Oi! I only just noticed this...sorry!
Anyhow, I'd probably advocate something roughly similar to the main Imperial BFG Designs. As seen in the main rulebook, a the ships with the 'grey' hulling look quite nice, but the style of this ship doesn't look *quite* cathedrally[gothic] enough to warrant that styling. The smaller escorts would be fine in this manner though[cargo vessel].
So, that leaves Mr Xenos and Mr RTC himself.
Xenos: You can really experiment with those. As seen with the Nicassar Dhows in Amada, just paint 'em however you feel! By the looks of it though, it has a sort of Star-Trekkie Warp Nacelle[sp?] to it. Perhaps some 'flat' light greys and metals on it with some really contrasting bright reds and blues for details?
Rogue Trader Cruiser: If you feel up to doing it, you could probably paint in alot of details on the larger surfaces[ie round the cylindery bits], whilst the main prow gun/thing would do well as a slightly varied colour. Perhaps even doing the little 'lightning' effects on the prow bit to make it look suitably 'uber-tech'. With that ship there's alot of opportunity to do 'early Imperial' or simply 'advanced Human'[as it would have been ~DAoT time], so again perhaps something more akin to the schemes you use on the smaller Xenos vessel?
Now, , the Demiurg!
Loks nice so far. Though I think I may have overdone the 'little lights' details on my own, I find they really add 'just a bit more' to the Demiurg Vessels, seen here:
It's basically simply 'dabbing' some bleached bone[or another colour that you find works, it's not especially difficult, which is a very good thing IMO] on the little raised 'rectangles'. As they say, Demiurg Ships are heavily automated, so if each of those is, say, some sort of viewing port, only a handful are going to actually have Demiurg working in them, so keeping it sparse[more so than I did] would likely work better.
In addition, I found that before doing the above, if you give them a quick ink wash of, say, Chesnut Ink[whatever works best for you really] gives it a nice 'industrial gritty shine', almost like a very dull brass or copper. As suggested in Armada, go for the 'industrial' look with the Demiurg. They're basically armoured and armed factories, so they should look 'well used'. I'm not a fan of 'unreal' colours on them though. By that I mean having patches of blue, red, green etc on them, but RayB has made them look okay with them[though I'd still repaint them different shades of grey on his models!].
As you said: Extremely old and rusty. It's a good way to go. The little highlighting of the 'lights' on them does alot to alleviate the 'darkness' of them, as does the inkwash[the ink can still catch the light].
Hope that helped!
[If you need a further peek at the ships, with a different angle, they should be here: http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/Xisor/?start=20 ]
Xisor
EDIT: The little 'red' spot in the picture isn't a sign of hypocracy on my part, it's blazing orange painted onto what looks like 'engine' outlets or manouvering thrusters, they can be seen a bit better in this photo:
|
) about some advice as to how to paint my vessels. Here is one picture of them:
(& he knew about it since two MONTHS ago)
??