Looking for some tips or guides to painting the tauntauns. Traditional Hoth style.

I could experiment but I prefer to get some ideas from what has worked for others first and then make adjustments from there.

I went straight ESB canon for all 3 of my Tauntaun units, and I'm happy to talk you through the process

First, I assembled the Tauntauns, (sans riders, which were painted separately,) and gave them a standard zenithal undershade prime with an airbrush.

Then, it's a matter of repeating the following pattern until you're satisfied with the depth: drybrush the fur with a light grey approaching white; selectively apply grey shade to fur; drybrush the fur; selectively apply shade to fur... (I ended up doing this about 7 or 8 cycles.)

For the fleshy parts (the face, inside of the ears, etc.) I checked a lot of references - and the movie models were much more grey than pink. But they're all a mixture of your midtone grey, and fleshtone, so just experiment with what you have. Then shade/highlight the face until you're satisfied with the depth.

Nails/claws/horns were all done with a bone base color (Ushabti from GW, Bone White from VGC,) and various levels of Sepia ink shading.

Leather - there are a number of leather layers stacked on top of one another, so it's challenging to vary those layers enough to tell them apart - but it's important, because the saddle area can end up looking like an indistinct pile of brown.

Riders: The base colors were grey/brown pants; brown leather boots with off-white straps; midtone brown vest; off-white shirts; midtone brown/off-white hats. But I changed up scarfs and details of the uniforms so that I could tell the units apart on the table. I also based them all differently.

Hope this helps! Let me know if there's anything else I can do to walk you through it.

Have fun! They'll change your Legion life forever

On 1/15/2020 at 4:45 PM, OuterPop said:

Then, it's a matter of repeating the following pattern until you're satisfied with the depth: drybrush the fur with a light grey approaching white; selectively apply grey shade to fur; drybrush the fur; selectively apply shade to fur... (I ended up doing this about 7 or 8 cycles.)

This is tremendously helpful. Thank you very much!

Just one follow-up question: when you say selectively apply grey shade, what are you referring to? Some kind of wash?

Again, thank you so much for explaining your technique. I know I'm not the only one who will benefit.

This is the stuff. The most irreplaceable bottle in my collection:

Vallejo Dark Grey Wash

Although, any dark shade product like Nuln Oil or Dark Tone would do the trick.

To see this technique in its best light, take a look at the wonderful Vince Venturella, as he walks you through it step by step.

On 1/18/2020 at 3:49 AM, OuterPop said:

This is the stuff. The most irreplaceable bottle in my collection:

Vallejo Dark Grey Wash

Although, any dark shade product like Nuln Oil or Dark Tone would do the trick.

To see this technique in its best light, take a look at the wonderful Vince Venturella, as he walks you through it step by step.

Thanks to your help, I was able to paint my Tauntauns. I don't think they look as good as yours, but they look good to me.

Tauntauns to the Rescue https://imgur.com/gallery/pTWXvKC

Final results. Thanks again!

These are absolutely stunning!!!

I'm so incredibly flattered to have assisted in any way in their creation. They are magnificent!