Decisions Decisions

The other day I started to paint up the first of the Res Publica forces - HaT Hastati to be accurate. I wanted to see which of the yellows I had available would work for a suitably alien flesh tone. Yellow, I reasoned, would not only work as Venusians but as the famed Yellow Martians as well. 

Unfortunately, every yellow I have took multiple coats - too many for my taste - to achieve opacity. The one that did it in the fewest, Ceramcoat Pale Yellow, resulted in a figure, that according to one unsolicited observer, looked like a "butter sculpture". 

I liked the look of Pale Saffron from Reaper? (well, it came with my Bones kickstarter many many years ago) the best, but it was at least five coats if I had to cover anything other than white. I don't want to repeat my experience with the oranges I used with the Tanitans.

So, the figures have been stripped to bare plastic again (which gave me a chance to remove some of the more egregious mold lines that I had skipped). And, it strikes me that they look like B-movie aliens in their present state:

Now, I'm not saying I'm going to leave them this way - I'd paint their bases at the very least - but it's got me thinking of maybe giving them metallic skin. Perhaps literal "men of bronze"?

One of my favorite books in middle-school was Code of the Lifemaker. The cover art, which you can see here was just so intriguing. 

What if these Res Publicans are an ancient race of sentient robots? Maybe they have a similar origin story?

Would I paint the Triari the same way? A different metallic? 

So many questions.