So I have 2 Arquitens-Class Cruisers and I want to paint one to distinguish the two.

My fleet is all the standard FFG colour as I quite like it and don't really have reason to change it but I would like to add some variety, any suggestions as to what I should do with it.

Either a full repaint of just some details are good, maybe a little battle damage, decals? Please let me know!

Also if I'm going to paint some details on it, does the current paint act as a sort of primer? or would I need to matt varnish afterward to prevent it scraping off?

All of my early repaints we're over the existing FFG paint job. Adding a blood stripe is always a way to go.

If you don't want to go to overboard or colourful you could differentiate them by simply painting the mismatched (darker gray) hull plates of one to match the grey on the rest of the body. Add a couple of brighter edge highlights and you'll have a newer/cleaner ship of the line.

Then you could go ahead and add some battle scarring to the Arquitens that still has the mismatched panels to make it look like an older more battleworn one.

1 hour ago, Themodalnodes said:

If you don't want to go to overboard or colourful you could differentiate them by simply painting the mismatched (darker gray) hull plates of one to match the grey on the rest of the body. Add a couple of brighter edge highlights and you'll have a newer/cleaner ship of the line.

Then you could go ahead and add some battle scarring to the Arquitens that still has the mismatched panels to make it look like an older more battleworn one.

I actually really like that idea, do you have any suggestions as to what colour(s) to use to match the ffg light grey?

3 hours ago, Atromix said:

I actually really like that idea, do you have any suggestions as to what colour(s) to use to match the ffg light grey?

I used what I think was Citadel’s administratum gray to a satisfying result.

3 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

I used what I think was Citadel’s administratum gray to a satisfying result.

Thanks, I'll give it a try!

Yep I've also used Administratum Grey and it seems a very close fit. Painted over the mismatched panels on my Chimaera