I told myself that I would not have to paint my Homeworld ships since they were already color coded, were box storable, and were potentially child resistant (with no paint), besides the fact that I have three other concurrent projects right now, but that decision has not lasted long. So here are some of the first tests on some Taiidan fighters and a heavy corvette…
The color coding was what initially drove the testing as I really like the fighter round tokens, but it is almost impossible to tell the difference between variants of the same color given their size. Despite the larger ship silhouettes still being easily distinguishable, when they are next to painted fighters they look out of place, and so I bid farewell to all hopes of sleep…
I did want to preserve the blue v. red aesthetic and first tried just line washes along the details of the pieces but the smooth finish of the plastic requires multiple coats of wash, which led to the second attempt of primer and traditional paint for not that much more time per piece. Again, the nature of the models made priming difficult, and I had to switch to an airbrush primer to get better adhesion but that also made cleanup of any errant brushstrokes along the borders very easy.
The storage question is not that much of an issue since I was having trouble with the close fits of the vacuum formed box inserts so they will be moving into another space. Also, the relative softness of the plastic they used is perfect for pieces that will be handled often, but with the standard deployment formations within Homeworld being set numbers by ship class, I most likely am moving them onto bases which should also mostly preserve their paint and have no real affect on their use in-game.