I posted this earlier in the day but it got mysteriously deleted and now no topic number is found for it.
So here's an abbreviated version.
I bought a wave of the new rebel veterans and Tauntaun riders for SWL. I painted them in a combination of Citadel Contrast paints and traditional layer paints.
The Contrasts were particularly useful in getting the Tauntaun's bodies base coated quickly. I used Space Wolves Grey Contrast over a white spray primer coat.
In addition I used several of the brown Contrasts to get elements like the saddles and saddle bags on the Tauntaun done quickly. I followed up the Contrast coat with a single drybrush of a lighter tan or white.
I struggled with the colors of the actual rebel soldiers themselves. I wanted to replicate the way Fantasy Flight painted theirs and I wanted them to have that same color scheme and look from The Empire Strikes back.
Seems to be pretty simple at first thought, I mean all they really are are a bunch of tans and browns!
However actually getting those colors right was more elusive than I thought it would be. I tried several mixes of white and off-white before I got the color of the primary coats and sleeves right. I used Citadel Ceramic White and Citadel Wraithbone.
I also used several other Citadel layer colors to match as closely as possible the reference photos from the movies.
Two of the more interesting elements of these were the pants and boots. Both were kind of a brownish/grayish color. But then I realized that the pants are actually a grayish brown but also with a sort of GREENISH cast to them. Very subtle but it's there. The pants were gray but had more a brown cast to them.
For the pants I fortunately ended up finding pretty much the perfect color match right out of the pot: Citadel Stormvermin Fur.
For most, if not all Sci-fi weapons for Star Wars, 40k, etc. I have settled into a simple and comfortable technique of doing a black base coat with a medium gray drybrush over it, and that's it. In this case I was able to base coat all the weapons very quickly using Contrast Black Templar. Then a quick drybrush finished them off.
Specific Contrast colors proved to be very useful for specific elements as well. Nazdreg Yellow was a perfect glaze for the lenses of their goggles. One of the browns made a perfect shade for the off-white uniforms when diluted with acrylic medium. I also mixed in a little of the Apothecary White Contrast into the mix so that the shading was a blending of brown and gray.
I also found Guilliman Flesh to be very useful as a glaze over the Tauntaun's faces. I took very small amounts of the Contrast and lightly stained their eyebrows, snouts, and cheeks. The Contrasts have a very strong pigment and very strong staining quality. But because Guilliman Flesh is on the transparent side it allowed the gray base coat underneath to show through. The final effect was perfectly highlighted and detailed Tauntaun faces!
So this was a great example of combining both Contrasts and traditional paints to get a unit of models painted much more quickly than you usually could. I think the results are pretty good, certainly tabletop standard and maybe above it by a good deal.
Link to general gallery:
link
Here's the full palette I used:
Preview pics:
ponders the woes of a heavy base.
!!++
