Another new effect experiment

Skirting madness

Who knew what sort of hubris I was riddled with this time, but I returned to poke the Shilone I had considered finished. You see, I had been somehow successful with the Jump Jet fire plumes and the AutoCannon's heat-mistreated metal, I thought I could challenge myself with an engine glow effect.

The engine nozzles of the Shilone were pretty tiny, and I didn't really feel like fighting with the airbrush and masking half the universe, nor did I want to go for a really strong OSL effect that'd light up most of the rear of the ASF. Somehow those have most often struck me as overwhelming.

Blending

So, it was time to jump from mere thoughts to actual actions. I knew that I was going to use the two blues I bought for my Flanker, and mix some off-white with them, so I searched for the paint pots. First one, Citadel Layer series Ahriman Blue was quite thick already so I also went for a plastic syringe (I seemed to remember we had a number of those for ear infection medicines and whatnot) to add cautious amounts of tap water. The second one, another Citadel Layer paint, Temple Guard Blue had dried up into a solid block so it got tossed out. Damn. My plan changed, but just a bit. For shading I used Insignia White (VMA 71290).

Effect test

To begin with I dropped a good lump of Ahriman Blue and thinned it slowly, until I had something that resembled paint more than play-doh. I expected this to be the last time I could use that paint, if Citadel's current quality was to be relied on.

This stuff I used to paint the three nozzles from the inside. It was going to be the darkest layer in the fierce glare of the fusion reactor.

For the next shade I dropped a single drop of off-white next to my blue puddle, and mixed a fraction of it into the blueness. Then I added some of this slightly lighter blue into the nozzles, covering a bit less than the previous time. Rather unsurprisingly I kept repeating this process for a few iterations. In total I mixed six always lighter shades of blue. The end result would've been more visible in larger tubes, but at least I had tried this out.

As the last step I painted tiny single bright dots into each of the nozzles, using an almost white paint. The point of this was to show the hottest spot in the whole shebang. My last photos didn't show them, thanks to the angles. From a normal distance the effect was pretty fun.