Dr Leets imperial assault minis

[drleets 35]

Hi all.

 

Have some painting down time today as I'm considering getting some extra colours for the final rebel heroes.  Shot some pics of the minis so far - unfortunately it's night so this is under mixed light.

 

This game and its mini's is the first that really peaked my interest into painting.  I started by following Sorastro's process for pretty much for all of the imperial units - his Guides are highly recommended.  Unfortunately, they are so good they take him ages to make (think original music score, video transitions, etc) so.....

 

Anyway here are the minis and some general thoughts.

 

1.  Stormtroopers

- Although these guys are essentially white, I've found that thinning and layering white paint to be the most difficult.  It seems to me that the pigments broke down (gw white) easier than other colours - I'd get clumps, the paints would be too thick, or it would run everywhere.

- I've avoided coloured shoulder plates to distinguish teams to be most true to the original trilogy.  I've gone with white/grey and red base plate borders instead.

 

 

2.  Probe droids

- These were pretty easy following the guide....

 

 

3.  E-web - a cross between 1 and 2

 

4.  Imperial officers

- Happy how these turned out.  The shading on the skin is a bit flat (everything is so tiny) and I painted over the eyes after my first attempt - they were looking too goofy.

 

 

5.  Imperial guards

- Very happy how these turned out.  A really nice model to learn how to do shade/highlight transitions on as they're all just cloak!  A lesson from these might be to be a bit more careful using washes.  Although these have proven invaluable - you do need to watch where the pigment is pooling - you can see some globs and missed areas towards the base of the minis.  I'd probably use less and repeat a wash again if necessary if I was being more careful.  Truth be told, I'm still too impatient to wait for washes/layers to dry properly.  Also, with layering thinned paints, you won't get a true impression as to how opaque the layer is when you first apply it to the model.  Again, you'll have to wait till they dry.

 

 

6.  Trandoshans

- Wanted these to all be unique.  The right two (urban came and Bossk) are from The Guide.  I'm quite partial to the orange shirted guy (uses GW's Troll slayer orange and fire bright orange).

 

Edited June 29, 2015 by drleets

[drleets 35]

7.  Nexu

- The last of Sorastro's guides.  Used different paints but similar mixed colours in the end.  Probably should put some highlights in the eyes - but otherwise happy with how they turned out.

 

Edited June 3, 2015 by drleets

[drleets 35]

8.  The imperial heroes.

 

Vadar was done from The Guide - so it was the sixth type of mini painted.  Issue I found here was shading black and not making it all look greyish.  This was probably the result of using too thinned paints for the highlights which then ran into the blacks.  Lesson learnt: I think when shading blacks the gradient from black to highlight needs to be less gradual (i.e.: a "broader" area of pure black - with a quick ramp to the highlight colour just toward the tips).

 

So with the Royal Guard Champion I wanted to stick with the card art and use a purple highlight to add some extra dimension to the character.  Couldn't find an example of this on the inter web so here's my attempt.  Went with the "Carnor Jax" colour scheme and used a dark metallic with a purple tinge for the armour plates.  The cloak highlights benefit a  little from my experience with Vadar.

 

IG 88 - not sure how to make this one more interesting.  Rather than duplicate the techniques used for the probe droid/E-web, I just painted a dark metallic base and then added so bronze metallic (you can just mix silver and brown) for the cables and some other bits.

 

IG88 and RGC are yet to be varnished and glazed.  I'm planning on basing all the imperial uniques with dark metallic, the rebel heroes in probably a dark bronze, and the rebel units in a flat brown.  If I'd planned ahead, I might have based the mercenary units differently - but as my group have been predominantly playing the campaign this should be fine.

 

Edited June 3, 2015 by drleets

[drleets 35]

9.  Rebel Heroes

 

These guys just love brown.

 

Started with Gaarkhan (while waiting for the Trandosian guide) as it didn't seem I could go too far wrong on my own.  I just had 2 shades of brown when I painted this one (and black).  Mixed some of the light brown with silver to do the armour plates.  The face could do with some extra dimension.  I think its good enough - so I'll wait for some Guidance before readdressing it.

 

Gideon came after the the RGC and IG88 - had a few more shades of brown at this point.  His cloak is yellower than I wanted (again, compared to the card art) and his skin tone darker.  Again, good enough and I won't be re-doing any of it.  He has eyeballs!  Must be getting more adventurous.  Well, I decided I had to bite the bullet.  There are some good guides on youtube (Doctor Faust's, miniwargaming and others).  Probably should mention at this point that the Game Workshop brushes I bought mid-way through the imperial's are terrible.  The fine brush didn't come to a clean point.  I ended up using a $2 brush from a hardware shop.

 

Diala has eyeballs too - that's the problem with the rebels - they all have skin and eyes!  Admittedly, purple skin is probably harder to make look fake than normal coloured skin, however, the tone I picked is more saturated than I'd have liked and her top, 'skirt' and wraps are too dark after a brown wash.  With the eyes, when I dotted the pupils the whole eye cavity filled with black ink (?should I use unthinned paints for this) but after I sucked it up with a bit of tissue, the dot left behind was pretty much perfect.  So this one was a fluke.  

 

For Jyn - this paint job was okay....  I think I'd like to add more texture to the hair somehow.  I'll wait for more examples on the forums.  She seems to be wearing the Nike's from Back to the Future.  I decided to stick with a brown motif though.

 

These models need to be based, varnished and glossed.  I'll wait to all the heroes are done so I can get a consistent colour on the base - again, probably a bronze.

 

 

That's it for today.  Need to get some greens for Mak.  Chewie, Luke, the guy with the gun are all WIP.

 

Edited June 3, 2015 by drleets

[drleets 35]

10. Fenn and Mak done.

 

[macmastermind 203]

Serious skills, bro.  Wow.  Nice detail...

[Sparkglow 57]

Like your way of painting, keep up the good work. I cant wait for the new expansions, I dont have anymore miniatures to paint now for imperial assault, will have to pick up my space hulk

[drleets 35]

Thanks Guys.  Looking forward to the expansions as well.  I'll have mine on pre-order soon.  In regards to painting them, I suspect C3PO is going to be something new.  Getting good shading on a pure metallic object (shinier than IG88/probe droids/etc) is something I haven't done yet.

 

Here's Han and Chewie:

 

 

Really please with how Han came out.  Doctor Faust paints a Knight series Han mini on his Youtube channel which I highly recommend for guiding colour selection (he uses Vallejo model colours though).  Chewie is pretty much the same as my earlier post, but these guys belong together.

Edited June 20, 2015 by drleets

[drleets 35]

Last of the rebels.

 

Rebel troopers:

 

 

And Saboteurs:

 

 

That's it for wave 1.  Well, except for the AT ST's.  Need some grey primer.  It's been fun learning to paint minis.  Looking forward to the next lot of expansions.

[drleets 35]

An update:

 

Just working on the AT-ST's (the original and Weiss).  Can I just say that GW's typhus corrosion absolutely wrecked the brush I was using.  Truth be told, it was getting toward the worn stage, but still holding its shape.  Afterward its pretty much splayed out all over the place.  Not sure if I was warned....  just glad that this was a $2 brush and I have a back up....

 

So heads up newbie painters.  Would I be safe in saying that a lot of the technical paints - especially those with texture - aren't kind to brushes?

[Jerbiwan 109]

ABSOLUTELY!! I found there is a lot of grit in the typhus corrosion while the paint is fairly thin, giving you a thin but gritty product to work with. My recommendation to any who care to listen is to use cheap brushes on the technical stuff (typhus corrosion, agrellan earth), and with the texture paints (mourn mountain snow, stirland mud) use something like citadel's texture spreader http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/M-Texture-Speader 

 

(my favorite so far has been the agrellan earth. SO MUCH FUN!!)

Edited July 2, 2015 by Jerbiwan

[Kepora 180]

10. Fenn and Mak done.

 

 

Holy crap - someone finally made a GOOD Bothan model?! Which pack did he come in?

[Gullwind 558]

The Core Set.

[drleets 35]

Lol, hope you found your Bothan model Kepora.  I understand FFG are pretty good at replacing missing components .

 

Okay, AT-ST's done.  Not much to say about these apart from the above comments on technical paints and brushes.  More to come once I get the next waves!  My brother has also just bought the 3rd zombicide game and that's looking like over 100 miniatures.... think I'll need to consider faster painting methods.

 

Edited July 11, 2015 by drleets

[ibsh 401]

Sir, your RGC, Fenn, Vader and IG-88 are, in a word, bangin.