For a while now my HGUC Unicorn has been my test kit. Anything I wanted to try on a model I would throw at it and see how well it stuck. Recently it got painted and given a coat of Future floor polish, which basically brings it near to the end of its life.. but not yet, we still have time for 1 last experiment.

I’ve had my eyes on weathering powders for the last week and I decided to try and make the Blunicorn (as it has become known) look worn and dirty from a desert conflict. I’m bored of pure white perfect Unicorns and want to see it look like its dragged its self through hell and is about to go out for another round.

I I did a little research on model train websites and found some dudes have good success with using eye shadow to do the same thing. So between telling my mother I’m a transvestite (I’m not) and stealing hers, I got my hands on some deep browns and greys to try on the Blunicorn and this is the result.

I started with a dark brown and moved up to a sandy orange to add some desertyness to it and I think the results are excellent. They blend the random brown patches I did with the airbrush and was planning to mess around with via inks, but this works out much better, has an instant dry time and looks pretty decent. The only problem I have is this eye shadow had a bit of glitter in it, but that will be killed by Dullcoat when I’m done.

I used a Q tip to apply it and just drew it along the kit in straight lines, dabbing into the areas that would catch dirt more. This is not ideal and using a proper applicator would make the effect much easier and probably better. But as a trial run I’m very happy with this and would recommend others try it. Pick up some cheap eye shadow from Poundland (Dollar store) and brush it on a kit to add a grimy battled look to it.