Citadel Painting Handle... Can't believe I bought one...

Yeah, well... The Citadel painting handle is one of those hobby products I never really thought I would ever need. Since there have been some mishaps last month and my left hand was immobilized for some time, I had a sudden change of mind:

Don't Stop Me Now

I was indeed very pleased with the result and I'm actually thinking about getting some more... It has been a great help finishing the Priority Supplies for Star Wars Legion and some Micro Art Studio Laser Towers for my Legion board.

A chest of Lando's favourite wine.

Ready to see some action...

Imperial Terrain - Desert Tower and Mechanic's House

Another two 3D-printed houses left the workbench: Imperial Terrain's Desert Tower and Mechanic's House.

Both buildings belong to my absolute favourites in the IT range (although Dave is constantly pumping out new favourites...). While the Mechanic's House was painted right after printing, completion of the Desert Tower took a bit longer: It was part of the first shipment of Imperial Terrain buildings I received almost a year ago.

Main reason for the painting delay was having to fix the deformed pipe detailthat runs along the tower. This copy of the tower had been one of Dave's early test prints so this obviously isn't an issue if you order from IT these days. I hesitated over it for quite some time but it eventually turned out to be an easy fix. I removed the misshaped part, remodelled it by hand and sanded the whole thing down until it looked right.

Both buidings are quite an important addition to my table as their copper roofs will provide some nice contrast to the brick coloured gaming mat. As a result I went quite heavy on the Nihilakh Oxide I used for the verdigris effect.

The table is finally starting to look alright:

Imperial Terrain - R47 Heavy Lift Truck

I recently bought Imperial Terrain's Mechanic Bay and House Bundle mainly because I wanted the repulsorlift truck that comes with it for my Rebels. It may not look like much but I love the boxy design which reminds me of some of Ralph McQuarrie's original vehicle concepts. The other day a fellow hobbyist pulled of this wonderful print of it (Thanks again!) and finally got me started.

Although I actually should try to find a way to play it, the truck will be used as terrain most of the time. Therefore, I kept the paintjob quite simple but took the time to add some LEDs to the front of the truck. 

I primed the miniature with Citadel's Corax White and added some slight airbrush highlights with pure white. Then I coloured some of the panels (Citadel's Fenrisian Grey)  to give it some variety, shaded everything using Vallejo's Pale Grey Shade and sponged on some chippings using white on the coloured panels and Vallejo German Grey on the rest of the vehicle. Larger chipped areas were filled in with Citadel's Ironbreaker.

Citadel's Agrax Earthshade was used to create some grimy/oily/leaky areas and the weathering was completed by brushing on some red and brown pigments.

My Rebels consider this truck theirs and made me paint their unit insignia on the side of it...

Now I really need to find some rules for a convoy scenario...

Imperial Terrain: Small Desert Home

Legion is finally out and I have to get my terrain ready for some proper games!

My table still needs a couple of larger terrain pieces and since time is scarce I decided to fill the board with some 3D printed buildings by Imperial Terrain. I had these at the edge of my table for some time now but never fully decided on how to finish them up. Thorin over at arts-n-more wrote a brilliant tutorial on his Batuu tower that does the fine detail of these prints justice. Although I originally intended to follow a similar approach, I settled with a simpler texturing method now, which will help the 3D printed buildings to blend in with my homemade stuff.

As described in my previous tutorial, I coated all plastered areas with a mixture of sand coloured acrylic paint, PVA and sand and drybrushed the whole thing by adding some white to my basecolour.

Halfway in, I decided to replace the original doors though... The prints are nice and I quite like the design but since I wanted the building to fit the aesthetics of my homemade structures I felt that some simple cardboard doors would be the smarter choice for me. I just needed to fill the gap in the doorframe with some pink foam and do some touch ups to the plaster. Although I was a bit worried when I just eyeballed the doors, I'm actually quite happy with how they turned out as I think they add a nice handmade touch to the printed structure.

Although the plastered areas are ready to go after the drybrush, I like to give them a couple of washes with some drops of my basecolour and some yellow, green and red pigments. This is not only a great way to give you building some character by simulating layers of dirt that would build up on an actual building over time, it furthermore is very forgiving. If you don't like our results you can just soak up your wash with a wet brush and try again.

Final step was some detailing. The doors were basecoated in Reaper Rust Brown which was highlighted by gradually adding white to the basecolour and applying it in thin coats. Metallic elements like vents and boxes were painted in Vallejo German Grey and dabbed with a mix of PVA and red pigments in an irregular pattern. The chimney got a copper finish using GW Hashut Copper and Nihilakh Oxide. All these elements got a final wash with slightly thinned down Vallejo Sepia Shade and dark brown was dabbed on the lower edges of the building to help it look natural on my gaming mat.

And that's it... This is a fun building to paint and I love how easily it painted up and how well it blended in with the rest of my terrain pieces. I fell in love with the Imperial Terrain Moisture Vaporators right away but the houses are in no way inferior and can be easily customized to fit your gaming table. Having in mind that this is a very quick and dirty method of texturing I'm very pleased with the result and can fully recommend getting these.

Imperial Terrain: First Impressions

Thanks to Dave from Imperial Terrain, I got my hands on some of their Legion inspired terrain pieces. The moisture vaporators, the tower and the small house are part of the Imperial Terrain desert range. I love the design choices. While still being fairly generic, you can easily spot the Tatooine influences on these pieces, making them great accessories for your Star Wars tables. 

Never having been involved with 3D printing myself, these are the first prints I have seen in a very long time. Nevertheless I am very impressed, even more if you have in mind these are mostly prototypes which are not necessarily up to the production standards of the final pieces.

Scalewise, Imperial Terrain is clearly addressed at the slightly larger Legion scale. It still looks great next to WotC or Imperial Assault miniatures. Unfortunately I didn't have my tiny WEG/Grenadier Vader at hand when taking the photos, but I guess his towering 25mm would most definetly look out of scale next to any of these buildings.

My personal problem with anything 3D printed are of course the printer lines. Although the Imperial Terrain sculpts are very detailed and clean, printer lines probably can't be avoided with current printers. Luckily, the material can easily be sanded down, which I most definetly will try to do on all the "machined" surfaces. I decided to test this on the moisture vaporators first. Both were sanded down and then coated in a mix of PVA glue, filler and water before being sanded down again. After that the surface was smooth enough for my tastes to go on.

Painting the vaporators was as easy as it can get. White basecoat from a can, followed by a light grey wash (just some watered down grey acrylic paint) and some weathering with red, green and ochre pigments and some Vallejo Black Shade.

I like them a lot and I'm actually thinking about getting more of them. Since they are such a common sight in the Star Wars universe they will look great on any gaming table...