Tutorial: Bastilodon Solar Engine

I magnetized my Bastilodon a long time ago so that I could swap out between the Ark of Sotek and the Solar Engine, and while I managed to paint the dino and the Ark of Sotek, I left the Solar Engine to languish for some time. Part of it was that I was intimidated by the crystal. I wanted it to look like all of those photos that can be seen on Instagram or Reddit. But no more! I decided to just go for it, and I don't know why I was putting this off for so long.

Read on for details of how I painted it. 

The crystal itself is based with Moot Green. Make sure that this layer is nice and smooth. After it's dry, get a green wash (any will do but I use Army Painter) and paint a triangle on each facet like shown below. You will repeat this step over and over, each time making a smaller triangle, until you get a nice fade occurring. This is a lot easier than it sounds, it just takes a lot of time. 

After that is complete, the edges are highlighted with Moot Green to bring the color back in. This is the hardest part of the process, so relax and go slowly. You want the paint to be a tad watery to help the brush run smoothly over the edges, otherwise the dry paint will clump and drag. Do this again with a 50/50 mix of Moot Green and white, but this time only towards the points of the crystal. Finally, with pure white, dab a dot on each point of the crystal to really make this pop. 

For added shiny-ness I added a gloss varnish. This is optional. 

As an extra step to really sell that the crystal is glowing, give the surrounding engine a good drybrush of Moot Green, lavishing more attention on surfaces closer to the crystal. And there you have it, a beautiful crystal to sit on top of a beautiful dinosaur. 

The Ark of Sotek variant.