I'm going blind!

I'm going blind, no seriously my minor longsightedness has become if it ain't at least a foot away don't expect me to know what the hell you're showing me. My new glasses(two Newcastle Brown bottle bottoms on a piece of bent welding rod) will be with me by Friday, so we'll see how they are. Work has been really interesting with this as reading fuse sizes in dark cramped boxes does not always leave the required room to make my bog eyes focus( and I was going to start my harlequins we'll give that a bit of adjustment time).
Anyway back to the sporadic flailing with paint and the rebels are finished  yeah, woot, wahoo. man those figures are shite. I hated painted Luke Skywalker thank god for weathering powder it really has become my turd polisher on this project.

Here we go now  my original plan was to do a blow by blow  starting with this picture the figure with the base colours used. Just to be clear Zandri Dust robes, Jack Bone feet.

 So thin wash with Agrax earthshade and then build up the colours again and lighten them, Now on the art Shiala's robe is a reddy brown so I mixed Battlefield Brown with old GW Terracotta which gave me a nice look(I have no idea why they got rid of that colour it was ace and there is no replacement in their range)

 I picked out the wrappings with GW graveyard earth and gradually highlited with GW Bleached bone and white.

Added OSL effects and weathering powder then google auto awesomed it.

 Despite comments I've made she was one of the better ones to paint

Next up Soldier boy and he's done bar the tidying up of the base edge.  Agrax Earthshade here is your friend. The Trollblood Blue with and agrax earthshade wash followed by a thin layer of trollblood blue is pretty much the exact colour on the artwork, infact all the colours on this guy but the flesh are just paint/wash/thin layer/minor highlight. The flesh starts at Khardic flesh then a mix of Ryn flesh and Khardic flesh and finally Ryn flesh.

And here is Luke Skywalker, I hated painting him and I really shouldn't have. I've wanted to paint him since I started painting toy soldiers really. My dad took me to see Star Wars when it was released in Britain and it shaped my life. Now everybody says that Han solo stole the show, but I never wanted to be Han. Hans cool as fuck but he's not a Jedi, he's not Luke Skywalker, that character was and still is my hero nearly 40 years later.When I first saw this figure I thought that is cool the death star hangar scene pose with the storm trooper blaster it looks great. Then when I came to paint him I realised how little detail there is on his face and I went crazy trying to put some character into it. So here he is basecoated GW Desert Yellow is perfect for Lukes hair. The colours below are what I used for basecoats.

I then painted the model with a very light flesh wash sorry can't remember which but it was a GW one.

 I then realised that the gap at the shoulder which I was hoping would fill when I painted him was to big so I had to liquid green stuff him.

There'll be a finished picture of this fella at the end.

Next up the Bothan, I had no idea this guy was supposed to be a bothan only the name gave it away, the descriptions in the expanded universe books always seemed quite feline whereas this guy looks like a paramilitary Larry the fucking Lamb (Mr Inventor may have been trying out an aggression chip god only knows where Dennis the Dachshund is). The colour of the angry goat uniform is pretty much GWs Caliban Green which finally gives me a use for it because it certainly ain't a replacement for Dark Angels Green which I started my mates Dangle army in and then had to beg the internets for any spare pots. This figure then got the Agrax earthshade wash and a green wash on the lens.

At this point I think I just wanted to get through them so there isn't any progress shots.

Next the officer boy who is not Caucasian, I have never painted anything other than white flesh before, mainly because I didn't think I could, I've seen people try before and most with imperial guard and it mainly looks caricature  like and somehow faintly offensive, this is probably some racist paranoia.  So I started with GWs dark flesh and highlighted turned out okay (stop being a moron) the hard colour was the 70s orange  top. this is a very paticular colour from my childhood that has since thankfully been banished to the mists of fashion disasters. After much umming and ahhhing GW  scab red and Blazing orange 50/50 mix is the colour pretty much spot on.

 Ink the crap out of him  and then the usual by the way P3 underbelly blue is perfect for the end of rebel blasters  followed by a thin white highlight.

 Next another refugee from the 70s and, good lord she's not Caucasian too! what are you trying to do to me FFG I may dissolve into a pool of racial guilt aaarrrrrggghhh. (seriously I really got myself wound up over this for no real reason. I'm not a racist, nobody who's opinion I care about is going to think I have purposefully set out to offend a race of people. I know I'm not alone in this ridiculous paranoia so all I can say is get over and paint they're just toy soldiers not a political statement) Anyway now to disparage this figure, although she is not the last one I've posted she was the last one I painted( Blogger and my pictures fell out with each other for a while they seem to be over it now) and I feel there is a clue here to the issues of detail I've harped on about whilst painting these figures, now I started this post two weeks ago then got sidetracked and in the meantime wave 1 is due at my door any day and wave 2 has been previewed an my word has the detail improved on wave 2 that's more like it. Now back to Jyn, she's backwards, I'm not kidding check the art then look at the figure everything that is on the right hand side on the art of her is on the left and vice versa. This is poor sculpting and not paying attention to your source material. Anyway colours in the picture used in pretty much where you see them.

AGRAX EARTHSHADE 

Finished picture at the end now the wookie, there are blow by blow pictures for this fella.

 Ink wash Nuln Oil

 Drybrush highlight

 Then again lighter

 Then again lighter

 And finally at the eyebrows and dome of the head, Don't highlight everywhere with each layer make it patchy to show patterning in the fur.

 Teeth and eyes  teeth bleach bone and highlight in white in lighter mixes doing less of the tooth with each highlight to the points. Eyes paint black then a white dot in each corner, this usually comes out far better than trying to put a black dot in a white eye. I tried doing Luke's eyes he ended up looking like his parents had all been sibling kissers.

 Pick out hthe axe with GW Leadbelcher

 The highlight with a silver I used GW Chainmail.

 Runelord Brass highlight

 Then add a bit of silver to it and highlight at the tips and edges.

 Tidy up edge of base and weather.

 So Here are the finished guys.

The six heroes look okay Luke remains a disappointment.
Now these are done Back to GW and Bile Trolls for my mate these need to be done soon and my glasses have now arrived so Avante.

 And progress

And basing so on we go and now I've looked at these with my glasses on, and man I was blind the detail just screamed at me instead of being there but requiring my magnifying glass light.

These are expensive but they are the shit. Right the next one will be soon. and then wave 1 because I need figures for the Imperial Assault Nationals because we can't use the tokens in the box. And to answer a question that occurred to me as I was typing about the difference the glasses have made no Luke still looks like he's had a stroke because there is no facial definition sculpted on one side of the figure.

Am go'in 'untin

So today's toys are brought to you from the depths of Trandoshan, now I know they are hunters and believe in their personal tally, but I wanted to see if there was any kind of ranking system for the level of hunters and i found, bugger all some basic history between them and the Wookies that they are from a planet in the same system but nowt on their hierarchy, so I made it up what I did notice was that in the cartoons the lower level grunts where in darker colours  and the higher level one where in brighter colours and I came up with this. 

When you start out as a low level hunter you wear the darker camo gear as a sign of your inexperience these are the colours of shame and as you progress you can wear brighter colours as your skills in the hunt surpass the need of such trivial things as camouflage as your prey has no chance of escaping you. Now as Bossk is in yellow with a white vest, and at some point we're bound to get a Bossk figure I didn't want to make the red card troopers that colour, what I have done is make the vest the yellow of Bossk's suit and with the lower level ones I've made their vest the same colour as the elite units suit to show a pattern of promotion in the hunt( pick whatever colours you want for this remember I've made this shit up) And now to pictures.

 I basecoated the whole figure. The skin on both units is P3 Ordic Olive the darker suit is GW Orkhide Shade foundation paint and the vest and suit of the higher level is GW Gretchen Green foundation paint with the elite vest in GW Iyanden Sun foundation paint. Back pack are GW Calthan Brown foundation paint. You can't buy the GW foundation paints anymore but there is a handy conversion chart on there page to the equivalent newer range alternative.The gun is in P3 Thamar Black.

 I then coated the lot in GW Agrax Earthshade

 And then went over the clothing with a thin layer of the base colour and lightly drybrushed  the skin with the P3 Ordic Olive. Try to drybrush against the scales and for each successive coat of drubrush keep to the same direction to build it the shading graduation.

 And from the side

 I then worked solely on the skin hightlight the green by mixing the P3 Ordic Olive with GW Zandri Dust to lighten and give that hint towards the browning of the scales that the more experienced characters seem to have in the clone wars cartoons.

 Steadily lighten them  but make the elite squad lighter  just do this in  lighter and lighter mixes until you're happy with the result.

 Now to the boiler suits the GW Orkhide Shade was mixed with GW Gretchen green to lighten the shade for highlights on the boiler suit.

 I only did two highlight stages as I didn't want to bring the colour up to high. (these are the grunts)

 I then did the vests on the grunts and the boiler suits on the elites at the same time so that they were highlighted in the same colours.  I mixed GW Gretchen Green with GW Nurgling Green in  larger and larger amounts to get the highlighting.

 And lighter

 And lighter

  I then went onto the elite vest which was GW Iyanden Sun highlighted first with a mix of that and GW Bad Moon Yellow  and then by adding P3 Morrow White to the mix

 I did a couple of layers here and there is the link to the Bossk level of Trandoshan(remember this is not how you have to paint them I've made this shit up)

 Now the Eyes where painted black and then using P3 Ember Orange  I filled in either side leaving a small black wedge for the pupil. If this goes wrong you can paint the entire eye yellow and paint a line down the centre. I've also drybrushed the guns with a bit of GW Leadbelcher

 Now the Packs and straps are highlighted first with GW Calthan Brown and Then  mixture of that and P3 Bloodtracker Brown

 These are then further highlighted by adding GW Zandri Dust to the mix till you're happy with the tones.

 Then I picked out the buckles in GW Brass Scorpion and covered the guns with a drybrush of it too. One of the things I did find was that Trandoshan is technologically backward due to embargoes set in  place by the Old Republic and enforced by the Wookies due to their raing and slaving of Kashykk, this meant less shiny metals and more cheap alloys for weaponry and buckles hence the bronze instead of steel.(or star wars equivalents)

 And finally i painted the edge of the base black and weathered them at some point I also painted the moths which was in GW Mephiston Red highlighted with P3 Morrow White. It has been some weeks since I painted these but Blogger and G+ seem to be going through a domestic.

Now I've done this I feel I can get onto the rebels so hopefully I'll have them done this week then it's probably back to 40K for either space clowns(but they're not winning me over yet, which is not good for a codex I've waited 20 years for) Grey Knights (mmmm) or Militarum Temputus Using the Raging Heroes Iron Empire figures that are arriving finally from a kickstarter some time ago. Warhammer is on hold pending retirement due to not actually knowing what the fuck is going on and as good as endtimes has been it has also killed most of my personal armies and backgrounds off( Seriously my Bretonnia lord named and repeatedly killed for all eternity by Heinrich Kemmler, My temple city removed by the a misjudged comet of cassandora, My dark elf pirate last seen mortally wounded being dragged from the field of battle still frothing about Khaine and nothing has bee  said about my snowy bit of Athel Loren but as it is Adjoined to My bit of Bretonnia(Quenelles) It ain't looking good, so we'll see what happens.