A number of months ago, I bought a box of the new Star Wars Legion Crab Droids. I actually picked these up at my FLGS the same day I bought the two boxes of Aqua Droids. I would have like to get three droids to maximize the slot, but the are organized as individuals and you get two in the box… I am not sure if this is to price the set better or make one buy two sets to get three… I will let you decide!
In any case, it is a nice set. The models are done in nice hard plastic on frames. The detail is very good and they are not too hard to assemble. You get two weapon options. I chose the laser, as I thought it looked cooler. If I was not lazy, I suppose I could have magnetized the weapons to switch them out. However, I have not done this on any of my other Legion models, so why get industrious now… Kidding aside, I do think it would be nice if Atomic Mass gave you small magnets and gaps to do this with their models.
I sat down one evening and cut all the parts of the sprues, trimmed them and glued them together with plastic glue. I fiddled a bit with the legs, so the two models would have different poses. I then sprayed the models with some gray and hit the bases with some brown.
I started with a black wash over the model and then hit the lower areas with a gray wet brush than lighter gray drybrush. Next came the orange…. I painted this with some Vallejo orange. The first coat did not cover well, so I gave the models a second coat. I still did not get full coverage, but figured I would fix this with a later highlight coat. I let the orange dry. Frankly, I did not like the way it looked, as it was just to bright. Annoyed with that, I set these aside and got back to painting airplanes….
A month or so later, I decided to work on these again. I went with a brown wash over the orange and then a heavier directed wash on some of the recessed areas. After that, the orange looked even brighter than before! Back to the set aside table and working on airplanes…. I had gone out of town and pulled out all my painting table stuff again and put the crabs on the board. I kept painting my 15mm airplanes and would think about getting back to the crabs. However, it took me a while to get the feels…. Well, I started watching Andor and decided it was time to get back on the horse and finish the droids…
I needed to do something about the orange. I did not have a color I liked, so I had to mix a new color (I tend to avoid mixing, whenever I can, as I can never replicate it). Since I figured I would never paint any more of these, it was a safe move. I got a shade ai liked and worked the orange areas. I then mixed a lighter shade and hit the edges. I was satisfied with the result. I then realized that I got orange all over the gray areas!
Back to the gray and I hit all the overpainted area with some London Gray and another highlight. That was all fixed… I finished the model with some black inside the gun and red for the eye. I sprayed the model with some satin spray.
Next came the bases. These had already been sprayed brown, so I just have to coat it with GW Aurelian Earth. I did the same on the bit on the bottom of the feet. Once that dried and crackled up, I hit everything with an Iraqi Sand drybrush. I glued the crabs to the bases and added some spiky tufts from Gamers Grass.
I am pretty happy with the final result, even though the journey was full of fits and starts. With that, I am pretty set for CIS. Someday, I will paint my two tanks and finish the army….
- Manteuffel