Tohaa: A Color Scheme

This past August, fellow gamer Todd won a Tohaa starter box at NOVA 2013. He graciously gifted (bartered!) it to me, as I had expressed interest in playing the faction (and it cut down on how much the split bill was in the end!) a few times.

While at NOVA I took advantage of TheWarStore.com being set up with a booth stocked with Infinity goodies and purchased a Chaksa boxset, Makauls Boxset, and a Gao Rael w/ Sniper rifle to get my force started.

Those models have since set in a box, waiting for a day when I felt likg modeling and painting them. That day is now (or about 14 days ago at this point!) and I have started with a test paint scheme on the Sakiel (which when I started with it, I had no real intention of using Sakiels in my lists, but then ITS 2014 came out and BAM! I need as much Viral as I can get, but that is for another post.)

Starting out, I struggled with the color scheme I wanted to use for my army. I am always the contrary type when it comes to official schemes, always waiting to do something different or at least flip major/minor colors around some. The Tohaa presented an interesting avenue to approach the scheme from, they are aliens and they have living things that provide armor for them (for some at least.) I searched  for inspiration among other Tohaa players armies, but never saw anything that sparked my interest. I broadened my search to just include a color that I wanted to work with, Purple. Again nothing really seemed to grab my attention as most of the schemes were very monochromatic. Finally I turned to nature and a silly debate with my fiance about if there were red and purple beetles. A quick Google search turned up such a beast and the inspiration for my Tohaa Army!

Meet Chrysochroa-Buqueti or the Banded Jewel Beetle.

This picture (and others like it) inspired what I am working on now. Executing against what I had envisioned in my minds eye on the other hand as been a very slow process. I am working with some hues I normally avoid like the plague (Yellow and Purple) so I first had to add more paints to my collection (never a bad thing if you ask me.) I purchased two RMS triads; the Royal Purples and the Dark Elf Flesh. The Royal purples will be used on the Armor and Symbiote while the Dark Elf flesh will be used on the Chaksa models skin to tie the army together but give the Chaksa a foreign look compared to the rest of the army.

I approached painting the Sakiel from the inside out, meaning I started with the inner most detail of the model. In this case it was the Symbiote, which I chose the Amethyst Purple as the initial mid-tone color. I washed all the areas with a watered down (with a mix of water and matte medium) coat of purple.

I then did a glaze of Imperial Purple and Liquitex glaze medium to darken the recesses more than the higher areas. I didn't get a picture of this step. I did layers of this, and then switched to the major armor flats. I picked out nightshade purple as the base to eventually create a high contrast dark to light transition, but here is the base coat step.

Also pictured are the kerf cut armor plates and what I view as lower support armor below the outer plates and on the feet. These were painted using a thinned layer of VMC German Gray.

After this I hit a hold point of sorts as I pondered what I wanted to paint the straps over the cloth and symbiote armor. I wanted to paint some sort of soft yellow, but being that I don't use those colors much, I had a small and very bright selection to choose from. I ended up taking a trip to local gaming/comic book store (Parker Banner Kent and Wayne) to look for paints.

This what I settled on, P3 Menoth White Base (a paint that I already had) and RMS Lemon Yellow. I applied a thinned layer (thinned with matte medium) of Menoth White Base followed by a thinned layer of RMS Lemon Yellow. I also followed through with the  Beetle scheme and base-coated the mask of the Sakiel with VMC Flat Red and washed it with Citadel Leviathan Purple Wash (Discontinued..sigh.)

All the paints I use to paint my Reds

That is far as my progress has gotten me to date. If you notice the leg on the left has the straps painted yellow and the cloth parts black. I am not sold on this part of the scheme yet. The weapons and accessories are still in the white, trying to decide what colors would go well (thinking a bright emerald type color for the weapons, but that also means I need to dig around for a green/turquoise paint or take another trip to the PBKW.

Continued in Part 2.