SW:L Hobby Weekend: Dan Does Clone Wars
Recommendations: 81
About the Project
Time for the Star Wars Legion hobby weekend and begun the Clone Wars have!
Related Game: Star Wars: Legion
Related Company: Fantasy Flight Games
Related Genre: Science Fiction
Related Contest: Star Wars Hobby Weekend
This Project is Completed
The Army List - Separatist Alliance
This is the full size Separatist army I am working on this weekend. Will no doubt tweak the upgrades to provide some more variation but I wanted to make sure I was near the 800pt mark – fits nicely!
++ Standard (Separatist Alliance) [789 Points] ++
+ Commander +
•Count Dooku [228 Points]: Fear, Force Push, Force Reflexes
•General Grievous [203 Points]: Aggressive Tactics, Hunter, •DT-57 “Annihilator”
+ Corps +
B1 Battle Droids [62 Points]: B1 Battle Droid, E-60R B1 Trooper
B1 Battle Droids [62 Points]: B1 Battle Droid, E-60R B1 Trooper
B1 Battle Droids [62 Points]: B1 Battle Droid, E-60R B1 Trooper
B1 Battle Droids [62 Points]: B1 Battle Droid, E-60R B1 Trooper
+ Support +
Droidekas [110 Points]: HQ Uplink
Friday Progress
Managed to get a few hours in after work. The airbrush decided to have one of THOSE days so priming and zenithing took longer than I would have liked but got to the stage I wanted to by the end of the evening.
My first time using contrast paints too. Was an interesting experience – haven’t made up my mind yet but very early days. There is definitely a knack to using them and the knack definitely isn’t “just slop it on”!
Saturday Progress: Attack of the Contrast Paints
My motivation was sapped early in the day as I looked at the effect the contrast paints had created and I wasn’t happy with it. The droids just seemed to be a tea stained mess. Maybe they’d pass the 3ft test (mayyyybe) but definitely not the 1ft test. It was only my desire to get them off my painting table that kept me going. However as I tried touching up a few parts I realised that contrasts paints make really good glazes. Applying another coat thinly over the first heavy coat really blended the effect together.
My theory is that whilst contrast paints find the recesses really well, they are hard to control on surfaces. That leads to a patchy effect that looks weird because you end up with lighter bits where highlights would never be and vice versa. The glaze layer really helped this. Not perfect but perhaps worth it for the speed it allows (I’m trying to convince myself….).
So forget one thick coat – I think it’s one thick coat (controlled as best as possible) plus one thin coat.
I think I’d still have preferred to paint them another way but I might have rescued the army to be useable.
More teeth gritting to do to finish the B1 units and then hopefully the characters will be welcome reward!
The Push to 800
Right, let’s get this army done.
For Grievous, who was also sitting with his zenith prime waiting for paint, I decided to try Contrast paints in thin glazes rather than a thick coat. Skeleton Horde for the armour and Black Templar for the mechanicals. Both thinned with Contrast Medium. The next 3 pictures are coats 1, 2 and 3 respectively. It kind of worked ok. You lose a lot of the speed this way but it is easy and requires little precision.
The Force is with us, Master Sidious
For Dooku I only used Contrast paint (Black Templar) on the black bits. I only bought 4 paints and only that one was useful for this model. I’m not in a rush to buy any more to be honest! Although I might try the flesh tone one day.
Nothing really to see here in terms of technique. GW browns for the cloak.
The lightsaber was done in the same way as Grievous only red this time.
For the flesh I used the Fair Skin Reaper Triad. I really like these triads for skin – I’ve got 4 different ones so I can get a range of skin tones without mixing paint. Conventional panting technique with a thinned Reikland Fleshade after the base coat.
We’re Just Clones, Sir
Time to get the clone side done. In for a penny in for a pound – deploy contrast paint one more time!