69.023 Turquoise Matt

Turquoise as an accent, not as an area

Paint 69.023 stands exactly on the boundary between blue and green, and in a palette for robots it fills the role of a secondary tone. Science-fiction builders use it on cooling fins, power panels, vision ports and the small signs that are meant to glow on a dark machine. It suits a whole hull only exceptionally, because its liveliness would swallow the other color fields of the model.

How to get it onto small parts

For small faces a brush tends to be more convenient than an airbrush. It pays to load only the tip of the brush, draw the surplus off against the edge of the palette and lead the stroke in one direction; turquoise tends to leave a trace of the bristles if the area is worked over repeatedly. When spraying small islands, use a mask made from thin adhesive tape and a lower pressure, so that the paint does not bleed under the edge.

• A cool tone between blue and green, intended for accents and signal features
• Suitable for the cooling grilles, vision ports and light panels of robot models
• The bottle with a dropper allows even a single drop to be measured out exactly
• Matte once dry, so under a gloss varnish it turns into a glass effect
• It takes overpainting with translucent shades well for an impression of glow

Combinations that work

Turquoise gives the best result paired with a warm counterweight, typically with an ocher or rusty color. On a dark gray machine a few turquoise areas the size of a fingernail are enough and the model gains a legible rhythm at once. If the area is finally gone over with a gloss varnish and a thin white line is added at the top edge, a convincing illusion of a lit display is created.