Some progress updates today. I got the base coat down and I am beginning the weathering process. Also here is a website where I learned many of my painting techniques.
http://blog.brushthralls.com/. It is for pewter minatures but many of the techniques cary over to scale models.
I'm trying to avoid double posting images so I will reference the photos attached from top to bottom.
The first picture is all the completed parts laid out on my workbench. This is always my favorite picture in a build as I can finally see the whole model.
The next Picture is my least favorite picture in a build. The base coat always makes me worried I ruined the model because everything looks so bad without weathering. In this case my model looks like it's made of chocolate. typically I base coat based on the percieved color. For instance, when we look at a person we considerthem to be one color but in reality there are 100s of subtle color variations so you have to base the model in what color we percieve it to be and use additional coloring to make it look like it really does. When the percieved color is light like the yellow I tend to start with the lightest color and darken it, while with darker colors like the brown I like to start with a dark color and lighten it up.
Next I determined what paints to use to weather the brown areas so I can make it look like we actually see. Looking at the concept art I determined that the brown areas have alot of tan accents, with a hint a olive green, and then aluminum where the paint has rubbed of and the metal is showing. If you can't do this by eye you can use the color picker tool in a paint program to help you scan the image and get an idea of the color ranges.
Next I did a test weathering on the left front side of the body to make sure my assumptions where correct. I still need to darken the panel lines and add detail but I am happy with the color comparison to the concept art.
The last photo shows me starting the weathering on the rest of the model. I started with the tan color as it will cover a large amount of the surface of the model. I dry brushed the tan color on using almost no paint on the brush as this will hide the brush stoke better on the larger areas. You can see the before (right) and after (left) below on the missle pods.