Looks very good, especially in the second picture. Did you go for the stripe in the end?

No, I decided against the stripe. Didn't want to risk messing up the gun holster area.

After doing so well with Han, I decided to paint Leia (along with starting a second group of stormtroopers and imperial officers that I bought simply because I wanted to paint them; officers are fun, and easy).

She isn't turning out as well as Han. In fact, this pic is a little out of date because I had to redo her face.

Boomer's paint conversion tables are awesome and saved me a lot of work and thinking, but I have to say that Citadel's Kislev Flesh is NOT Vallejo's pale flesh. I was running out of pale flesh so I picked up some Kislev, and it's much darker. I had to repaint Leia's face to get the pale look that I think was most appropriate.

In retrospect, I wish I had used Kislev on Han. He shouldn't be quite so pale as an imperial or Leia.

You can see the difference here, sort of, with the imperial officer and Leia in one of the pics.

Well, I blew Leia.

A couple of things went wrong with this painting job. The first was I used the wrong flesh color initially. I used hot water to basically strip off the paint from her face and then re-did it with Vallejo pale flesh, but it never looked very smooth. My attempts to use a wash and then touch up only made it look worse. Now, she obviously looks like she's had a horrible day putting on make-up.

Flesh is tough to paint, for whatever reason. The paint never seems to go on as smooth as other colors and when you try to touch it up, it doesn't blend well with prior coats. I'm not sure why that is. Basically, if I don't get it right the first time (as I did with Han or the imperial officer), it doesn't seem to ever look very good.

The other mistake I made was using too heavy of a wash. You obviously need some kind of a wash on her jacket and pants to get shading in all the little nooks and crannies. But mine came out too dirty. And you can't really highlight it away on the jacket at least because of the criss-cross pattern.

Basically, my Leia looked better after I put on base colors and much worse when "finished." That's the opposite of my experience with Han.

img hosting

I'm seriously thinking of stripping everything off her and trying again. She looks better in-person than in these close-up pictures, but I think I can do better.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

It's usually easier the second time around.

I'm still on the fence about Leia, so I've moved on to another Imperial Officer and my favorite looking Imperial Assault mini, Saska Teft.

I'm very pleased with myself on the base coat for Saska. She's kind of hard with the goggles and the little belts, but I think did a reasonable job. And I had to mix her hair color myself so we will see how this turns out. I also mixed a new skin tone by combining Kislev Flesh with Vallejo pale to make something slightly less white than the Vallejo.

I'm going to be very cautious about the washes I apply.

Officers are just so easy. They are a major ego boost when painting flesh.

Edit: Post a light wash on both.

are you sure you're a novice? these look pretty good.

Thanks!

These are the first miniature people I've ever painted. Prior to this, I had only ever primed mini starships for Star Fleet Battles.

Honestly, learning how to do a proper wash can make anyone look pretty good. The wash covers up a lot of mistakes.

Washes are like a painter's WD-40 or duct tape. Always useful and usually all you need for magical results...

Great work, JScott!

I've found that as far as shading goes you can get uniform good results by painting with the base color, add 50/50 black to the color and then add a matching volume of water to paint to add to it for a shade, then drybrush the base color on again, then take the base color add like 20/80 white/base color as finale drybrush.

and it's quick. The hardest parts that I really admire people for is free-handing and painting facial details. I've recently had pretty good success painting faces by shaving a toothpick with a razor blade to paint things like eyes one small thin drop at a time. A shaved toothpick is also v good for black lining.

I miss painting these miniatures. They are much easier than Star Destroyer-type ships.

Washes on people / suits of armor are very forgiving. Washes on starships with panels can be a nightmare if they smudge. I just haven't gotten the knack of it.

Maybe I will buy Legion miniatures to paint (no interest really in the game, I don't think).

Here is the sum total of all my painting efforts. It's mostly stormtroopers.

I definitely petered out and didn't finish all my sets (I have jump troopers, assassin droids, sand people, etc. left unpainted). I really loved painting most of these. Stormtroopers are quite frustrating.