The Storm Trooper Project.

[Ironworker]

I've been kicking this project arround since I re-painted a Devronian trooper from the pre-painted plastic WotC line.  I managed to collect a decent force for Stormtroopers from WotC's pre-painted Star Wars line.  Of course they look like utter crap on the table.  I've got a pretty good collection of nicely painted Star Wars conversions I've been working on over the years made from all kinds of 28mm minis and copious ammounts of green stuff.  I even picked up some black market Storm Troopers from some knock off line but they have very bulky proportions so they look like really tall dwarfs even against the typical GW or Reaper human.  So I have all these plastic nasty looking Storm Troopers laying arround that look much nicer size wise and they have more than one pose but they look ugly as sin compaired to my lovingly crafted conversions.  I've always considered re-painting them but wasn't sure if it would be worth while especially with all that black armor.  Well I was messing arround today so I painted one up.  I think he looks pretty good.  Not a bad sculpt either and I managed a decent white armor paint job I think.  My goal is to do a platoon of 30 with this baseing option along with an officer and a few other things.  Here's just the armor painted next to a similar WotC "paint job".  





Here he is finished.  I'll take better pics when I finish at least a half squad.  

[Driscoles]

wohoo...
They look great with the shades in it.
Björn

[KeyanSark]

Great!!  :love:

How did you shade the white without messing it all??

[marko.oja]

Looks really good - I have a "couple" of these too, and always considered the bases to look quite bad so I've been thinking of doing something similar..

Marko

[Ironworker]

Great!!  :love:

How did you shade the white without messing it all??

It was a little complicated on this first guy but I think I had my method down by the end.  I had to wash the entire figure three times with a dark, almost black, wash.  Then I painted the armour with very thin layers of white then I washed the figure with a very thinned down wash of Vallejo Beasty Brown with just a dab of Vallejo Filthy Brown and a drop of Future Floor Finish.  After that wash I highlighted with one more layers of thinned down white.  

I'll post a better WIP eventually.

[revford]

The nicely finished base makes a world of difference to these.  Great work on the shading too.

[Ironworker]

Here is a shot of him with half the white paint on so you can see the wash I put over the whole mini.  

[Plynkes]

Don't want to be a dark cloud or anything, but I don't like it. He looks too dull and grey.

Stormtroopers in the films look shiny and white, more like how the pre-paint started out. Even the dirty ones on Tatooine look whiter and shinier than yours (they just have patches of red dirt here and there). Yours just looks kind of grey. I know white is hard to do and all, and I'm not saying I could do better, but I think the pre-paint looks better as a Star Wars Stormtrooper.

I think you're better off just putting some nice basework on the pre-paints and leaving it at that. Stormtrooper armour is shiny white plastic, so perhaps the best way to convey that is to simply leave them as shiny white plastic?

Sorry, I really don't like being a downer, but that's just my opinion, for what its worth (not much really).

[Ironworker]

The pre paints have absolutely no definition.  At arms length they just look like shiny white blobs.  Even the Endor troops were pretty filthy.  They may have looked all shiney when the Emperor showed up on the Death Star but the troops in the field don't stay all shiney for long.  Also I'm using a flat finish with a bit of shine so that should help make the armour look a bit more plastic.  You wouldn't have to add the dirt wash to shade these guys.  I just chose that.  A cool grey wash would work as well with sharper highlights.  They would look cleaner that way.  I just paint most of my troppers in any game with the "field" look.

[Gluteus Maximus]

Tbhis is a very awkward question.

Plynkes is right that the originals look more accurate from the point of view of the look in the films, yet Ironworker's comments that they appear better when seen on-table as wargames figures with his re-paint are also valid.

Very hard to sat which I prefere. If I could see & play with Ironworker's figures, probably that his view is the one I'd agree with.

They are very pristine & shiny in the films though.......

[Ironworker]

The ones aboard the Death Stars are quite shiny as could be expected.  I would think dirt aboard a space station would be kept at a minimum and those are garrisoned troops at one of the Empire's most important facilities who are probably inspected regularly.  However the Sand Troopers, Scout Troopers, and even the regular Troopers on Endor are pretty dirty.  Also the Clone Troopers in Episode 3 were pretty beat up and dirty.  

Now from a personal estetic position the pre-paints almost look as jarring as raw lead in game to me so I'm going to paint mine up.  My painted troopers looks a lot more consistant next to my other miniatures.  Also the problem with an all over shiny surface is that you loose a lot a detail especially on small items and these storm troopers from WotC are no where near as chrisp in their detail as say GW space marines.  Should I decide to do a platoon of Troopers with spaceship decking for the base I'm definately going to go for a more clean look.  I may even look for some brush on gloss finish for the armour parts themselves.  

Consider also the picture is larger than life sized and I did my best not to over expose the armour.  Under hot sunlight or strong studio lights some of his armor would be overexposed just like the armour in the films which is something as I understand it was a constant technical problem for the camera men.  Anything pure white is hell to photograph.  Wedding suck.  Anyhow on the table top at playing distance the painted trooper looks even more white but you can still make out the details sculpted into the figure and that gets harder to see on the WotC glossy figs.  

This is all a matter of aestetic anyway but I've got my reasons to dirty up my troopers.

[Ironworker]

Of course if you want to go compleatly crazy with your stormtrooper armor designs you can always paint them up like this stormtrooper sporting the Armour of Alderans garrison.  I hear Tarkin forgot to give their commander notice before blowing up the plannet they were stationed on

http://prikola.net/pic/selection2/44/5.jpg

[Gluteus Maximus]

Of course if you want to go compleatly crazy with your stormtrooper armor designs you can always paint them up like this stormtrooper sporting the Armour of Alderans garrison.  I hear Tarkin forgot to give their commander notice before blowing up the plannet they were stationed on

http://prikola.net/pic/selection2/44/5.jpg

They must grow some serious wacky-baccy there!  ::

[Justin Buck]

Wow, those look awsome.  :love:  Please keep posting pictures of your progress.

Justin

[Agis]

I also did some repaint... :wink:
http://www.agisn.de/html/sandtrooper.html



Really tricky stuff because of the weak and soft plastic...