As the first step toward getting into IA, I figured the minis had to get painted. Painting the Stormtroopers was probably the biggest pain. I almost gave up on them and just used the pre-painted Wizards of the Coast minis, instead, but looking at them, I figured that if I could at least line my paint up better than the mass produced versions, it'd at least be a minor improvement, especially given the superior quality sculpts from FFG.

I have to give credit to Sorastro for inspiration on the lightsaber painting, especially, and in general helping to get me motivated to paint the models...

These have all been done with simple craft paint from Walmart, mind you, so any defects can be blamed on that. I live far from game shops and was admittedly too impatient to wait and order some Vallejo or Army Painter stuff online. Besides, I'd had enough success with the Walmart stuff for Zombicide, so it apparently works...

Test post to see if Imgur link works....

Impressive minis! Nice to see that one can produce amazing results using Walmart paint!

- Another clear base enthusiast! If you have any tips/feedback about them, feel free to comment in the thread I started here:

- I’d love to know where you purchased the probe droid flight stand bases and what type of glue you used to pin the minis to the clear bases (The Inquisitor has a cleaner look around the feet area compared to Vader so I’m just wondering if you were experimenting with different glues, was there a difference with amount of glue, etc.)

- Love the red glow and markings on the AT-ST, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that done before!

- The officers are looking super smooth , I hope mine turn out just as good!

- If you’re looking for an alternative method to mark your minis on clear bases, a reddit user used a sharpie and some gloss varnish around the edge of the base. You can see a picture of it here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ImperialAssaultTMG/comments/5w90hj/a_small_tip_for_acrylic_bases_and_lightsabers/

The Inquisitor was done with Craftics #33 cement, available from Applied Perspective. Same guys I got the probe droid bases from. It's a good, clean cement, but a pain to work with. Dries to unusable quickly, and tends to produce "strings". Vader was a standard, gel control super glue.

From my experience, craft is paint absolutely fine to start of with, I've painted plenty of models with it. Iv'e only done one so far with citadel paint and the results were definitely better, but again, craft paints works fine, its how you use use it that matters. Also, despite using craft paints, your stuff really, really good, far better than anything I've done.

I really am an amateur, I only started painting with imperial assault, so anything I say really might be rubbish.

55 minutes ago, Moeaswordusrex said:

From my experience, craft is paint absolutely fine to start of with, I've painted plenty of models with it. Iv'e only done one so far with citadel paint and the results were definitely better, but again, craft paints works fine, its how you use use it that matters. Also, despite using craft paints, your stuff really, really good, far better than anything I've done.

I really am an amateur, I only started painting with imperial assault, so anything I say really might be rubbish.

We all have to start somewhere, and the work you've posted on your own thread looks a good deal better than rubbish. You painted up a pretty fine Rodian, and the eye work is really cool, not to mention great attention to detail and source material.

I started on Star Fleet Battles and FASA Star Trek models, so there isn't a lot of carry-over in terms of skills, save in a very broad sense. Starships, especially the Star Trek ones, don't take nearly as much shading and weathering as character minis, like Imperial Assault, Warhammer, etc.

7 hours ago, MarekMandalore said:

We all have to start somewhere, and the work you've posted on your own thread looks a good deal better than rubbish. You painted up a pretty fine Rodian, and the eye work is really cool, not to mention great attention to detail and source material.

I started on Star Fleet Battles and FASA Star Trek models, so there isn't a lot of carry-over in terms of skills, save in a very broad sense. Starships, especially the Star Trek ones, don't take nearly as much shading and weathering as character minis, like Imperial Assault, Warhammer, etc.

Haha, cheers, I was definitely more happy with my greed than other minis, but I still don't think hes great.

I should really of mentioned I actually did give painting a few x wing ships a go, and yes you are definitely right, painting character minis is a lot more difficult, though in my opinion more fun.

First: There's absolutely nothing wrong with just starting to paint, quite the contrary. Or as Yoda famously put it: Do, or do not. There is no try! That's what I'm always telling people who want to know how to become a better painter - just start painting, and the rest will come eventually if you keep going and start to experiment.

As for the paints used: I like what you've achieved with the walmart paints. Nevertheless, I can only urge you to eventually invest in paints specifically manufactured to paint miniatures. They have smaller pigments and a higher density of pigments. You can dillute them and still get a good coverage, and this is the first tip I'd give to any beginner: Dilliute your paints, and apply them in thin layers. You will get very smooth results, it's much easier to fix mistakes, and you will naturally come to discover the multitude of effects and techniques that come with transparent layers of colour - glazing, blending, layering, and utilizing pre-shading, to name a few examples.

At the end of the day, however, the goal is to have fun with it.

2 hours ago, Fourtytwo said:

First: There's absolutely nothing wrong with just starting to paint, quite the contrary. Or as Yoda famously put it: Do, or do not. There is no try! That's what I'm always telling people who want to know how to become a better painter - just start painting, and the rest will come eventually if you keep going and start to experiment.

As for the paints used: I like what you've achieved with the walmart paints. Nevertheless, I can only urge you to eventually invest in paints specifically manufactured to paint miniatures. They have smaller pigments and a higher density of pigments. You can dillute them and still get a good coverage, and this is the first tip I'd give to any beginner: Dilliute your paints, and apply them in thin layers. You will get very smooth results, it's much easier to fix mistakes, and you will naturally come to discover the multitude of effects and techniques that come with transparent layers of colour - glazing, blending, layering, and utilizing pre-shading, to name a few examples.

At the end of the day, however, the goal is to have fun with it.

Cheers,

That's some solid advice. Iv'e often struggled with thinning paints, just because I either haven't thinned it enough or Iv'e thinned it too much.

The thing with lower quality paints is that you need to work harder for your accomplishments, I would always recommend good paints to people starting out just for that reason - improvements are so much easier to achieve and motivation therefor more readily available. Your work is very solid, I especially like the royal guards and AT-ST. And your Vader! You have the potential for a large leap in quality using better paints.