Star Wars Imperial Assault: Nexu + Contrast Paint Experiment #7

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Star Wars Imperial Assault Nexu

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.

Star Wars Imperial Assault Nexu

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. 🙂

Necromunda ’95! – “Catachan” Ganger with Shotgun (Michael Perry, 1993-4)

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Jungle Fighter with Lasgun 2, 0437/3, Necromunda 1995, Ganger with Shotgun, Michael Perry, 1993-4

Another Neglected Necromunda model from my gaming days in the 1990’s completed and on show for you today. This guy is a simple conversion of a metal Catachan Jungle Fighter model with his lasgun removed and replaced with a shotgun body and barrel, as well as having had all of his hair and bandanna carved off. As the gang I ran back then was based more on the idea of actual gangs where each member is an individual, rather than the “West Side Story”-uniform-type look of the official Necromunda gangs, I also took that opportunity to use whatever miniatures I damn well pleased. I’ll post up more about it at a later date – once I have more of them completed, but this concept allowed me to have a gang where the members were both male and female. The unifying aspect was having some form of Grendel markings on each model – often tattoos, sometimes scars, sometimes face paint/makeup as well as markings on their gear or weapons where applicable.

Jungle Fighter with Lasgun 2, 0437/3, Necromunda 1995, Ganger with Shotgun, Michael Perry, 1993-4

So the use of this guy from the Catachan range simply followed that ethos. Of course, when the last campaign ended, so did my motivation to paint those models, and so many of them have sat in an uncompleted Neglected Limbo for about 2 decades now, only to be dug out of the same old Chessex case and completed now. No other special notes here – he’s justa  model that’s finally been completed! Trying a new colour here for black tattoos. I think it works a lot better than the dark blue I’ve always used, and I’ll start using this a lot more, though the Slayers will have to remain with the blue for their own internal consistency. Unfortunately this particular tattoo looks a bit messy in the photos, mostly due to the shaded musculature underneath it that leads to too many colour variations in a too-small area. This is why the Reaper Chainsaw woman didn’t get arm tattoos. I’m going to have to try to experiment on painting “sleeves” that don’t simply look like muddy dark green arms, which is gonna be hard, since that’s how they end up looking from a distance in real life – you need to be up close to appreciate the details…