2024 Painting Log

Finally, Darth Vader enters the Shatterpoint continuum. This batch of figures wasn’t all that interesting to paint, being as monochromatic as they are, but at least they were quick. I did use blue rather that grey for Vader’s highlights, but the most exciting bits were the Trooper Sergeant’s shoulder pad and Vader’s lightsaber. This is a problem that isn’t going to go away, especially as the game delves further into the classic trilogy, so a challenge will be to start finding ways to make single-color characters more interesting. The characters from Rebels should provide some relief from that, but they almost go too far in the other direction.

This time I did the bases first instead of leaving them for last, which was the right move. When drybrushing the figure it’s a lot easier to avoid “splashing” onto the base (as opposed to the reverse), and it was nice to finish each figure and not have to go “oh wait, I still need to do the base.”

These were done almost entirely with drybrushing over a base color. For the troopers my base coat was a little too light, so I got a chance to experiment with some wash medium that I bought last year but never got around to using. I mixed a warm grey wash to darken them up just a bit, then drybrushed white over that. I used Speedpaint black for the armor gaps and weapons.

I honestly can’t remember why I bought the Lead by Example set — it certainly wasn’t because I wanted to paint more clones. I’m hoping that if they do any more of the prequel-era Jedi Masters for Shatterpoint, they stop putting them in sets with more clone troopers. There is a Jedi Council set coming soon that looks to buck the trend, so here’s hoping.

The clones were done the same way as Vader’s stormtroopers (in fact, I did them first to get the technique down). For the dark grey decorative bits of armor I used Gravelord Grey Speedpaint.

Plo Koon and Ahsoka started out with black primer followed by brown drybrushing, then the usual base color – wash – drybrush. I sometimes think I rely too much on drybrushing, so for Ahsoka I decided to try painting in the shadow areas and highlights, and only drybrushed the green lightsaber glow. I think it looks pretty good, and I did like having more control over where the paint goes. I will probably experiment further with this style on the next batch, especially the Rebels crew.

2024 models painted so far: 144, for 5 different games