Indigo. Help a brother out?

[NemFX]

What it says on the tin. I want to paint up my Alpha Legion in the original colours.

 

That statement alone can cause debate, so let me be clear; the original indigo version, with the green markings. The cant-quite-tell-if-it's-blue-or-purple.

 

Originally described as indigo, the different books change the colour based on time of day, planet, writer, particular position of the Khan's ponytail, mission, what they had for breakfast, and so on. The Alpha Legion paint their armour different colours a lot, and I personally hate the newest look (shiny metallic blue for any future readers) the original Alpha Legion were described as wearing indigo blue, and were actually mistaken for Ultramarines a lot. They had silver trim instead of gold though. They were also described as wearing purple, but it depended on writer.

 

I'm aiming to recreate the original colour, and unfortunately my Repulsor tank has a collection of terrible paint mixes that don't even come close. I have found that mixing paints leads to three results; blue, purple, or a weird almost gray. If there's just an actual paint I can buy, or some trick I don't know, I would love to know.

 

Also, unrelated, whatever happened to that hover whirlwind? It's been like a year and it's still not out.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Have you tried looking for a soft-body artist's acrylic?  It'll need a fair amount of thinning, but should work (I've used W&N's "professional" acrylic-in-a-metal-tube before).

 

Some of the Vallejo Game Colour tend to purple (I'm thinking of 72.017 Dark Blue, formerly Sick Blue).

 

I suppose the other option you've got is to take a blue you like, and add a small amount of purple acrylic ink (e.g. Daler-Rowney FW Ink Purple Lake) until you reach the desired colour?  The ink will be very strong, so I doubt you'll need much to shift an entire pot.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Firedrake Cordova

[pawl]

Would a blue/purple colourshift be an option at all?

[Arkhanist]

For colorshift, turbodork blue raspberry - source

 

 

or greenstuff world psychotic illusions could work, though the latter is probably too close to the current scheme. (both airbrushed over black base coats, not my models)

 

 

source video

 

For a flat colour, I'd have a look at

vallejo model colour royal blue (70.809) which is blue with a hint of purple, and blue violet (70.811) which is purple with a blue tone.

or if you can get reaper, the "evening colors" triad.

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Arkhanist

[Razblood]

Glaze purple ink over Kantor Blue to get a pretty deep indigo.

[NemFX]

So I found out paint remover melts plastic. My poor tank :(

[pawl]

So I found out paint remover melts plastic. My poor tank :(

How badly? Do you have any after pictures? If it's recoverable have a look at my link in the other thread.

[Arkhanist]

If he used an acetone based cleaner on plastic, that's not going to have gone well.

[pawl]

If he used an acetone based cleaner on plastic, that's not going to have gone well.

Just read your post in the other thread, didn't realise the stuff was basically acetone!

If it was only used on a small section he may get away with it though, with a little repair work.

[NemFX]

3m safe stripper from walmart. I tried linking it, but the link button on here is glitched. It's bad. Like, 'hey nurgle player, wanna trade?' bad.

[pawl]

Ah. That's not ideal! If it's totally ruined, could you salvage what parts you can (spares, repairs and conversions later - always fill the bits box!) and try and turn it into scenery? Downed vehicle as an objective marker?

(I know it probably doesn't help you, I'm just trying to find something vaguely positive!)

[NemFX]

I'll try to salvage the entire thing, but it's not gonna be pretty. I'm gonna strip off the remaining paint with acetone, and see if anything is salvageable on the top of the model, so much for my all-alarmingly-uniform alpha legion army

[pawl]

PLEASE DO NOT USE ACETONE!

Acetone will melt plastic! There's a chance the cleaner you've already used contained it, so it may be the reason it's damaged!

Have a look at this thread - what you want is isopropyl alcohol, which won't damage or soften the plastic at all.

[Razblood]

An alternative to ipa is methylated spirits, which may be easier to get at the moment since its not used in the production of sanitizer like ipa.

[Firedrake Cordova]

An alternative to ipa is methylated spirits, which may be easier to get at the moment since its not used in the production of sanitizer like ipa.

Ethanol will also work (it's what's in W&N's brush cleaner).

[MaliGn]

I used to use the old midnight blue as a very dark blue for Alpha Legion. But that's been Oop for some time now.

[Firedrake Cordova]

I used to use the old midnight blue as a very dark blue for Alpha Legion. But that's been Oop for some time now.

Vallejo Game Colour Night Blue (72.019) should be a good match, though :)

[Venerable Jazzman]

Coat d'Arms paints are the original GW/Citadel paint range - https://www.blackhat.co.uk/product-category/coat-darms-paints/

And this blog has a very useful comparison chart - http://www.tinyworlds.co.uk/blog/paint-comparison-chart-citadel-vallejo-game-colour/

There was a B&C post with a full comparison chart of Vallejo/GW/Tamiya somewhere, but I can't find it now.