Friday 19 September 2014

Manners are their own reward gentlemen!


Another day, another bounty hunter. Even though he's clearly not actually holding that gun, I think this is a great little sculpt (from the first set, Rebel Storm) that I had a lot of fun painting. 

While there have been some duff moments, like the Lizard Dance from The Mandalorian Armor (because yes, it makes perfect sense that a drunk Trandoshan would refer to their ceremonial dance as 'the lizard dance', as that's not ridiculous at all), there are more reasons that I love Bossk:

I'm always a fan of canonically accurate nerd core rap about Star Wars Bounty hunters:



Although he's no Boba Fett, Robot Chicken has shown us that Bossk is a suave, smooth operator:



Who also teaches us that manners are their own reward:



[Tally - 63 vs 36 = +27]

Thursday 18 September 2014

Leia? I hardly knew her!


Oh Leia, the Disney princess we waited so long for...

I had a couple of sculpt options for Leia, but went for this one, sporting the classic 'Danish Buns' 'do. It's a little petite compared to some, but I think it should do just fine. As you can see, painting white is still a pain, and the face was a bit of a nightmare - the sculpts on these bendy figures can vary between fantastic and terrible on the same figure! I did what I could though (including having to completely redefine her nose through the careful application of lines of flesh wash at one point), and so she should look fine on the table!

In other news, I've still got Han, Bossk and a rebel pilot half painted, then I really should get round to prepping a squad of rebel troopers...

[Tally - 62 vs 36 = +26]

Wednesday 17 September 2014

Dark Trooper Phase 2


Having briefly played Star Wars Commander before my attention waned when it turned into another pay-to-win app, I thought one of these lightsaber-resistant robo-meanies would be a good add-on unit for my Imperials. He was surprisingly difficult to photograph for such a straightforward paint job too...

[Tally - 61 vs 36 = +25]

Tuesday 16 September 2014

Death Star Protocol Droid


Like the Gonk Droid, another one that doesn't have the most obvious uses for skirmish wargaming, although I'm sure I read somewhere that these things were stuffed with secret recording devices, which would play nicely in a scenario with Rebels trying to sneak him away from an Imperial base...

[Tally: 60 vs 36 = +24]

Monday 15 September 2014

Let the Wookiee win!

My first painted Rebel miniature is Chewbacca, walking carpet Hero of the Rebel Alliance: 


Although I wasn't originally super keen on the sculpt (having originally planned on picking up either the one from Rebel Storm or the now unavailable Knight Models sculpt), I think he looks quite snazzy now he's gone under the tender ministrations of my paintbrush.

Careful attention was paid to reference pictures of Peter Mayhew in costume in order to ensure that I was able to duplicate Chewbacca's fur markings, using several careful applications of various washes:


That little lump decorating the front of his base was originally a discarded Stormtrooper helmet, but unfortunately the detail was so shallow on the original donor figure that I ended up adding more and more battle damage to it to cover its crappiness that in the end you can barely see what it is...

Tally: 59 vs 36 = +23

Gonk, gonk?

Not much to say about this really, I painted a Gonk Droid (or a GNK Power Droid if we're giving it it's full and proper title):


I've no idea what use it will be for gaming, but it's a cool and very 'Star Warsy' miniature, so I had to include one in the project. Lots of fun was had with washes like GW Typhus Corrosion and scrubbing on chips and scrapes to get it looking good and grubby:


Tally: 58 vs 36 = +22

Scout Trooper finished!



One quick and dirty paint job later, and my converted Scout Trooper Sniper is ready to join the rest of my boys in white in putting down those troublesome rebels:


Which reminds me, I should probably try and turn my attention to basing and painting some opposition for them...

Well, that and sorting out some rules (he says, from a deep pile of reference material):



[Tally: 57 vs 36 = +21]

Thursday 11 September 2014

Scout Trooper Buttplate issues

Finding myself with an hour to myself, I thought I'd best get on with finishing undercoating some miniatures that I was partway through doing at the end of last week. Picking up my brush and pot of Ceramite White, I found myself staring at a miniature that I'd clearly been interrupted in the middle of undercoating, and I recalled that I'd realised that something was missing from my converted miniature - one of these thins is not like the others:


The more eagle-eyed of you will be quick to notice, he's missing a buttplate. Presumably an essential piece of armour, although maybe it's actually a cushion to make those speeder bike rides a little smoother? Whilst I'm not normally a button counter type (as opposed to some that I won't name), I knew that it would bug me if I didn't do something about it, so set about the problem with a little Liquid Green Stuff. Now, my pot of LGS has gone a bit funky, but mashing it about a bit and leaving it to set a little have me a manageable chunk that I could carve into the desired shape:


Yeah, I know, the back of your fingernail probably isn't the best place to carve green stuff with clay shapers and knives, but I'm fairly certain my mother rarely reads this, so if you don't tell I won't either!

After leaving it to set a little more (and dropping it on the floor, inevitably), a little dab of superglue with a cocktail stick later we have a Scout Trooper that's ready for the ball!


Alas, I now need to wait for this to properly dry before I can finish undercoating him and get on wih some actual painting, but them's the breaks...

Saturday 6 September 2014

Primer update

So yeah, Craig from Adventures In Miniature Gaming was right, you really need to shake the bejeezus out of Imperial Primer before using it:


I mean really, really shake it. About twenty seconds in to thorough shaking, it almost felt like something shifted inside the pot and now it's paint consistency rather than wash consistency!

(Don't worry, I haven't missed some bits, I'm planning on applying both black and white undercoats rather than trying to paint white over black and so on)

Tuesday 2 September 2014

Imperial Primer? More like ... Schrimer?

So, trying out the pot of Imperial Primer I picked up the other day, a test splash looks like this:


It's a little thinner than I was expecting, are you supposed to use it to slop into the gaps left after you've applied a spray undercoat? That, or I can use it as a thick dark wash? Hmmm...