Oh, Officer!

Today we color spray the Imperial Officer in Star Wars Imperial Assault. We will also cover lining which can be used to give greater contrast where differing colors meet!

Ah… The Imperial Officer… Nothing gives comfort to a war weary population like a group of homogeneous special forces, separated from the general population, and given absolute power over life and death! It always ends well. Whether it is an alien species that needs to be taught their proper place, or suspicious planets that need renovation from orbit, there will also be an Imperial Officer on the scene to give the order!

After cleaning the minis and priming them grey, I went straight to the base coat. I decided on a dark bluish-green for the uniform, and a fair skin tone.

Skin	Reaper Fair Skin
Uniform	Reaper Highland Moss
Boots, belt, gun	Vallejo Model Color Dark Grey
Buckle, medals	Vallejo Model Color Natural Steel
Hair	Vallejo Dark Sea Grey

With the base coat in place, I decided to do some lining. Lining is a shading technique, like the washes we have relied on up to this point. Lining, as the name implies, is simply placing a line of dark color between two other colors, in order to provide a contrast and sharper demarcation.

Lining is often not required when using washes, because the pooling of the wash will usually provide sufficient contrast all by itself. However, lining is often advantageous when two non-black colors meet in a highly visible area. In this case the sleeves of the uniform transition directly to the flesh tone of the hands and the neck. We will be washing both the flesh tone and the uniform. Unfortunately, neither of the wash colors will transition cleanly to the other, which will result in a blurry and sloppy looking area on the miniature.

A dark line will provide shading, and a clean contrast, which will be more pleasing to the eye. Any dark color will do. Most often, people will simply use black for lining. In fact, this technique is sometimes referred to as “blacklining.” In this case, I used Reaper Grey Liner. The Reaper Liner paints are specifically formulated for this purpose, as they have extra flow aid added and a higher concentration of pigment. However you can achieve a similar result by simply thinning black or dark grey paint with flow aid.

With the lining in place, I moved on to washing the miniature. I mixed up a wash using Reaper Jungle Moss. Jungle Moss and Highland Moss are part of a Reaper triad, which means that Jungle Moss is formulated to be a good shade color for Highland Moss. So I used our normal wash formula, using three drops of Jungle Moss, nine drops of water and nine drops of matte medium.

For the skin, I used premade Vallejo Flesh Shade. For the boots, belt and gun, I used premade Vallejo black shade.

For the highlights, I layered some Highland Moss on the raised areas of the uniform, and then did a second round of layers with Reaper Pale Lichen. Then I lightened up the raised areas of the flesh with the Fair Skin.

The final step for the uniform was to mix up a glaze in order to blend the shade and highlight colors together. I mixed two drops of Reaper Green Clear with two drops of Reaper Blue clear and 15 drops of flow aid. This not only helps to blend in the highlights, but will also shift the color of the uniform towards a cool turquoise.

Finally, I added a couple stripes of Vallejo Game Color Bloody Red and Falcon Turquoise to their medals and painted the bases black. After a shot of Testor’s Dull Coat, I gave the boots a coat of half Vallejo Gloss Varnish and half water, to give them a bit of a shine.