Kairic Acolytes were part of quite an ambitious Silver Tower project. Yep, the one where I decided to paint WORLD BEST completed set.

What's more important about this specific unit, it was a starting point for all the baddies, a playground for a bunch of experiments, and a test of concept in regards to color scheme and painting process.

All in all, I was quite happy with them. Gorgeous models that lend themselves nicely to a wide arrange of technique, and presenting you a lot of interesting surfaces to work with (skin, cloth, metals).

I gave myself plenty of room to experiment and repaint some steps as much as needed, all of this leading to a considerable painting time.

In the end, I've spent 3.1 hours per model with this unit, which is A LOT by my standards. If I were to redone them without the experiments, I believe it is possible to decrease that time to something around 2.5 hours per model.

This is also a bit counterintuitive way of applying the PSR formula, but on the scale of entire painting project. Just consider this: all the tests I've done on Acolytes work as Planning stage for the whole Silver Tower project in general.

And you might notice I've done much more than was needed for this single unit, specifically because of this planning and process optimization approach.

If you aren't familiar with the method, I highly recommend to check out this PDF. It will take you something like 10-15 minutes max to read:

As I've said, Acolytes were the first unit for baddies of Silver Tower. Which means, I had to make some choices in regards to techniques, painting style, painting process and color scheme.

I won't go too deep into that here, since it is thoroughly explained in Silver Tower project showcase, with all the intricacies or reserved and denied colors, and managing colors across the whole box.

So, long story short, my guidelines were as follows:

• Saturated cyan as a focus color
• Lots of yellow to orange tones
• Some amount of violet (in shadows and as subtle hues here and there)

In regards to process development, I really gave these models a run for their money, and tested some neat stuff before they were finished. Namely:

• Directional Glazing was sort of invented while I was doing Acolytes.
• I've tested a bunch of different metallic paints, an area where I felt the need for refreshing after years of painting NMM sci-fi (and I'll give my best advice in the end of this article).
• I've tested Scale 75 paints in general, which were a novelty to me at this point. Weirdly enough, I'm not a big fan.

With all that said, let's now jump straight into step-by-step process.

As usual, I've started with a Zenithal Undercoat.

Normally, this is just a handy way to see volumes of the model. But in this case, Zenithal Undercoat will be instrumental for the next step.

At this stage, some serious speedpainting magic happens, using the dirty trick of Directional Glazing (if you haven't read the article on that technique, I highly recommend doing it immediately):

(1) Directional glazing — Shadows (from below)
GW Druchii Violet

(2) Directional glazing — Highlights (from above)
GW Seraphim Sepia

(3) Directional glazing — Midtones (from the side)
GW Reikland Fleshshade

The same exact actions are thoroughly described in Directional Glazing article, so I won't waste your time here repeating that — refer to the article as needed.

Next I do all lavender clothing using traditional Layering technique. Really nothing special here.

(1) Basecoat
Citadel Rhinox Hide + VGC Royal Purple

(2-3) Layering
VMC Deck Tan + VMC Light Yellow
VMC Ivory

Next I do the same with most of turquoise elements, namely tabards, spheres and shields. The technique here is just slightly different here, since I do tabards and spheres with Layering and a Controlled Washing, and shields with Airbrush Blending and Lining. Still, this step is quite simple:

(1) Basecoat
SC-15 Adriatic Blue

(2) Layering
SC-49 Carribean Blue

(3) Controlled Washing
GW Coelia Greenshade

(1) Basecoat
SC-15 Adriatic Blue

(2) Airbrush Blending
SC-49 Carribean Blue

(3) Lining
GW Coelia Greenshade

This photo might confuse you a little bit, since it was taken after I've done all the metals (I haven't taken a photo of a shield with only turquoise areas done). The real sequence was turquoise > then metal, as written in this guide.

Next I switched to all metallic areas, and started with gold. This was also a time of experiments, since I tried Vallejo Liquid Metal line here (and was highly impressed, I must say). I'll use "VLM" abbreviation for Vallejo Liquid Metal paints. So my process was as follows:

(1) Basecoat
VLM Gold

(2) Controlled Wash
GW Seraphin Sepia
GW Rekland Fleshshade

(3) Airbrush Blending
GW Druchii Violet

You might also notice a small amount of edge highlights, these were done using SC-75 Citrine Alchemy, again as an experiment.

Despite me using VLM Gold in this step, I'd recommend against it if you want to replicate the process. My advice would be to use Vallejo Metal Color line instead (any suitable replacement gold color). I'll explain myself in the conclusion of this article.

While this step looks very similar to the previous one (and included the same experimentation with VLM paints), there's a nice little trick you can gather here. The process itself is dumb simple:

(1) Basecoat
VLM Silver
Again, use any suitable Vallejo Metal Color replacement

(2) Airbrush Blending
GW Druchii Violet + GW Nuil Oil

But! The shadows were done with an airbrush, and with no masking. The trick is what I call "Angled Spraying": position the model in such a way, that only one side of the blade is receiving the spray, and the other one is obstructed.

Yes, there will be some overspray, and this technique is less accurate that traditional masking and (of course) brush blending / controlled washing.

But this technique is also immeasurably faster — definitely a speedpainting technique. By the time that would take you to mask all those blades, you'll finish this step for the whole unit using Angled Spraying.

And hey, I know it might sound like inventing a wheel to someone... But I've been airbrushing since 2014, and only in 2017 I accidentally "invented" this little technique for myself. Nobody told be about it, so I thought I should better tell you, because you might be in the same spot now.

And lastly, I've done all the small details left — ropes, bones and magical effects.

ROPES and BONES

(1) Basecoat
GW Zandri Dust

(2) Highlight
VMC Ivory

(3) Washing
GW Serphim Sepia / GW Agrax Earthshade

GLOWING HANDS

(1-3) Airbrush Blending
SC-15 Adriatic Blue
SC-49 Carribean Blue
White
(4) Washing
GW Coelia Greenshade

Note the simplistic approach I use here. This last step can easily drag for hours if you would overcomplicate it with too many layers and so on. But remember, all these details are small, and nobody would really notice the difference between 10-minutes basecoat-wash and 40 minutes layering.

This unit of Acolytes was a nice opportunity to test different metallics. Even more so, I needed to settle with a paint I like, to use it throughout the next parts of Silver Tower project.

So I've made my tests (some more complex than others) with the following brands and lines:

• Citadel / Games Workshop metallics
• Vallejo Metal Color
• Vallejo Liquid Metal
• Scale 75 metallics

Citadel metallics seem quite trashy, having horrible opacity and general messy feel to them. Maybe I've got a bad batch, but I decided to never use them again. Bear in mind, I'm not a GW hater and generally love Citadel paints.

Vallejo Liquid Metal are the best metallics in regards to final result. I was highly impressed with them, but I don't recommend this line for everyday usage. It is an alcohol-based paint that needs white spirit for dilution, kills any brush very quickly, and is generally too inconvenient to use.

Vallejo Metal Color are my best metallics overall, meaning pretty decent result combined with ease of use (they are regular acrylic paints). But don't mistake them for Vallejo Model Color metallics, they are different product lines. I mean these bottles:

They are now my trusty workhorse and a metallics of choice.

Scale Color metallics are also nice acrylic-based metallics, quite pleasant to work with, but still I'd say go for Vallejo Metal Color as your main. I use Scale Color metallics from time to time, usually when I need some specific tone of metal (they are quite unique in that regard).

Extremely fun models to work with, can recommend them even just for a pure joy of painting. And in case of my Silver Tower project, I've set a solid foundation for all other baddies in the box, in regards to style, process, and choice of colors.

Their hefty timecost of 3.1 hours per model reflects the investment into testing and experiments though. It would be interesting to try them again and reduce that to... 2 hours maybe? I'd say that's doable. What do you guys think?