings: First off for the fixings there were the scuttles, (or windows) which because of their size I used Vallejo Aluminum (71.062) to cover the whole thing and then went back with Badger Ghost Tint Plasma Fluid (D6-180) which was used in the centre to represent the glass area. All the other fittings such as gun barrels, torpedo ports and the brackets that hold the pipes in place were painted using Vallejo Gun Grey (71.072) which was then highlighted with a touch of Vallejo Aluminum (71.062).
Then to finish things off they were all given a coat of Vallejo Satin Varnish (26.519) to seal them. This flattens the overall finish a little and also helps to protect the models when in use.
