Pafetikbazerka’s bad kitty and other Imperial nasties

over zenithed undercoat I’ve painetd all my dark areas a thin coat of citadel eshin grey and all the red areas a thin coat of mephiston red and added some basic highlights by lifting the mephiston with a little evil sunz scarlet.

I found the process of relying on washes a bit unsettling. I can take quite  few washes before things start looking like it should and though there isnt much brush time there is a lot of waiting for stuff to dry. I only used 3 washes , a black, a purple and a dark brown red and had to do wash wash moring , lunch, and night when I was home to do so.

Finishing touches include new base, some selective dry leadbelcher knocked back with a black wash and some selective gloss varnish in keeping with shiny Starwars feel.

Officaly table top ready for next few missions this weekend.

Could go on with a few minor details but sometimes its nice to have a reason to come back and revist.

So Australia is known for being hot in summer but the one that officaly ended today has been its hottest on record, and I’m still sitting expecting 35deg + days this weekend. Hence most painting attemps have ground to a halt as even with a wet pallet, paint dries on minis so fast its unworkable.

However the previous 2 weeks had provided some mild evenings so I got cracking on finishing my core box. I still have the ‘Hoth’ and ‘Jabbas’ box to go so this project is by no means finished but it will go on hold as I’ll probably move on to some Conan minis for a bit as soon as the curent heat wave has passed

Honestly , finding black on black a bit challenging. Seems less forgiving,  like any inconsistencies in blending  stand out against the deepest blacks.   I’m going to try a few more passes tomorrow see if I can get my ‘table top’ standard and hope the matt finish settles him down a bit

I think I’ve heard it said before that there’s an issue with people rushing the towards the end of their projects as they see the end and want to get it done with. My rush is probably more to do with other projects (damn you Spacehulk!) but I still feel I’m meeting my table top standard and I feel my eyes have improved a bit.

I think some of the layering could be better but not so much better it will make a difference on the table.

Not quite batch painting. Just focusing on Gideon and the wookie and spreading some love when I hit a colour on the pallet that looks useful.

So it turns out weekends are good for few things. 1 of those is painting minis while listening to the Weekender Chat show.

Trandoshan Hunters done with a series of glazes, a little drybrush, and some intervening washes.

Been struggling to find much time lately but chippin’ away, even if its only half an hour a day, it does help things progress. With E-web engineers complete there now only the Trandoshan Hunters and the Heroes to complete the starter box.

Not much time for painting this weekend, had to take take the kids to the local -con. But my 1.5mm bases arrived from Litko. Unfortunately I couldn’t ship their glue overseas so I’m trying the 2 most likely from my local store. I’l give a day before strength testing but I’m already happy with my choice to go clear.

Simple metallic 3/4 dry brush, wash and a few details. I think these things could paint themselves.

Edit: BTW I’ve been quite conscious of effect of matt v semi gloss, v gloss on this project. The original 3 movies use gloss and lighting for remarkable statements and I’ve endeavoured to maintain that flavour. These droids actually have several layers of gloss on the lenses instead of the typical highlight. I’m certainly ok with painted reflections and highlights but subject matter wanted something different.

Thought I would try my hand at under shading these. So after a dark wash I brushed on some citadel Wild Rider Red. And though I didn’t quite get the contrast or tonal variation I was hoping for it did kind of work with airbrushing the citadel Evil Sunz Scarlet over.

One thing that I always picture when I think of Imperial Officers is that line created by the double breasted tunic running down the right side so I took a sharp wood carving knife and carefully scraped in little step to accentuate where the tunic comes across.

I’ll probably adjust the ranking bars on the left breast as well to give a little more presonality. 1 of them will be a higher ranking officer in grey with red and blue bars , the other 2 officers will be in black with a single blue bar.

So I added some shading with blue wash then a few more passes with a ceramic white glaze and I’m ok with the look from a gaming distance but I think I over did the matt base in my glaze and probably didn’t thin my layers quite enough. The finish looks a little rough when say, zoomed in for photos etc.

Maybe a gloss base for my glazes would have been easier in long run, but I figure I can still gloss them and decide from there. Another clear coat or two will only protect them from here.

As for the squad colour I decide to give them coloured cogs on their shoulders which is enough to identify if I lose track but doesn’t detract from the uniformity that is the Stormtrooper en-masse.

So I’m looking at stromtrooper reference material and seeing 2 stand out issues.

1. Stomtroopers are clean and shiny which I’m thinking is ok if it was just 1 or 2 minis coz I can spend some real time blending shading and actually making them look interesting but I have a few to paint and nee to get through them quickly.
2. It seems more or less standard to indicate some sort of squad colour either via bases or as coloured shoulders or banding but I’ve already ordered clear bases and feel the other options detract from how a ‘typical’ storm trooper should appear

So I decide I need a balance between clean with a little definition and throw down a black wash first to bring up the detail then go in with a off-white ‘almost’ dry brush. This is where many of the the mouldings imperfections started appearing. But not really having the time I just dealt with them as I went along.

At some point I felt I had overdone the dry brushing so gave them a quick spray of gloss followed by a dilute wash before I started glazing on ceramic white