Okay, this is where I admit that I'm a bit eccentric when it comes to painting... I use flat enamel paints for all my painting (Testors brand, as it so happens).  The techniques described here work just as well with water-based acrylic paints, though the enamels tend to be slightly darker and just a hint shinier.  I prefer enamels for their durability and they make excellent washes.  Oh, and they smell wonderfully toxic.

	On to business.  Spraypaint the whole model with flat black spray primer and let it dry.  Now base coat the main colors by drybrushing them.  (For more information on drybrushing, see the STC Water Tower article). Drybrush everything but the doors, rooftop floor, coils, and pipes in a nice distinctive color.  I mixed up a custom dark Blue-green color for mine.        Then use a lighter drybrush pass with light grey for highlights.           Drybrush the spikes, coils and all the pipes with dark brown.
	I wanted the door to stand out, so I mixed up a dark red color and painted all the flat areas of the door.  (Since it's easier to control regular painting than it is drybrushing, I went ahead and drybrushed the trim on the door with some brass metallic before painting the red on.)    Next, pick out some of the detail in another color just to break up the model a bit visually.  I painted the drums and the vent box with dark blue.     Now for the washes.   (You can read more about washes in the STC Water Tower how-to pages). I like to use a rust color for the main wash, working from the top down and brushing streaks down the sides here and there.  Be sure to hit the pipes, coils, and rivets heavily.   Using care, you can control your streaks with a fingertip or gentle blowing.    Next, switch to a light brown and hit the same areas again, but more sparingly this time.  As a guide, rust can range from near-black to bright orange- dark rust is old rust, light rust is the most fresh.
	Once your washes are dry, switch to drybrushing metallics.  I like to mix steel and brass together, with some black or dark brown to dull them down.  Drybrush al  the pipes, coils, and spikes.  Don't forget to hit the rivets too.  Gently drybrush over the rivets, holding the brush at an angle so it doesn't smear paint onto the surface below the rivets.     If you want to pick out any of the skulls in a bone color, paint them light brown and then drybrush them with light grey or white.       To paint the light, I mixed up a blend of blues from dark blue up to near-white.      I base coated the light with the dark blue first, then worked my way down to the point of the dome with the lightest colors.