Crimson Empire

Well, as I promised earlier, I have now painted my winning Imperial Assault team. It proved to be quite frustrating.

The winning team, in their winning colours.

I used some different techniques mostly because my GW Mephiston Red had dried in the pot. Damn Games Workshop, I almost think they do it on purpose with their crappy paint cans. I have other paints more than a decade old but GW paints seem to last a year at most.

Now that's better!

So I had already sprayed the Royal Guard white and undercoated one pair with Mephiston Red (before it dried out) but I had to come up with something else for the other pair. First I tried mixing my own dark red but it didn't turn out as I wanted so I used Wargames Foundry Wine Stain Red which is a dark purplish red. I then started layering Evil Suns Scarlet on all four figures. To reinforce the shading I went over them with Vallejo Sepia wash, but that turned grey instead of brown in some spots so I had to redo the shading with black instead. Bugger!

Finally I reached a point where I was satisfied. The helmets and gloves were painted directly onto white and pin washed with black to give them a different hue than the cloaks to emphasise the different material. One pair was given black gloves and faceplates to distinguish them from the other pair. This matches the helmet and faceplate on the Champion. After sealing with tamiya flat varnish the helmets and gloves were given a coat of gloss varnish to further make them stand out.

The Royal Guard Champion is from the comic Crimson Empire and is not in any of the films.

The Royal Guard Champion was painted entirely different. Since the cloak and most of the armour would be black I sprayed him chaos black all over. Then all parts that were going to be red were painted Calthan brown. I then just repeated layers of red until I had the effect I wanted. The black areas were highlighted with Foundry Coal Black and the blades were drybrushed GW Ironbreaker. After varnishing the helmet and armour were painted gloss like on the other figures.

These are not the droids you are looking for.

I took the opportunity to prime and paint IG-88 with the probe droid as their paint jobs would be basically identical. Or so I thought. After drybrushing both figures (and the two other probe droids from the base game) I began to look at reference photos for the finishing touches. I realised that the probe droids weren't metal coloured at all but instead a dull matt grey. One of the concept pictures had one that was slightly rusty and grimy with some miscolouring on the top plates. I went over it with first a black wash to darken the metal, then a couple of passes with Typhus Corrosion to grimy it up and followed that up with some dark rust pigments on the top. To finish it I painted all the lenses gloss black.

IG-88 is quite tall, almost reaching up to the probe droid on it's flying base.

On the other hand IG-88 had some faint golden sheen to some of his parts in some photos. Might be the trick of the light, but I decided to mimic that. I painted some random parts of his arms, shoulders, legs and his head with a thin gold and then gave him a wash with diluted Devlan Mud. The weapon was washed black to give it a different sheen. Finally a gentle drybrush of Necron Compound brought out the details. I used red on all the holes in his head (not sure if they are eyes or not) and one of the cables running up the leg. He has a belt across his shoulder which I painted Calthan Brown and washed with Devlan Mud. Both the cables and the belt were originally black in the movie, but they wouldn't have been visible on the model then.

Luke and IG-88 shoot it out in the saloon, sorry, the cantina.

Last all figures were mounted on clear bases as usual. The Probe Droid was given a flight stand attached with magnets on his underside to keep it from breaking off when transported.

The Royal Guard proved problematic again as their robes are cast solid to the base, unlike the rest of the figures where you can just cut under the feet. I had to snip away everything around the robes and then paint the remains black. It means they stand a few millimeters taller than the other figures, but it's not noticable.

...and the final title match is Luke vs the reigning champion!

Phew, I'm almost halfway through my Imperial Assault figures, but I haven't bought everything from the newest releases. And now I don't want to paint red or white for a while. Maybe now is the time to learn that Sumpfmuster 44 pattern in 28mm?

May the force be with You.