I finished Palpatine yesterday. I will post a picture in a few hours when I'm back from work.

As promised, here's my Emperor Palpatine I finished yesterday. After all the details I had to get right on Ahsoka, the Emperor was a walk in the park with his long flowing robes and lack of lots of intricate detail. After the robes were done, I concentrated on getting the face right with his small evil yellow-red sith eyes and his grimacing expression.

I also started painting two Royal Guards to accompany Palpatine. The trick here is to get across the different surface textures of the matt red robes and the highly reflective smooth helmets. Since I always varnish my minis matt and do not use gloss varnish any longer, I had to simulate the reflective nature of the helmets by carefully painting thin reflective lines across the curves of the edges and painting on some stark glints simulating a light-source directly above the mini. I hope to have both finished, soon:

You are ridiculously good. All your miniatures are stunning.

can only hope that my Emperor turns out anywhere near like this one.

and maybe then I start to look at my 9 mithril Nazgul. they would certainly profit from a robe well done.

I'll be looking to your Emperor for inspiration when it comes time for me to paint my own!

Are you planning on getting Star Wars Legion when it’s released? I would love to see you paint those.

40 minutes ago, Jabby said:

Are you planning on getting Star Wars Legion when it’s released? I would love to see you paint those.

I'm confident that Legion is a great game, but when it comes to Star Wars and Star Wars minatures games, Imperial Assault is exactly what I love: Character-focused and very narrative, something a more troop-focused tabletop wargame cannot bring to the table or exploit to its fullest. Star Wars to me is at its heart about the conflict between interesting and unique characters, with epic battles between 'faceless' troops and starfighters and any such stuff as the backdrop at most, certainly not as the focus.

Speaking of unique characters: Today I finished painting Drokkatta, the second to last member of my 'Team Fulcrum' - a team of specialized Rebel operatives centered around Ahsoka. Next I will paint Ko-Tun Feralo who will complete my first fully painted skirmish team for Imperial Assault.

On 28/10/2017 at 1:27 PM, Fourtytwo said:

I'm confident that Legion is a great game, but when it comes to Star Wars and Star Wars minatures games, Imperial Assault is exactly what I love: Character-focused and very narrative, something a more troop-focused tabletop wargame cannot bring to the table or exploit to its fullest. Star Wars to me is at its heart about the conflict between interesting and unique characters, with epic battles between 'faceless' troops and starfighters and any such stuff as the backdrop at most, certainly not as the focus.

Speaking of uniue character: Today i finished painting Drokkatta, the second to last member of my 'Team Fulcrum' - a team of specialized Rebel operatives centered around Ahsoka. Next, I will paint Ko-Tun Feralo who will complete my first fully painted skirmish team for Imperial Assault.

To each his own. I just thought that with your painting skill the miniatures in Legion would look great.

Just now, Jabby said:

To each his own. I just thought that with your painting skill the miniatures in Legion would look great.

Well, I do not rule out that I might paint a few minis from Legion if fancy strikes me.

On 28/10/2017 at 1:31 PM, Fourtytwo said:

Well, I do not rule out that I might paint a few minis from Legion if fancy strikes me.

You could always mix the two and do character based story stuff with legion minis and imperial assault characters.

Here's a little update on the progress of my Ko-Tun Feralo. When she s painted and varnished, I'll have finished my first skirmish team!

Finally, I have my first team for skirmish-mode all painted:

I will post a picture of the finished Ko-Tun Feralo on my day off tomorrow. Have fun!

Holy Guacamole!

Teach me master, so that one day I may be as good.

Absolutely brilliant work to all of the above.

I hope I can achieve an Emperor that great!

The first 20 points for my Emperor Palpatine skirmish Team are finished:

Next I'll finish my new three stormtroopers, an imperial officer, and the AT-DP will complete the 39 points Team.

On 8/29/2017 at 7:34 PM, Fourtytwo said:

Thanks!

Sure. I will make a photographic tutorial, propably with Ahsoka once she is delivered, or with one of the heroes from the HotE-expansion. I've also ordered Maul - both he and Ahsoka would make excellent examples for showing how to do patterns on faces on such small figures.

Have you made this video yet? I'd love it if you made videos on how to paint all of your minis.

On 10/21/2017 at 2:01 AM, Fourtytwo said:

I finally finished painting my Ahsoka. I'm very happy with how she turned out.

Fudge, dude. Fudge I wanna cry, it's so beautiful.

On ‎07‎.‎11‎.‎2017 at 10:02 AM, Lumberjack Nick said:

Have you made this video yet? I'd love it if you made videos on how to paint all of your minis.

I don't make videos - creating a decent and informative video takes time, which I'd rather spend painting and playing the game. Sorastro has already done a lot of excellent videos which are especially directed at beginners of the painting hobby. Even a photographic tutorial takes time, which I don't want to spend on that at the moment. I won't rule out the possibility of me doing such in the foreseeable future, though.

A few days ago, I finished my AT-DP and the new group of stormtroopers. I also finished the imperial officer today, but I still have to seal it with matt varnish tomorrow and will post a picture of my second skirmish team centered around Palpatine then. Now I've finished a rebel skirmish team with Ahsoka and an imperial team with Palpatine - next will be a team centered around Maul, although I will have to think a bit about it to make it fit the character, since Maul is a bit of a loner.

On 10/23/2017 at 9:05 AM, Fourtytwo said:

As promised, here's my Emperor Palpatine I finished yesterday. After all the details I had to get right on Ahsoka, the Emperor was a walk in the park with his long flowing robes and lack of lots of intricate detail. After the robes were done, I concentrated on getting the face right with his small evil yellow-red sith eyes and his grimacing expression.

I also started painting two Royal Guards to accompany Palpatine. The trick here is to get across the different surface textures of the matt red robes and the highly reflective smooth helmets. Since I always varnish my minis matt and do not use gloss varnish any longer, I had to simulate the reflective nature of the helmets by carefully painting thin reflective lines across the curves of the edges and painting on some stark glints simulating a light-source directly above the mini. I hope to have both finished, soon:

Why don't you use varnishing in gloss?

I've only painted two minis so far and currently working on my third (all three of which are stormtroopers). The first two I followed Sorastro's video on painting them. For the third I tried your guide out. I used 'Ardcoat as the final step for the first two just as Sorastro suggests. For this third one as it nears completion I've noticed that I don't know how I feel about the glossy finish of 'Ardcoat on the previous two. I'm not sure if it's something in the way that it interacts with the Nulan Oil or what it is. Maybe I should only use it on the highlighted areas rather than the entire trooper?

At any rate, just curious why you choose not to gloss your troopers' armor. I want to decide if I want to keep using it or not.

First of all: There's nothing wrong with using gloss varnish as an effect on your minis. Also, when I used gloss varnish before (as on specific elements on Vader when I started painting the IA-minis), I always used it on the raised areas and surfaces, never on the recesses, so your guess regarding that is spot on. Gloss varnish in recesses can result in stark reflections of light in areas you want to be dark.

The reason I do not use gloss varnish but exclusively a matt varnish which also conserves the original saturation of the colours and why I paint effects like reflections and glints is purely a matter of the art style I chose and prefer for my Star Wars minis - it's the same reason why I don't use metallic colours, either. I like to control where light reflects from surfaces and elements which are suposed to be metallic and/or glossy, and I also enjoy creating such effects through colour alone. That's it.

21 minutes ago, Fourtytwo said:

First of all: There's nothing wrong with using gloss varnish as an effect on your minis. Also, when I used gloss varnish before (as on specific elements on Vader when I started painting the IA-minis), I always used it on the raised areas and surfaces, never on the recesses, so your guess regarding that is spot on. Gloss varnish in recesses can result in stark reflections of light in areas you want to be dark.

The reason I do not use gloss varnish but exclusively a matt varnish which also conserves the original saturation of the colours and why I paint effects like reflections and glints is purely a matter of the art style I chose and prefer for my Star Wars minis - it's the same reason why I don't use metallic colours, either. I like to control where light reflects from surfaces and elements which are suposed to be metallic and/or glossy, and I also enjoy creating such effects through colour alone. That's it.

Gotcha! Thanks for the response! This helps out a lot. As I'm only three minis deep, I'm trying to figure out my own style. I think I'm going to try the gloss out on the raised areas to see how it looks, or if I want to head in the direction you take with painting the lighting effects.

Thanks again!

It's been interesting to watch what people have been doing with IA paintjobs. For the most part I think Legion won't allow for this level of quality. When you need to get 50 toys painted up, you can't put the same time into them. And you don't need to, cause they can hide in a crowd of 50.

Then again, if the Legion minis are bigger than the IA ones, that brings it's own batch of painting issues too.

holy crap. this stuff is amazing

Thanks, guys!

Yesterday, I finished my second skirmish team:

12 hours ago, Fourtytwo said:

Thanks, guys!

Yesterday, I finished my second skirmish team:

love it. i feel the AT-DP could use some decal colours. i found the yellow stripes worked well on mine.