The air versions are super thin and designed for air-brushing. I spoke to a chap in the store because I thought the Air version of White Scar might be a nicely pre-thinned white for highlighting stormtroopers, but their resident painting guru didn't think it would work.

3 hours ago, Wolftame said:

Any thoughts on buying Citadel Air over regular Citadel colors? (they are the same price) Pros, cons?
I'm about to order a batch of paints to replace my Vallejos as well as grabbing missing ones, but some of them have 2 weeks shipping time while the air version is in stock.

Thank you, I'll skip them then as I'm having to replace enough just bought, never used, colors due to ill advised "it will do as an alternate" thinking.

@Wolftame I think you could still pull this out as a win. I'd suggest doing a dry brush over the entire figure with your base color. That should do a lot to bring back the lighter/cleaner look, you were probably looking for.

Personally, I like that dirty look, just strategically add some browns and oranges to simulate rust and grime, if you're into that. But try the dry brush first and see how you like it.

Let us know how it went & what you did, and as always: Post pics!

I've been working on the HK droids following Sorastro's video. I found the Steel versions unusually tough going and I am not particularly happy with them, so haven't taken any photos yet, but the Elite figure came out pretty well. That's given me the confidence to try HK-47 later in the week

3 more pics in the album

14 hours ago, udat said:

I've been working on the HK droids following Sorastro's video. I found the Steel versions unusually tough going and I am not particularly happy with them, so haven't taken any photos yet, but the Elite figure came out pretty well. That's given me the confidence to try HK-47 later in the week

3 more pics in the album

Beautiful work, so far I haven't been even remotely happy with any of my work (which is very limited so far).

On 3/7/2017 at 1:01 AM, Force Majeure said:

@Wolftame I think you could still pull this out as a win. I'd suggest doing a dry brush over the entire figure with your base color. That should do a lot to bring back the lighter/cleaner look, you were probably looking for.

Personally, I like that dirty look, just strategically add some browns and oranges to simulate rust and grime, if you're into that. But try the dry brush first and see how you like it.

Let us know how it went & what you did, and as always: Post pics!

Thanks, but I decided to give it a do over (more painting, more fun ). I tried just soaking it for a few days in ordinary household green pine oil soap and it worked perfectly. Model was stripped completely down to primer (that was untouched). Just letting it rinse, dry and then a thin primer refresh and I can start painting it again.

Finished Rancor!

Mine looks more orange because I messed up with the ratios on the Fuegan Orange-Reikland Fleshshade mix. I used 3 parts Fuegan Orange and 1 part Reikland Fleshshade even though it was the other way around in Sorastro's video. But mistakes happen. When highlighting I had to take that extra orange into account and mix in a little bit of Ratskin Flesh into the XV-88-Karak Stone mix. Despite my blunder with the wash, I'm happy how the Rancor turned out.

Oh and my Rancor is truly unique since when I put the greenstuff in, I pushed and tapped the green stuff on the gap on the top of his head with my fingers. So, the beast actually carries my fingerprint now.

Anyway, thanks for the awesome Rancor video, Sorastro. I really enjoyed trying the zenithal highlighting (I used spray cans) and wet blending. Both were very interesting techniques. I also discovered that I still can't drybrush properly.

I think he looks fantastic. The overlapping scales down his back are great, and I really like the shade of the skin on the arms. He also looks quite hard to photograph so he's all in focus at once!

I finished HK-47. I'm reasonably happy with him. Maybe needed one additional highlight layer for a bit more contrast, but good enough to eliminate any meatbags that cross his path.

That completes my squad of HK Droids. Looking at them all together I think they look pretty good, and I was maybe a bit harsh on the Steel guys. They look ok

As usual, click to embiggen.

Looking good udat, I'm actually going to work on my elites tonight after a 5 week break from painting. Any reason why you chose not to do the weathering on the reds? I found that in the video it seemed to add a ton of character, assuming you can get it close to Sorasto's level... which will be my difficult task!

3 minutes ago, FrogTrigger said:

Looking good udat, I'm actually going to work on my elites tonight after a 5 week break from painting. Any reason why you chose not to do the weathering on the reds? I found that in the video it seemed to add a ton of character, assuming you can get it close to Sorasto's level... which will be my difficult task!

Mostly cowardice!

I might give it a try, but I've never been very happy with any of my attempts at weathering (stormtroopers or whatever) compared to the "pristine" versions. The AT-ST came out ok, and boba fett wasn't awful, but generally I've found myself painting over the botched attempts.

Having looked at some screenshots from KOTOR just now, HK-47 is fairly heavily weathered though, so maybe I will give it a go.

Yes I hear you, I feel the same way when I start thinking Oh man so much work now don't screw it up! But if we don't keep practising we won't get better at it

One trick I found with weathering is that Sorastro is great at just going to full detail with his control, but I need to start really small. So I'll do 1/4 of the detail he does on my first pass, then come back to it and add a tiny bit more, and always stop before you think you are done, because by the time I think I am done I have done to much. So it usually ends up being about 60-70% of the detail he has done, but it still looks great on my end and I didn't over due it. I dunno, that works for me most of the time.

Great, working on the General Weiss AT-ST which sadly I had glued both weapon pods onto before painting. I wiggled to see how stuck they were and both broke clean off :/
Guess I now need to get tools and learn how to do pinning.

Echo Base Troopers. I was never sure about any of my colour choices while painting the base colours on these guys - it was only once the wash was on and they were highlighted a bit that I felt they were coming together. Pretty happy with the boots. The ivory tunic just looks white to me, but I can live with it

Took a run at Verena. For the first time ever I didn't botch the eyes! I tried using the Vallejo "pale flesh" colour for the first time but didn't get on with it very well. It's very pale. Maybe ok mixed with Cadian Fleshtone or as a final highlight.

2 hours ago, udat said:

Took a run at Verena. For the first time ever I didn't botch the eyes! I tried using the Vallejo "pale flesh" colour for the first time but didn't get on with it very well. It's very pale. Maybe ok mixed with Cadian Fleshtone or as a final highlight.

Really nice paint. eyes are hard, I doubt I'll ever manage them on any fig.

Well, after being unhappy and stripping my AT-St after my first attempt I'm definitely (but not entirely, of course) more happy with my second attempt.

Nowhere near the quality of most of the other posters here, but it's progressing.
See if I can make General Weiss slightly better.

And a BIG thank you to @Sorastro for inspiration and motivating me to start painting again after 25+ years and also for picking up and starting to play this game.

I think it looks great. One mistake I made was putting to much mud on my AT-ST's feet, makes it look like its covered or was submerged but now sits on top, I like what you did much better. Good job.

Honestly it sounds funny but even just a few tufts of grass add a lot of character to the base.

3 minutes ago, FrogTrigger said:

I think it looks great. One mistake I made was putting to much mud on my AT-ST's feet, makes it look like its covered or was submerged but now sits on top, I like what you did much better. Good job.

Honestly it sounds funny but even just a few tufts of grass add a lot of character to the base.

Yeah, I'm planning to order a selection to use for this and future projects, might also add something else like small pebbles to the base to break up the even surface somewhat.
I just ordered some other tools like model drill etc as I need to pin the weapons to my General Weiss as both pods broke off, which made me think that make drilling out the weapons on this one might be an idea?
Also still considering adding some battle damage (but probably shouldn't tamper to much with it once I'm happy with it).

Yes I just went through a similar dilemma with my HK droids, putting the weathering on or not once I got them looking how I wanted it.. but I took the plunge and it turned out well. As I said above:

One trick I found with weathering is that Sorastro is great at just going to full detail with his control, but I need to start really small. So I'll do 1/4 of the detail he does on my first pass, then come back to it and add a tiny bit more, and always stop before you think you are done, because by the time I think I am done I have done to much. So it usually ends up being about 60-70% of the detail he has done, but it still looks great on my end and I didn't over due it. I dunno, that works for me most of the time.

When I am debating something like this I just think "well if I don't try I won't ever get better at it".

The AT-ST looks good. I think a couple of grass tufts would finish it off nicely. I was much happier with my figure overall once I'd finished the base off with the textured mud and the grass.

Btw, anyone got any idea why flickr is showing "Photo no longer available" for most of my posts? Do the BBCode links they provide time-expire?

On 3/27/2017 at 9:20 PM, udat said:

The AT-ST looks good. I think a couple of grass tufts would finish it off nicely. I was much happier with my figure overall once I'd finished the base off with the textured mud and the grass.

Btw, anyone got any idea why flickr is showing "Photo no longer available" for most of my posts? Do the BBCode links they provide time-expire?

Yeah, I've ordered a few strips of Silor Tufts (the ones suggested in the guide) to add to the base. I also drilled the barrels and I think although a small change it adds to the look.

LoL, the painting looks icky at that distance

On 3/19/2017 at 4:25 PM, Wolftame said:

Really nice paint. eyes are hard, I doubt I'll ever manage them on any fig.

Now that Sorastro has changed the skin techniques to using more layers and no shade paint I've started doing my eyes at an earlier stage (during the base colors rather than a final touch). This allows me to clean them up with a simple reapplication of the base skin color. Then I start to highlight the skin. It seems to be working very well for me.

While on the topic of vehicles I wanted to share my General Weiss paint scheme....

Though you guys make me want to go back and do more with the base.

Since I had an extra weapon remaining from the AT-ST, I used it on my tank as an over the shoulder launcher. I like to think of it as the "Mortar" from Armored Onslaught. For method I used Sarastros: AT-ST video + troopers (Kayne Samos video) + Wampa base technique...