Mini Painting: Mars Camo Corsair (Camouflage Experiment Part 2)

By now, I think we’ve all heard the quote commonly attributed to Albert Einstein about how failure is success in progress and that’s how I’m choosing to look back on my recent attempt at painting camouflage for the first time. Alongside the cyborg miniature, I also wanted to try out the Mars-pattern camo scheme on a Reaper-brand miniature (the name on the packaging is Blackstar Corsair Charlie, though I’ve stocked up on the Alpha and Echo versions of this model for later projects) so I painted them both at more or less the same time intended to give them both the same color scheme. In the process, I made the same mistakes with Corsair Charlie as I did with the cyborg in addition to some brand new ones.

I didn’t take any early photos on this paint job, so trust that I base-coated most of the model in Vallejo Calvary Brown with the helmet dome and hands painted with Reaper Pure Black. The base, I would worry about later. After the base, I did the same camouflage pattern with the same mix of colors as before and once more, I ended up with the dark brown layer note standing out enough for my liking. For this model, I tried to keep the camo pattern restricted to his shoulder pads, legs, and gauntlets. I used the same Vallejo dark rust wash and resulted in this.

And much like the other Mars camo mini, I sat on it for a few days and thought of things I could try to punch it up and make the pattern pop more. So more or less writing this off as another experiment, I tried adding different washes (Nuln Oil here, Agrax Earthshade there) and even mixed some Calvary Brown with a bit of Mephiston Red and dry-brushed over the non-camo areas like his torso. My thinking at the time was that camouflage patterns already overlapped, so what would have happened if I added another layer on top of what was already there, except bigger and brighter? So I did and since the video that gave me the idea used a flesh-shade wash over his Mars camouflage pattern, I got the idea to try making my own tan wash using one drop of Vallejo flesh tone, a few drops of thinner, and a few more drops of water.

I’ve had better ideas.

No matter how diluted I tried to get the flesh tone to make the wash, and despite how transparent it appeared when I tested it out on some newspaper I put down, it was just too overpowering. At this point, I was ready to put this little experiment to bed and reapplied some darker washes until I found a good enough place to throw in the towel. I feel like I ended up at the same place where I more or less started with the camo-pattern being too muted (with the added oily-looking sheen from all the Citadel washes I abused in trying to hide my crimes).

I really wasn’t expecting the Russian cyborg to turn out better than the Reaper brand miniature, but I’m kinda thinking that it did. Either way, for the next mini I paint, I’m going back to practicing the very basics and leave the slightly more advanced youtube tutorials on the backburner until I gain a little bit more confidence. But hey, sometimes you need to swing for the fences in order to pinpoint where your limitations and I think that's what I want to take away from this whole thing.