In order to break up my painting of tanks, I decided to try to add to my Star Wars Legion troop collection. The Geonosians were recently released and I decided I wanted them! I saw their pre release news last year and had been waiting for them. I saw they finally would be out and ordered them through my FLGS. I wanted enough to field a full force using all six core troop selections, so I ordered five boxes. I also went with the character box to have the leaders. The sets arrived and I picked them up.
The troop sets have enough models to fill out your squads and add the Force Pike close combat or the Sonic Cannon heavy weapon option. They come on sprues using the normal Asmodee gray plastic. Each set has the unit card and some upgrade cards, along with tokens. The character set includes Paggleo the Lesser. He is a command choice as is represented in both the prequel movies and Clone Wars series. The other character is an operative named Sun Fac. I am not sure where he comes from, I am guessing one of the computer games. They also come on sprues using the normal Asmodee gray plastic. Each set has the unit card and some upgrade cards, along with tokens.
I sat down one night and build all the models. I started by snipping off all the pieces and setting them up in piles for each figure. I then went through and trimmed off the flash from each piece. It is best to have something on TV or online while you do this to overcome the boredom! I then switched around wings and weapons on different models to give additional variation to the poses across so many models.
Next is the glueing step. I sued some liquid cement from Plastruct. I start with the first model and glued two pieces together. I then moved to the next model and so on. Once Each model had one assembly finished, I went back to the first model and did the same thing. I kept doing this until all the models were fulling assembled. This approach gives each component time to set, so you can just go into production mode. With this approach, I was able to clip, clean and glue all the figures during one evening.
Next was the painting. Part of the reason for doing these all at once, was that I thought they would be very easy to paint.. It did not totally turn out that way, but was still rather easy. I started with a bone tan spray from Krylon. Sometime later, I hit all the models with some GW contrast Skeleton Horde. I had hoped that would take care of most of it. Unfortunately, I did not like the lightness of the color. So, I went over all the models with a wet brush of Orange Tan from Vallejo. I hit the wings and weapon barrel interiors with some contrast camo green, but this was also still too light….
I still was not happy but figured I would wait until I got the bronze uniforms on to make a final decision. I reached into my box and found that I did not have any Contrast Bronze. Another set back… So, I just grabbed some Vallejo Bronze and hit all the metallic areas. Looking over the overall look, I confirmed I was not happy with the tan on the figures. The easy solution was another layer as a glaze. I pulled out the GW Earthshade and just hit each entire model. This would add shading to the bronze and darken the flesh on the figures. Once that dried, I hit all the wings with some Vallejo camo green armor wash. Finally, I was happy with the base colors!
I finished up the models by adding some red gems to each model, black contrast to the pikes and eyes and some silver metallics to the two characters to give them some differences that better matched their pictures online. I then hit the wings and body parts with a very light drybrush.
Normally I would hit the figures with dull coat once they were done. I this case, I wanted a shinier look to give more of a bug look. So, I sprayed all the figures with Satin finish Krylon before I did the basing. This would ensure my bases matched my other figures and were not all shining themselves!
I finished up with my usual Legion basing. Dark brown base (I spray these separately and then glue the figures down to save time), GW crackle earth, an Iraqi Sand drybrush and some spikey tufts from Gamers Grass. I then finish up with a brown border on the base.
I had a few set back, but just kept plugging away until I got the look I wanted. Starting light made it easier, as it is easy to darken a figure with filters and washes. The project was not as fast as I wanted, but was still pretty quick. Now, I just have to figure out when I am going to get these on the tabletop!
- Manteuffel