This Week's Hobbying: Send in the Droids!

The past couple weeks I've managed to get some miniature painting done on Saturdays before my weekly D&D session; hopefully creating the expectation of a weekly blog post will help me keep up this momentum.

From this Saturday to last Saturday, I managed to paint and base two units for my Star Wars Legion army. My steps for basing are going to be saved for next week's post since I plan to base the remainder of my army this week.

BX-Series Commando Droids

Commando Droids

These Commandos were very fun to paint, and they're annoying little buggers on the tabletop as well. Here's how I painted them:

  1. Black primer, I just use a Rustoleum spray can I got from a hardware store
  2. Citadel's Abaddon Black basecoat over the whole model to give a smoother, more consistent texture
  3. Drybrush P3's Greatcoat Grey over the droid's entire body, trying to avoid the blaster rifles
  4. Army Painter's Gun Metal on the squad leader's binoculars, the dioxis grenade, and the vibroswords
  5. AP Weapon Bronze on joints, arms, and vibrosword blades. This color was much brighter than I expected. While I enjoy the contrast between it and the black, Citadel's Balthazar Gold is probably more accurate to how they appear in the animated series.
  6. Citadel's Ulthuan Grey in the eyes and on the chest light. To color in the eyes, I added a lot of water to the paint and then pressed a very small brush into the eye sockets so capillary action could do the work for me. It could probably use a second coat on most of the droids, but I was focused on getting them ready for a game the following day.
  7. Citadel's Blood Angels Red on the vibrosword blades and the chest light.
  8. Citadel's Warp Lightning on the Dioxis grenade canister.

B2-Series Super Battle Droids

Super Battle Droids

These B2s were almost trivial; just a silver primer, shaded all over with a mix of Citadel's Drakenhof Nightshade and Nuln Oil, and then Blood Angels Red for squad colorings and the chest lights.

B2 Special Weapons

B2s with special weapons

I'm very satisfied with the B2-HA droid's rocket launcher. I followed Duncan Rhodes' tutorial for a 40k Meltagun, though his came out much more noticeable than mine; I probably thinned down my shade too much. I also had to substitute Citadel's Druchii Violet for Army Painter Red Tone as I don't have that color.

In comparison, the other special weapon took almost no effort: I simply picked out the blaster barrels with Abaddon Black and then poked some Citadel's Mephiston Red onto the ends of the barrels.

Final Thoughts

My droid army is really coming together, very happy to see the results now that everything is painted and many models have basing.