Eccentric The Shifters - Galaxy Dust Set

The cool side of the shifting palette

Where the other groups build on gold and copper, this one keeps to green and blue. The shades run from light purple to green, from green gold to cold blue, from turquoise to purple, from emerald to lilac, from green to silvery blue and from dark green to a pewter tone. The whole set of six holds together and can be mixed among themselves without the result going gray.

For modelers this leads somewhere other than historical equipment. Insect carapaces, dragon scales, deep-sea or alien hulls, magic weapons and figure accessories are the natural place for this palette, because it is exactly the green-blue sheen that appears in nature on beetle wings and on feathers. It can also be used sparingly, for instance as an edging on an otherwise matte surface.

What the base does to the paint

A dark glossy base gives a deep, raw tone, while over a dark gray base the sheen comes out somewhat subtler and less contrasting. A test sample on an offcut of plastic saves a great deal of work, because the difference between the two bases is clear and on the model it is hard to undo. The paints are thinned with water, and the package holds six bottles of seventeen milliliters each.

When to reach for masking

The sheen sits well with sharply bounded fields. If you want only the carapace or only part of a wing colored, apply the tape only to a fully cured base and pull it off slowly at a shallow angle, so the glossy base is not torn away with the paint. Soft boundaries, by contrast, do the sheen no good, because on a feathered edge the shade falls apart.

The model, brushes and varnish are not included in the package.