Thursday, September 18, 2014

Hasbro Star Wars COMMAND Hand-Painted Customs. Why not?

I was at a store a few weeks ago and saw these. In recent years I've been trying to stick to model kits and forced myself to not buy toys anymore (Really? Who am I trying to fool? The animated Star Wars Rebels will be out soon!). But when I saw these stark, unpainted figures I felt that tremor in the force again. 


Unpainted Star Wars miniatures? Sold!


At just 2 to 2 and a half inches, they make great gaming pieces and great miniature display figures. Warning: I'm not a great photographer and the digital camera makes the fine details look harsher. A LOT!


First, you have to prime them. This is absolutely necessary as the material they are made from has a certain residue that makes the paint slide across the surface. I washed the figures in liquid detergent, then let them dry thoroughly. 


Next, I sprayed them with Tamiya "Fine" White surface primer.


And last I painted them with different acrylic paints like Floquil's Polly Scale and cheap craft acrylic. Believe it or not, you can work wonders with some of those little 50 cent bottles!


The Endor set includes 4 Ewoks and I painted three of them as different characters based on my Hasbro figures from Power of the Force or the Saga series.


Obviously, they're all copies of Wicket. But they look real cute to the naked eye in 3-D. Who wants an army of just Wicket clones?


Next from the Endor set are the two vehicles, molded in a semi-soft, almost rubbery plastic.


After priming they can be painted real easy. I used Tamiya's panel line accent color again and I really need to get the grey and mix it with the black, I think. The pure black lines are great on darker colors. but they might me a wee bit too dark on the X-Wing fighter. It looks good in person, though.


Because of the molding of the three lines on the s-foils (wings), I recognized this as Red-3, the X-Wing piloted by Biggs Darklighter. So I referenced an old magazine I still have with a few great pictures of ILM's filming models to get the right color scheme. Bear in mind, this thing is about 2 inches long, so getting the details right on the little astromech droid wasn't easy. He's a little sketchy!


I still need a few colors here and there to get this one 100% done. This really inspires me to get a an actual X-Wing model kit like the 1/72 Fine Molds or even other versions. 
I love X-Wings.





The AT-ST Chicken Walker was A LOT easier to finish. Basically, grey spray paint and panel lines.




Will I use these in some game? Probably not. I've never actually done Star Wars RPG. That doesn't mean I'm not at least curious. But I want more of these. The "Rebels" one with the new characters looks really cool. 







5 comments:

  1. What did you use for the panel lines? I got a couple of sets, and i have to admit the great detail and potencial for roleplay games that these sets presents.

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  2. I used a product by Tamiya called "Panel Line Accent Color", which is fairly easy to use. They make it in three colors: black, gray, or brown. You can even mix the three in a separate bottle to create a dark grey or whatever. You have to use it in conjunction with Tamiya's X-20 thinner (NOT X-20A) and you can't use it on enamel paints. The model has to painted in acrylics or Tamiya sprays, which are lacquer based. Here's a video that shows you how to do it. It's really easy.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvn97kfr0wo

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  3. I almost forgot! Tamiya's Panel Line Accent Color is intended for gloss or semi-gloss paints. It doesn't perform half as well on matt/flat paint. What modelers usually do is spray clear flat over the finished product at the very end, if they want a flat finish, ultimately. I've noticed Tamiya "flat" sprays are not 100% flat/matte, even their military aircraft colors. This might be so they can be used with their panel line system. The panel lines themselves are a bit glossy as well. If you scroll down my blog, you can see them on the Yamato Garmillas (Gamilon) enemy models I made in blue and green. I left the lines glossy because they didn't bother me and I don't like coating models too much unless I absolutely have to.

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  4. Amazing work great job!!! Do you do consignment jobs if I wanted these painted

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Ralph. Sorry, I took ages to reply but I had abandoned this blog for quite some time because of life-stuff and I totally missed this comment. I would definitely do consignment but by now I'm sure you've forgotten about these and I can't blame you.

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