Following up on my previous article about alien terrain, I am not offended by those who said my first batch were celebrating Pride Month – it's magenta, not pink! – but for variety's sake, I decided to go with a different color for my next batch.

While these will be classed as 'brush' under the rules I'm using, in my imagination, these are cultivated fields which the Hive Mind operates. Giant Ant farms, if you will. And this batch represent the crop prior to harvest, when they are still green.

I modified my original method by switching to using spray paint – specifically, gloss green because I had some left over from a previous project. I thought the gloss paint would perhaps 'skin' the cotton pods, but it did not, and in fact the spray-painted cotton pods are fuller and more fibrous than the original batch.

I tried to get away with only painting the cotton pods from the top, but there were many missed spots, so I finally sprayed the bottom first; then when that was dry, flipping them over and painting the tops; and when that was dry, spraying again to get the missed spots. And still I needed to do touch-up with a brush and some cheap green paint.

Above, you can compare the first and second batch. I've been keeping these simple, so the second batch is one color, no highlights or anything fancy.
I still have more cotton pods, so I'll try something else on the next batch…