Legion Dewback - fast as poss paint...

Another in the series on 'painting stuff as fast as possible but to a good standard' but this time with a bit of a difference as these dewbacks are commercial work and so not being painted with the usual speedypaint method I use for my own models. Instead there is a bit of airbrush, some traditional acrylics and a bit of speedy paint washes.

Since going all in on Star Wars Imperial Assault I have always liked Dewbacks and am looking to get some for my own Legion Imperials at some point.

Step one as almost always is a decent prime via the airbrush and wait a decent time for it to properly dry. I use Vallejo primer but after a while it can develop clogs in the bottle which is annoying. I would like to try the Mr Fininishing Laquer primer but it seems like a whole new level of fuss cleaning out the airbrush etc.

Next i got the white out of the way! I basecoat with Field grey then move up through deck tan, Ivory and white on any white that I do. This is copied directly from Angel Giraldez and works for me. As these are supposed to be really white there is more ivory and white than usual. If it was a cloak or clothing the top white would not be used stopping at Ivory.

Overspray was cleaned up with US Olive drab which was then basecoated on with the airbrush and lightened up with AK brown green, vallejo dark yellow and lastly with bit of iraqi sand. I dont clean out the previous colour here so you get a smooth mix. In retrospect I think I should have gone a little bit harder on the highlights but with non fantasy stuff i tend not too. The underside was the lightest as lizards, and lots of animals, seem to be lighter underneath for science reasons I assume.

The colours. Most colours referred to are Vallejo Model color and where I use Ak 3rd gen I will say. As an aside I am happy to mix and match both but when I was starting out Vallejo were the best and I tend to replace like with like. If I were starting today I would happily use either.

Couple of coats of gloss varnish on the beastie here nice and slippy for the next step.

Oil wash. I have some cheap old oils I found in my eldest daughters art stuff from years ago and thin down with odourless thinners. Slapping it on all over a mix of brown and black with a bit of green

This is left on an open windowsill to dry as quickly as possible and then using cotton buds dipped in thinners and with most wicked off, removed to leave it lying amid the scales. There is no scientific method here it is all done to taste and you might prefer a darker or lighter finish.

A proper expensive top quality painter at this point would now start highlighting the scales individually but I am not that guy and my prices certainly dont allow me to do that! Instead its a solid matt varnish spray and nice drybrushing (as demostrated by Artis Opus man on his youtube channel which I recommend). Here we are going back to the lighter three of the original colours and drybrushing for effect. If it looks too chalky a thinned down with medium speedy type paint can smooth that out.

Dewback skin complete the riders need their black bits doing. I dont get on with the oil wash method for this but am going to try commercial pinwash at some point. Instead I just use a good sable brush size 2 (Rosemary and company is my go to at the moment) and some black with retarder to thin it down and allow easy clean up of errors as the retarder stops it drying before you can clean it off.

Then I did the leather all in the same dark brown base. I use German extra dark brown just out of habit really

It can be overpainted with other browns as you fancy, here i used it mixed with flat earth for some strappage and just overpainted with Flat brown for the pouches. Edge highlights were done is beige and/or flesh but any kind of light colour will do the job. The black bits were edge highlighted in grey then white grey.

Inside the beasts mouth was painted burnt red (which is my base for any red) and then a bit of red added to the mix for around the gums. The teeth were desert yellow and then tipped with dark sand. You could add ivory but I prefer a bit more of a muted effect here as a tad more realistic (for essentially a sci fi dinosaur!)

Eyes were done for both beast and trooper with the fine brush - dark blue and light blue for the trooper. To be honest unless somebody picks up the model and looks very closely this is possibly overkill although the black with a white dot looks cool for the beast!

And that was how I went about painting up these three Dewbacks at the same time. Basing was my standard method which is described in a different blog and tufts added - also described in a different blog!