Painting Bossk – Star Wars Legion

The model was first primed with Halfords Camouflage Khaki Spray Paint. I find this is a great base colour to start from and it has become my go to undercoat of late. I began by dry brushing Skull White over the waistcoat section of Bossk’s flight suit. I also gave a lighter dry brush to the rest of the suit as I hoped it would act as a pre-shade/zenith to the yellow that would come next.

The yellow I used was Averland Sunset from GW’s Base colour range. As Base paints are designed to go over any colour my pre-shade probably wouldn’t work as well as I’d hoped so I thinned the paint down with a little Warpaint Mixing Medium from Vallejo. In hindsight I may have been better off painting the yellow first, doing the white dry brush over that and then applying a second, thinner layer of yellow. 

I used GW Mechrite Red mixed with a little Evil Sunz Scarlet on the collar and eyes to act as a base colour.

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about building an army for Legion is the wealth of reference that is available. I have found the miniatures to be very faithful to the movie characters and I’ve tried to replicate this with my painting. Though a little blurry, I found the full length image of the Bossk costume below really helpful.

Moving on to the black edging sections of the flight suit I decided to use a dark grey that I would wash over with black, rather than starting with black and trying to highlight it. To this end I used Vallejo German Field Grey darkened with a little Nuln Oil. I also used this colour on the Dioxis Grenade.

Bossk’s signature Relby V-10 Grenade Launcher, was painted with Abbadon Black.

Once this had dried I dry brushed Lead Belcher over the Grenade Launcher and Grenade as well as picking out the spare ammo on the belt and legs. I also used Lead Belcher on the metal buckles and connectors of the flight suit.

At this point I noticed that some of the webbing should be grey, rather than white. I darkened the four straps with Vallejo German Green Grey and went back over the white section with some thinned down Skull White to ensure it contrasted.

I use washes a lot in my painting. I find it is a really quick and simple way to add shading and adjust the tone of base colours. Here I’ve used GW Gryphon Sepia on the flight suit to shade and enrich the yellow. The areas I painted in grey and lead belcher in the previous step were now given a coat of Nuln Oil. The belt was given a wash of Agrax Earth Shade.

Moving onto the skin (scales?), I decided that the Kahki Spray would be a pretty good base for Bossk’s skin tone. I had made a mess in places, so first I had to tidy up using Vallejo German Camo Beige. This colour is a near perfect match for the Khaki base coat. Once this was done I used an old pot of GW Thraka Green to wash all the areas of flesh. It was the only green wash I had to hand and is a little vivid for what I am working towards but I figured I could address this with my next steps.

You can see in the above image that the stones on the base have been painted Vallejo German Camo Pale Brown.

The rest of the base has been given a thick coat of Armageddon Dust (GW Texture). It’s still wet in the photo but will dry to a sandy texture.

Returning to the skin I used a wash of Gryphon Sepia to take the green tones back towards brown and add further depth and variety to the shading. The base, having dried, was given a wash of Agrax Earthshade. I continued this wash around the rim of the base as the primer looks quite dry and stark on its own. When tackling surfaces that are flat and very matt I have found mixing a drop of Vallejo Wash Mix Medium really helps give an even finish to the wash.

Once the previous washes were completely dry I used a Screaming Skull dry brush to bring out the texture of the base. I then used a fine brush to paint Screaming Skull onto the teeth and the claws of the hands and feet.

From my references I noticed that Bossk’s eyes are actually orange and have a horizontal pupil running across them. I wouldn’t normally go into so much detail but the sculpting of this model is quite bold and makes for easy painting. I began by thinning some Abaddon Black with a little Medium to aid the flow and painted the pupil shape as best I could at such a small scale. As I didn’t have an orange paint I mixed Averland Sunset with a drop of the Evil Sunz Scarlet and outlined over the pupil. I left the area below the pupil red as it was getting quite fiddly and I felt the top highlight was doing the job!

I continued with the Averland Sunset, thinned quite heavily with the paint medium, and picked out the highest creases of the flight suit.

Returning to the scales I used Vallejo German Camo Orange Ochre applied almost as a dry brush by working against the direction of the scales.

The buckles and fixings were given a highlight of GW Ironbreaker and the Grenade Launcher was given a light dry brush. I used a second wash of Agrax Earthshade to further darken the belt and also tone down the metallics on the Grenade Launcher. Once I had the Agrax on the pallet I used it to shade a couple of areas, notably the junction between Bossk’s claws and skin as well as the skin and flight suit. I also gave the grey webbing straps a thin wash to settle them into the yellow suit  

Returning to the scales I used a 50/50 mix of the German Camo Orange Ochre and the German Camo Light Beige, applied sparingly and focusing on the most raised areas ( I spent the last couple of years painting Axis troops, hence all the German uniform colours in my pallet)!

Finally A thin wash of Gryphon Sepia across the scales and claws helped to even out the skin tone and pull everything together.

The large rocks on the base were washed with Ogryn flesh to bring back the red tone and a couple of sprigs of grass from a GW basing set have been added. This has become the convention for basing all of my Legion models.

Here is a shot of the finished miniature. Thanks for following my project. I hope you’ve enjoyed it!