Quick links to significant posts:

• Philosophy and approach (this one!)
• Enhancing your game tiles
• ...and more to come!

I love Imperial Assault, it's one of my favourite games of all time. Our group played through the campaign, I've played in (and occasionally won) skirmish tournaments at my FLGS, and I even wrote a whole suite of software - to make it easier to customise and extend the game with house rules and homebrew content.

I never got round to painting the models, though. When I got the core box, I thought to myself: I could start painting them now, but there's more Stormtroopers in the next wave and I'd rather paint them all together - it'll be quicker and they'll look consistent. But then there were more Stormtroopers in the wave after that, too, and the wave after that; and well, one way or another, nothing ever got painted. I've got all the models, but they're all bare plastic.

Anyway, although it seems in some ways a little late (our group has done all the campaigns and the FLGS has closed…), I can at least be confident there's not another wave of models around the corner that will mess up my painting schedule! So although in one respect it's five years too late, from another point of view, now is as good a time as any to get started - and as you'll have gathered by now, I'm going to track / show off my progress here, I hope you and the few other people still visiting this forum enjoy seeing how I get on...

With so many models to paint, I can't afford to spend time painting like Sorastro - even if I thought I could match his quality (for which his guides would no doubt be helpful), it just takes too long. I'll just never finish everything before I get distracted by the next hobby project. So I'm going to aim for speed , while still looking pretty decent . In most cases, I'll do this with zenithal highlighting and Contrast paints .

Zenithal highlighting involves spray undercoating the models black first, then spray undercoating it white, but not covering the whole model. Instead, you spray downward at it from an angle of about 45 degrees, leaving black showing in the shadows and recesses. You should be able to see how it gives an instant shading effect and brings out all the details on the model, though the photo isn't great:

Then I apply the colours. For these I will mostly be using Contrast paints. These act much like a wash in the way they flow into recesses and provide shading, but the pigments separate in such a way that you almost get a highlight, base layer, and shade in just one coat of paint. Since they are so thin, the black and white zenithal underpainting beneath shows through and really accentuates the affect. I think it looks ace, and it's very quick and easy. See for yourself - Bossk took about twenty minutes total:

(Some people use zenithal highlighting and underpainting with glazes to achieve quite phenomenal effects . As good as that looks, again, I'm prioritising speed).

Anyway - that's the context behind my approach. As I get more things painted, I'll add them here.

Alongside Bossk, I painted the Trandoshan Hunters:

Just four Contrast paints (plus two normal paints for the eyes, and black for the base) were used to paint these models. But the magic of underpainting plus Contrast makes it looks like they're subtly shaded and highlighted. It's certainly possible to paint better quality, and many people do - but not with so few paints in such a short amount of time. Not close.

It might also be worth mentioning at this point how I'm handling different groups. I decided to paint squad colours on the base edges. For each different unit type, the first group will be black, and the second group will be red - which is particularly appropriate to differentiate regular and elite groups, as is often the case in campaign missions for example. There are a few unit types where I have more than two groups, and those others will be purple and blue. These match the colour tokens and stickers for groups in the IA boxes.

I will make some simple tokens or cards of matching colours, to place on or under the corresponding Deployment cards, so it will be really easy to see at a glance which models correspond to which cards.

Emperor Palpatine:

Royal Guard:

Royal Guard Champion:

Luke Skywalker - Hero of the Rebellion.

Luke Skywalker - Jedi Knight.

Jawa Scavenger.

Han Solo.

Obi Wan Kenobi.

Churning through these! But there's a very long way to go.

Wampa.

Leia Organa.

C-3PO (no Contrast on this one btw, all traditional paints).

Greedo.

These look amazing, I'll definitely be checking out contrast paints for my next big batch of figures.

Hired Guns. I kinda like these guys, and Greedo, with their crazy fashion sense. Wish their blasters weren't so bendy though.

Lando Calrissian.

Chewbacca. By far the most difficult model to paint so far; really hard to get the fur right. He ended up looking better in the flesh than in the photo, I'm quite pleased with him in the end, but not easy.

Gaarkhan.

R2-D2.

Rebel Saboteurs. Bit fiddly these guys, and the skin took four or five coats to cover.

Surprising even myself with how quickly I'm bashing through these models! Long way to go though. You may have noticed I've not done much Imperial stuff so far. That's because the bulk of it is Stormtroopers who don't suit this underpainting/Contrast style at all. Still haven't figured out how I'm going to approach those yet. Still, no rush to work it out.

@Bitterman , these look really great!

I'm curious about your whites and blacks. Are they using just the same highlighting/contrast paints as the others? Leia's jumpsuit, for example, or Palpatine's robes. Because the highlighting looks really sharp, and these colours are something I have a lot of trouble with using traditional methods

56 minutes ago, ManateeX said:

@Bitterman , these look really great!

I'm curious about your whites and blacks. Are they using just the same highlighting/contrast paints as the others? Leia's jumpsuit, for example, or Palpatine's robes. Because the highlighting looks really sharp, and these colours are something I have a lot of trouble with using traditional methods

Thanks for the feedback, and great question. White and black are notoriously difficult to paint.

Yes, both those models you mention were painted using the same technique as the others, using Contrast paints. After the black then white-zenithal undercoat (a simple form of underpainting), Leia's jumpsuit was painted with a single coat of Apothecary White (same for the Wampa by the way), and Palpatine's robes had a single coat of Black Templar (same for Jedi-Luke). Really quick and easy - and don't they look great? Especially Palpatine, I'd hate to try to paint layered highlights onto his robes, one coat of Contrast paints and he was done.

Hero-Luke's jumper and trousers, and Han's shirt, were painted slightly off-white, by mixing in a bit of Skeleton Horde (slightly different amounts for each) with the Apothecary White. They probably would have looked fine plain white for those who really don't like mixing, though it's not difficult.

Occasionally I paint black and white the traditional way for one reason or another. For example, Han's and Lando's boots are normal black paint (I didn't even bother highlighting them) because it just looks right for black shoe-leather. R2-D2 was given a very thin black wash then the panels touched up with white paint, with the aim of looking more artificial and plasticky than Wampa fur or Leia's jumpsuit. And when I come to doing Storm Troopers, Death Troopers, and Darth Vader, I don't expect this technique to work at all for those flat armour panels - Contrast paint needs texture and crevices to flow into and work its magic - I'm going to have to try a completely different approach for those entirely. But for anything like fur, clothes, capes, detailed objects like blasters, etc., Contrast paints are amazing.

Man, that's really incredible. I don't mind taking the time to paint up in the traditional way (although I've been painting my set for going on three years now ) but I'm always a bit disappointed in my blacks especially. No matter how light I think I'm going with the highlights, I always end up with a dark, boring-looking figure. Your Palpatine in particular looks really, really sharp. Thanks a lot for sharing!

Rebel Troopers.

Drokkatta.

Ugnaught Tinkerer (skin tone based more on the films than the artwork - they shouldn't be green!), and 3D-printed Junk Droid . The print lines don't look anywhere near as bad and obvious as that when you look at the model in real life.

Boba Fett.

More than 50 models painted in just one week, by the way - that's not bad going! - about a quarter of the way through my whole collection, although stuff like AT-ATs and Rancors are a bit big to count as just "one model".

Loth Cats.

Hera Syndulla. Annoyingly fiddly to paint.

Shoutout to @Strawhat - glad you seem to be enjoying this thread!

Jabba the Hutt. Really enjoyed painting him, I was expecting him to just be brown, but I checked the art a bit more carefully and he's actually got some quite subtle differences in shade. I blended different Contrast paints on the model itself and he turned out really nicely.

Salacious B. Crumb. Really horribly-designed 3D model (so I won't link to it), which printed really badly, and the paint job was terrible too. Meh, whatever. Decided not to put him in the same photo as Jabba because if I can find a better model (any suggestions?), this one will probably go in the bin.

Just for fun: The Child. Also a 3D print, this time a much better design though I had to scale it down to 60% to look the right size. As with the Junk Droid earlier, when looked at in real life (as opposed to a zoomed-in photo) the print lines don't stand out like they might seem to here, and he looks really cool.

Thrawn.

Good work deserves credit!

You're moving through the collection much more quickly, and I dare say with better results, than I ever achieved.

Gideon Argus.

Your Jabba looks great!

2 hours ago, player678037 said:

Your Jabba looks great!

Yeah, I'm pleased with Jabba! Thanks for the comment!

Vinto Hreeda. Less pleased with him. He's OK, but none of the colours quite match the artwork in the way that I wanted. Plus he's a lot less flamboyant than the other Rodians and I rather liked their stylish gaudiness. Oh well. He's still OK.

Onar Koma. Enjoyed painting this guy, despite being a bit fiddly in places.

HK Assassin Droids. Well, at least they didn't take long.

Didn't have time to paint any models today (feels weird!) but wanted to share a quick tip on another way to make your games look cooler.

It's quite a simple one that anyone can do - simply black out the edges of the board tiles with a Sharpie or similar permanent marker. Takes just a few seconds per tile, and enhances the visual illusion of the tiles being the environs of the Star Wars universe instead of a piece of cardboard (compare the edge here which has been blacked out, to the jigsaw part which hasn't - because the jigsaw pieces cover each other up anyway).

That'll help on any gaming table, even if it's just the one in your dining room. It works even better if you can combine it with a battle mat. Here I've used a plain black mat (mousepad material) which is the right size for my gaming table. Plain black never goes out of fashion and can be used for lots of board games, or I suppose for Star Wars a space-themed mat might work well too - you might already have one if you play X-Wing or something. I got mine from here , but many other sites offer similar products.

The same permanent-marker trick (but with red or blue) works for damage and strain tokens too - just makes them look that little bit nicer, for minimal effort!