Unlike with the GALI KINO construction, I knew exactly what I wanted with this part of the MOC. I wanted it to look like crude oil had been spilled on it. Like the Exxon ducks. When you get right down to it, that’s about as nastified as water can get, so it seemed entirely appropriate for this project. The problem is, I needed it to retain the transparency. My first inclination would have been to go check the Testors Model Master Acryl line, but I know from doing Star Wars customs that they only sell five transparent colors of acrylic. Red, Green, Blue, Amber, and a clear sealer. Fortunately, the place where I buy my paints also sells Games Workshop wargaming miniatures, so they sell the GW line of paints. I already own a bottle of the Gloss Clear Acryl sealer that Testors makes, so I picked up a bottle of Black Ink from GW’s Citadel Colours line. Just for future knowledge, I tried painting the Black Ink straight on the blue KAUKAU, but it beads up and drains off the glossy surfaces.

After cleaning all of the test spots of Black Ink off the MASK, I tried a mixing Gloss Clear Acryl and Black Ink in a bottle. It sorta worked, but because the Black Ink is so thin, I couldn’t begin to tell you mixing ratios. Unfortunately, the Black Ink dilutes the sealer too much for it to stay where you paint it, and it ends up spreading out over the whole MASK surface. I tried to clean the MASK up so I could start over, but it didn’t work at all. One MASK destroyed, but fortunately it was just a blue KAUKAU, and I’ve got a few to spare.

The third try yielded the best results by far. I completely covered the entire front surface with a thick coat of the Gloss Clear Acryl until there wasn’t a dry or semi-dry spot anywhere to be found. Then, working very fast, I dipped a 10/0 brush into the Black Ink and touched just the very tip of the bristles to the pooled sealer, which leached the Black Ink out of the brush. Each dip into the bottle produced a new blotch of oily looking black on the surface, but the sealer has a semi-white look while wet (but dries clear) so I wasn’t able to really see what it looked like until it had dried. I was very pleased with the final result, and hit it with a shot of Testors Glosscote to seal the result. I used Glosscote because it’s the Water MASK, and oil is always shiny unless it’s soaked into something else. There’s really no difference in the look between pre-sealed and sealed, so I’ve only included the sealed version in the pictures. Below is a shot that shows the detail better, as I mounted the MASK without a TOA head behind it, and I backlit it to make the paint details pop out better.