DEWBACKS

The long wait might have given me a little too much time to overthink the color scheme.

Usually, I find some subtle way to differentiate one Legion unit from another on the table, but this time - I decided one of the Dewbacks should just be some other lizard completely.

Here's the standard Dewback with a dirty Sandtrooper mount:

The alt started out as a Blue Tree Monitor - but those have black markings against the blue gradient, which just don't show up very well.

So I went back to the drawing board and found this guy - the Parson's Chameleon:

So he ended up a hybrid. And instead of a dirty, weathered Sandtrooper, he got a parade mount, with shiny new Stormtrooper armor. Not canon, but easy to tell them apart!

And with the 4 loadouts on 2 mounts, I had to magnetize everything..

@ Outerpop:

Wow! The green dewback is nice but the sand/blue one is spot on. I think that's the most cool one I've seen! I'm definitely gonna use that as a base color for my own. Nicely done! 🦎

Respectfully,

Gunny 🎨

DARTH TYRANUS

There's not much to say about Dooku other than it's a really great sculpt. The facial details are spot on, and the whole time I was painting him, it made me sad to think that Christopher Lee isn't around anymore. Hats off to the Legion/FFG sculpting team, because they are really knocking it out of the park!

Some subtle OSL on his hands, cape and pants - and then a liberal application on the dirt

Dooku looks great!

DESTROYER DROIDS

I'm still not sure whether I think the rolling alts are worth building or not. It's a nice gesture for FFG to have thoughtfully included them though!

That signature color gradient from copper to blue/purple made these perfect candidates for Color-shift paints. Unfortunately, the nature of those paints makes them less than perfect subjects for photography. Green Stuff World's "Nebulae Copper," is the perfect color.

And then I found these clear craft ornaments in the clearance bin of Michaels right after Christmas, and they looked like they might fit over a Destroyer Droid....

And they do - although the clear ball makes the Destroyers so big, which is going to have LOS ramifications.

Now that I know they will work as shields, I'm going to experiment with some colors. The sphere needs something like that subtle blue energy grid, or else this just looks like a Droideka Ornament, so I'll see if I can airbrush it on.

I’ve been a bit AWOL from this site, but I have to say, your Dewbacks are incredible. I especially love the blue one. When you produce an alternate color you run the risk of having it both diverge from the Star Wars look and not come off as a well executed paint scheme, so it’s doubly risky. But this absolutely nails both. It’s fantastic.

Thank you Andy!

As you can see, I'm not very comfortable jumping off of canon. I love Legion for a number of reasons, and very high on that list is making a miniature Star Wars universe. I have other games and painting projects that can be blank canvases, but Star Wars is sacred, and I want everything to look like it's part of that universe.

So, when I have to shift and do something purely creative with a Legion unit, I get very nervous. That Dewback wasn't a shift, that was a complete fabrication of reality, (fictional, far far away, or otherwise, ) so I'm really thrilled to hear that it works

He's the paint scheme that was intended for the landspeeder, but I didn't have the guts follow through with.

GENERAL GRIEVOUS

This model almost has too many options! And when I first laid all the pieces out, I wanted to try to squeeze everything (Cloak, blaster, all 4 sabers,) into a single build. But it just doesn't work. I'm lucky to have 2 core sets, so I had some options.

I went with a Cloaked 2-saber build with the blaster; and a separate 4 saber build without the cloak. No matter how you build him, he's hard to hide on the table!

Your dewbacks are lovely, I'm so jealous. I've been struggling to get a finish I like. How did you paint them? Drybrushing? Washes?

On 2/4/2020 at 12:23 PM, Achinadav said:

Your dewbacks are lovely, I'm so jealous. I've been struggling to get a finish I like. How did you paint them? Drybrushing? Washes?

Thank you so much! I think that these particular models are so beautifully sculpted, with so much raised detail, that you can't go wrong with any technique - but here's how I approached them.

• Zenithal undershade via an airbrush. Unlike most projects, the zenithal highlighting here is not for light and shadow, but to give me the guidelines for the gradient in the next step.
• Wet blend the base color palette from light on the underside to dark on the top - the exact opposite of the natural light. Lots of lizards share this gradient, so whether it was the green palette or the blue, it made sense. Each palette was 5 colors, so for the blue scheme it ranged from VMC Glacier Blue on the light end, to VGC Magic Blue in the midtone, to VMC Dark Sea Blue on the darkest top end. The undershading from step one shows you exactly where to start each transition
• Shades - they were both washed liberally with a shade mix that best matched the darkest tone of the respective palette. Athonian Camoshade/Agrax Earthshade for the green dewback, and Drakenhof/Nuln for the blue one.
• The blue dewback required an extra step to get that golden crown coloring on the top. First, sketch in the pattern with stark white. Then apply a couple of thin white layers over the sketch to cover up the dark blue. This is just laying the foundation for that yellow. Now, Yriel Yellow over the white pattern, and wash with Agrax/Seraphim Sepia.
• Now, very, very light drybrush with the lightest tone from your palette, using a very soft-bristled brush so that you're not streaking paint across the scales. (ie, For the Blue, Glacier Blue.)
• You may need to repeat the shade/drybrush process a few times until you get the depth you're happy with in specific areas - but be careful with the shade. It will quickly eliminate your gradient.
• I then went with the lightest tone (the same color used to drybrush,) and picked out specular highlights on each scale (the ones on the top side of the dewbacks at least,) with a regular old brush.

I hope that helps. If not, I'm happy to give you a deeper dive

Hello!
I am quite new to Legion, and while doing some research I stumbled upon this thread, and I got to say, those are some of the nicest painted Legion miniatures that I have seen so far. There are plenty of them out there, but yours are really exellent. I hope that we will see more of your stuff in the future!

That's very nice of you to say, thank you!
This forum is an absolute treasure trove of brilliant painters, sculptors, terrain modelers, and just truly wonderful people. I learn something, become inspired by something, and take pure joy in something on these boards every single day!

I have some new stuff in the works - but with the FFG hold on new material, I'm pretty well caught up - finally! But I do have this to share:

From childhood, standing in line for Star Tours at Disneyland was one of my all-time favorite things to do. I loved that line more than the ride! So when I saw this model, I knew I wanted it to call back to Star Tours. Surely they'd have some overly aggressive security task force, right? 🙂

So I painted this to match the scheme of the newer, orange and blue StarSpeeder 1000

but I kept the old logo up above the cockpit from the 3000.

And now - I'm committed to making a unit or two of clones into Star Tours security, just working on the custom decals for their shoulders.

excellent stuff here. alt dewback in particular

You really nailed it on your TX-130, it looks awesome, it really does!
I have three questions, what colours did you use on your Landspeeder, base colour on the TX-230 and what for the Grievous please?

That tank is sweet! Do you ever use decals? I can never get them to blend in right.