Grand Cathay

A speedpaint-heavy recipe for Grand Cathay that leans on a zenithal prime to do most of the shading work before a single drop of paint hits the model. The palette is the classic Cathay teal-and-yellow, warmed up with some peachy skin, and brought together with metals, leather, and rope.

The zenithal (Matt Black undercoat, Wight Bone from above) means the speedpaints pool naturally in the recesses and stay bright on the raised areas, which does a lot of the heavy lifting. From there it's just a matter of picking out each area with the right speedpaint, then a round of Fanatic highlights to push the contrast.

The teal gets highlighted with Aqua Alchemy and a dab of Ice Yellow at the very top, the yellows get a Fuegan Orange wash in the recesses and Inner Light/Ice Yellow on the peaks, and the skin goes Amber Skin → Amber + Brainmatter Beige with Berserker Bloodshade for shadows.

For any third colour that doesn't fit the scheme (extra leather straps, pouches, that sort of thing) I drop in Snakebite Leather as a break — it sits nicely next to both the teal and the yellow without fighting either.

This is one of my older recipes so it's written as a single-pass recipe rather than being broken out into separate speedpaint and highlight stages like I do now.