Back to Star Wars Imperial Assault today, with a pair of Nexu, originally seen in Ep2: Attack of the Clones. They only vaguely fit into the Imperial Assault campaign, as for some reason it appears that both the Imperial Forces as well as “Scum” forces have a whole lot of these things as attack-dog style pets. For those not familiar with them, in the film they’re depicted more akin to Lions or Tigers – and used as wild gladiatorial beasts.

Anywho, they sat around on the desk, entirely unpainted but annoying me for ages before I decided to knuckle down and get them done recently. As with a bunch of things, the most effective motivation was to play with the Contrast Paints.

I followed the “official” scheme for these for the most part, with just the smallest bit of variation between the two so they could be told apart on the tabletop. One is a little darker on top and in its stripes and also has a dark snout.

As far as the actual painting went, thinned Snakebite Leather Contrast was used for their fur, over Wraithbone. The stripes were done with only-slightly thinned Snakebite Leather on one, and 50%-thinned Cygor Brown for the other, including the snout. The tails were done with a thinned mixture of Gryph-Hound Orange and Fyreslayer Flesh. The dorsal spines were 50-50 Cygor Brown and Black Templar, highlighted with thinned grey. Mouths with Volupus Pink and tongues touched up with thinned red paint. I still gave the fur a final drybrush to unify it all a little more.

Overall, the stripes using Cygor Brown don’t blend quite as smoothly with the rest of the fur as those with Snakebite Leather, but it was overall easier to do all of this, especially on areas like the overall fur, the tails, the mouths and the spines with the Contrast Paints than it would be with traditional washes, due to their physical properties – less viscosity, and the stuff adheres a little better rather than all pooling via gravity. It did also help with overall speed, and especially, with motivation to paint models I wasn’t all that keen on doing.

I’ve got some upcoming models that I’m actually keen on painting, that I also think will also make good Contrast Guinea Pigs. They’re still a ways off, though – all I’ve done so far is select them from a set, so don’t expect to see them too quickly. 🙂