Painting Red on the Warrior Bug

The final step was to add the red highlights to the upper surfaces. I decided to keep it simple, and once again let the sculptor be my guide - I painted the "raised" area on the upper body's back, the "horns" on the upper mandible, a stripe down the upper mandible, and the outside of the claws.

I used Aleene's Deep Mauve, which is a very dark red, and painted all of the red areas. I ended up also painting the area between the horns, and extended the stripe to the end of the body. It took two coats to get good coverage.

Then, I used Games Workshop Blood Red as a highlight color, painting it along the ridge in the back, and as a central stripe in all of the other red areas. I also decided to "go with the crowd" and paint the outside of the fangs red.

That was pretty much it! This Warrior Bug isn't going to win any contests, but it's a fair approximation of the right look, and it's a process I think I can apply to the other nineteen models in the box.

However, I still needed to do some final clean-up - with black paint, to straighten up some red lines, and remove yellow accidents.

In the morning, I'll give this model a sealer coat, and see what she looks like. (I think I have to use a sealer to preserve the inks, plus it should even out the finish between inked and painted areas.) I'll post pictures when I'm done - I'm hoping the final clearcoat will darken the red areas a bit, and not darken the black parts too much...