Scratching my Star Wars itch.

[Cubs]

I've always loved Star Wars, I've always loved miniatures. Until now they have never combined. I blame Grant for flogging off a bunch of his Star Wars Legion mins cheap.

So here he is then, my first Star Wars miniature in what will no doubt be a very, very slow project - Darth Vader. Go big or go home, eh? The base is homemade from some scraps of things in the bits box - I wanted something that looked a bit like the Bespin interiors, with those orange floor lights and metal gratings.

[Roo]

Wow...gees that is amazing

[armchairgeneral]

Really great start 

[AWu]

 
That had to be the power of the dark side..

[Supercollider]

Terrific!  You've made the shiny armor and other black textures look very different 

[fluffy05]

Absolutely stunning 

I hope you do more soon.

Subscribed 

[OSHIROmodels]

What a cracker 

Those reflections are spot on 

[Cubs]

Thanks dudes, very kind.

Obviously getting the different textures right was key to this guy, so trying to mess about with highlights and get them right was what I concentrated on. The armour was a be-atch and I repainted the helmet slightly because the first time I did it, I made it too symmetrical and it was just a bunch of evenly spaced white streaks. I realised my mistake and stuck some random blobs in here and there and gave it more patches of black to stop it looking too zebra-like. The armour needed blobs of pure black going to white highlights to show it was shiny - the cloak needed more of a gradual blend through greys (without an extreme highlight) to show it was dull, and the arms & legs were somewhere in the middle.

Like I say, this is only going to be added to very slowly, because the paying work comes first, but hopefully it will get a new addition every few months or so.

[hubbabubba]

Excellent painting, you've nailed those different textures with the different highlights.

[Vanth]

Fantastic paintjob, really amazing!

[Mason]

The paint on the fella is cracking and you have really nailed that base too.
 

[Malamute]

Superb

[Muzfish4]

Magnificent work!

A real inspiration.

[Andym]

Great start! Keep ‘em coming!

[Cubs]

I do like these models you know. They're big buggers at 32mm to the eye (more for the tall ones), which gives me a little more scope for the detail.

Luke Skywalker now, ready for a Bespin show-down with Dad. I tried to keep the base the same as Vader's but with the glowing lights at the front of the base and no cloak to work around, I was able to keep things a little neater. I love the bland colour scheme of his outfit contrasting with the glowing light saber. By choosing three likely angles for photos, I was able to paint streaks in the right place to look like a glowing effect.







And of course, now both of them are painted up on their lovely Bespin bases, I can do funky stuff like this -