HMS-04 30 Minutes Sisters - Pale Clear Red

HMS-04 Pale Clear Red: a lightly tinted clear red for 30MS figures

The word Clear in the name is decisive: this bottle is not an opaque paint. The surface underneath shows through it, and what you see once it has dried is a combination of what was below with a reddish cast from above. The qualifier Pale adds that the tinting is light; one pass shifts the shade only a little.

What it is and what it is not

It is not a red you paint a part with. It is a means of shifting the tone of a surface that is already finished. Over a white base it will show differently than over a flesh tone, and over a dark one it almost disappears. Anyone expecting a saturated red straight from the bottle will be reaching for the wrong thing; opaque shades serve for that, not clear ones. Confusing the two is expensive on a model, because it usually comes to light only on a painted part. In a closed bottle, moreover, an opaque and a clear shade are almost impossible to tell apart; the difference only shows with the first stroke over the plastic.

Where it makes sense

• a reddish cast on the cheeks and at the joints, where skin is meant to look flushed
• layering on translucent parts that light is meant to keep passing through
• tinting an already painted surface without losing the detail underneath
• testing the saturation pass by pass, because each further one takes away from the translucency

Who it is for

For modelers who fine-tune the skin tone and the translucent parts of 30 Minutes Sisters figures, and generally for anyone who works with layering instead of a single coat. Anyone looking for a full red for a surface should pass this item by; it will not give them what they need.