Game Color Special FX

What effect paints solve

Ordinary paint covers a surface. An effect paint carries texture and sheen as well, so what remains after drying is visible matter: a dried puddle, a crust of corrosion, growth on stone. One step therefore replaces a sequence that would otherwise need paste, pigment and varnish separately.

The selection covers two large groups. The first is ageing and attack on material — corrosion, verdigris and the galvanic corrosion that forms where two metals meet. The second is fluids and organics: blood in two consistencies, acid, bile, and moss with lichen for a base. Both share one property worth knowing in advance: the uneven surface shows through any coat laid over it.

How to use them

Always over finished paint

Effects belong at the end of the build, on a sealed and dry coat. If varnish is still to follow, try the combination on an offcut of sprue first — a matt coat suppresses glossy effects and blood loses its wet look.

Less is more

Apply drop by drop into logical places: corrosion to welds, rivets and lower edges, blood to weapons and their edges, moss to the shaded side of a stone. An effect spread over a whole surface reads as false immediately. Gravity is the best guide — fluid runs down and collects where it meets an edge.

Tool according to body

Heavier material meters better from a stiff or older brush, or a toothpick, than from a fine point. Suitable pieces are among special brushes, which this use will not ruin.

What goes with them

• Game Color as the opaque palette the effect is laid over
• Texture pastes for bulkier growth, rubble and dried mud
• Pigments for the fine dust that beds an effect into its surroundings
• Display bases, where moss, lichen and puddles complete a scene
• Model figures and busts as the usual carrier of these effects

To treat ageing on a larger scale and layer it technique by technique, the deeper selection is in weathering.