Tag Archives: Imperial Assault

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. 🙂

Star Wars Imperial Assault: Jabba The Hutt (Jewel of July ’19)

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Star Wars Imperial Assault Jabba The Hutt

Ahhhh Jabba the Hutt. A character that goes back to my childhood, the excitement of seeing previews of Return of the Jedi and then finally seeing it in the cinema. So when I started to expand my Imperial Assault collection, how could I skip the most notorious crimelord of Tattooine?

One thing that was never apparent for many, many years was the fact that a lot of Jabba is actually green. Why? Well, when seen in the film, he’s always in dim surroundings and the main angles that he’s lit and filmed from highlight his sandy-yellow coloured face and underside. The “green” areas always looked to me like they were prdominantly a shadowed effect.

This was further reinforced by the oringinal Kenner toy. I never had it myself as a kid, but a friend did, and the thing was basically desert yellow in its entirety.

So then the remastered, butchered “Special Edition” Original Trilogy films came out, and what the actual fuck was going on here? Unconvinging, cartoony-faced CGI, a vastly smaller Jabba, a silly “comedy” spot where Han steps on Jabba tail, and much more green, to boot! Messed up on a variety of levels to the point where it looked (to me) like they’d just changed Jabba’s colour. In the same way that they changed his face, his size… you get the idea.

Star Wars Imperial Assault Jabba The Hutt

So it wasn’t until years later – sometime after the Internet became a thing I spent time on – when I finally saw and understood that Jabba was in fact, actually mostly green the entire time. So.. okay. So then that was how I finally painted the model, despite my instincts wanting to make him entirely made up of shades of yellow, tan and ochre. Finally complete (he’s a Neglected one, too!) It’s a pretty nice model, though it does have a few flaws.

Star Wars Imperial Assault Jabba The Hutt

So wild tangent aside, the main flaw with the model is basically the size. As you can see from this triad of “Scum and Villany” types, the scale used by FFG for Imeprial Assault is one that gives a lot of priority for the models being boardgame pieces first, and miniatures a (distant) second. People familiar with Star Wars will know that the droid, IG-88 is super tall, the Jawa is tiny, and Jabba is a huge, bulky slug. For scale, Jabba should be so big that the Jawa is about the size of Salcious Crumb (the bird-faced fellow sitting under his bong in the above film still).

Ah well, boardgame miniatures, eh? Whaddayagonnado?