Everyday I'm smuggling...

I've always been a big fan of smugglers in Star Wars. The idea of going to strange locations, getting mixed up in unexpected trouble and....barely making ends meet? Um...okay, maybe that last one isn't very exciting. I'm kind of a conservative introvert, so I'm not sure that I would be up for that kind of thing in real life. But I'd like to think that if space ships and aliens were involved, I'd be in like Flynn.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited to paint up these two Rebel Smugglers: Jyn and...Alliance Smuggler (seriously? Lame. We can do better. In fact, we will. From this day forward, Alliance Smuggler will be known as Baldr Dash. Ha.). I can't attest to how well they play in the campaign mode. But they are both fun characters to run in Skirmish mode. You just need to be sneaky with them, as they don't have a lot of life and can go down quickly if you're not careful.

Jyn and Baldr Dash

Normally I'm not too concerned if the miniatures that I paint match what they look like on the card art. But I'm a big fan of orange, so I decided to paint Jyn pretty close to the card art. I tried to make her orange jacket pop a little more than I normally might. Usually I do a few highlights, but it still tends to come out subtle. So I decided to do more and brighter highlights. It actually comes out a little yellow in some spots. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Look at that brown stripe!

When painting Baldr, I didn't remember what his card art looked like, and didn't really care. If you listen to the Hutts, smugglers are a dime a dozen...a credit a dozen? So why should they all look alike? I knew that I wanted white, grey and green in the color scheme (I also sneaked some orange in there as well).

There must be some real kick to that blaster, that Baldr looks like he's falling back. I am happy how these two turned out. But after taking some pictures, there are still some things that I can improve on. Cleaning the mold lines better (it always looks like I've got it all before I start to paint. I guess I'll need to up my quality control), cleaning up some lines and putting more highlights and other added touches to really make things stand out.

I also need to work on taking better pictures. That or hassle James again. I noticed that some of my earlier pictures turned out really grainy. Shame Mark, shame. At least with these pictures you can see a little bit of my techno colored workstation.

I'll have a few more Imperial units to show you shortly and then an army full of Rebels. Currently I've been playing around with Rebel spy teams with mostly unique characters. I get a lot of activations, but quite a few of the characters are soft. Plus there is some other stuff that I've been working on, that I would like to show. Until next time.

Have blaster. Will travel.

Hello and happy Thanksgiving (to those who live in Canada)! I'm excited to report that I'll be starting to paint miniatures again soon. I took a break to transfer my paints that were in pots to droppers. That task is now complete and my work station has been cleaned up so that I might actually get some work done in that area. Woot!

Today we're going to look at some mercenaries that I painted (relatively) recently. Rodians are one of my favorite species in Star Wars (They're probably tied with Trandoshans for top billing in my book.) I knew before purchasing them, that the Hired Guns (featured below) were not going to be great for the purpose of using in Imperial Assault Skirmish. The poor mercenary faction just wasn't getting the love that they needed (although that is changing). They are costed cheaply, but go down easily. Regardless, I was super excited to paint them. Especially since there was no word when Greedo would appear for me to paint.

Blue thing.

Red thing.

I wanted to keep them looking like a working crew of two, who shop at the same mercenary outfitters. So to distinguish between them, I gave them different bases (of course I did) and gave them each a different colored shoulder plate stripe. I'm really happy with how their faces turned out. Since painting these guys, Greedo has come out. I'm excited to paint him, but he is stuck in the queue. Who knows, maybe he'll trick someone into changing numbers with him...

The Ugnaught workers came from the Bespin's Gambit set. Where the Mercenary faction finally started to get some love. I haven't had a chance to use them yet. But they also get a junk droid that they can use to cause some havoc. Apparently the droid can occupy the same space as a figure, so they didn't get a miniature (only a square card cutout). However, I have a few small droids from other miniature lines. So I'll probably paint one of those up and use it when I can. Just because miniatures are more fun than card cut outs.

One of these days I'll set up a better way to take pictures (or just ask James for his help again). I think the first picture turned out better, but those pesky shadows got in the way. Oh well.

Have you been drinking on the job?

No man, this arm I'm carrying is just really heavy...

I like how the Ugnaught's turned out. I think the one on the left is my favorite. I tried to style him after Hulk Hogan. There was no particular reason behind it. That's just what I went with. Unfortunately the base I put him on ended up making him look like he was about to fall over. I guess I need to pay a little more attention when I'm basing my figures. I dig those junk bases. If you look close enough, you can see an Iron Man arm on the Blonde Ugnaughts base.

The Wing Guard were a nice addition to the game. Mostly because it finally gave the Mercenary faction Troopers. Both Imperial and Rebel factions have had Troopers for quite a while. I guess when people think of Mercenaries, they think of cool bounty hunters. Not the low level foot soldiers.

While I was happy that the Mercenary faction finally had troopers, I wasn't so excited to paint six identical Wing Guards. They deploy in groups of three, so I wanted to make each of them look unique. Either through figure modification, skin tone and hair color, or bases, since they're all wearing the same uniform.

Don't shoot me!

As you can clearly see, the second Wing Guard from the left looks like he is flinching. Clearly he is the rookie of the group. I gave two of them ground terrain, since the game does feature that terrain in some of their maps. The other two, I tried to make their bases look like steel plates (also featured in various maps). I've seen it done to great effect. But...I'm pretty sure those bases had been airbrushed. Mine...not so much. However, I recently acquired an airbrush and will hopefully have some time in the near future to accomplish that look.

'But wait,' you say, 'that was only four figures. You said that there were six Wing guards.' Yup. I thought I would have some fun and Lethal Weapon things up. So for the last two Wing Guards I tried to make Danny Glover and Mel Gibson unofficial Wing Guards. Ha. I think I'm funny. Naturally they received nice bases for their contributions to cinema.

I'm getting too old for this...