I got distracted by other painting projects and Imperial Assault kinda fell by the wayside. However, since I’m not playing the game until I paint the miniatures (and since my friends are aggravated by this), I figured it would be nice to have the game done by the time The Force Awakens hits theatres on my birthday.

In the meantime, I discovered some  terrific Imperial Assault painting tutorials on Youtube by a guy named Sorastro. A link to his Youtube channel is here. The production value on his tutorials is really great and he gives some pretty helpful painting tips for each and every Imperial. Assault miniature. (Plus, he has a soothing, non-threatening British voice.) The Probe Droids above were pretty much painted exactly as he did them, and I’m quite happy with the results. I would have done them differently had I not stumbled onto his tutorials, and I don’t think they would have looked as good.

Sorastro uses Citadel paints exclusively, but with a little tweaking you can find equivalent colors from most of the major paint companies.

Up next are the Stormtroopers. I painted these guys before I found Sorastro’s channel, and I wish I hadn’t. These give a further example of Sorastro’s useful techniques. He got much better results than I did in about half the steps. I’m not wholly happy with these troopers, but I can live with them. Here’s how I painted mine:

I primed them white, then dipped them in Army Painter medium dip. Once dry, I painted all the white areas with Reaper’s Polished Bone. I keylined the larger black areas with black, leaving the smaller ones shaded with the dip. Then I highlighted the bone areas with white and touched everything up a bit. (I hate trying to shade white, so I figured this was a good way to do it.)

In contrast, Sorastro primed the miniatures white, then gave them a dark wash, effectively using the primer as the first coat. Then he built up the highlights with coats of thinned white paint. I would never think to do this, even after 30 or so years of painting. You don’t use primer as a first coat, you paint a first coat onto the primer, or so I was firm in my belief. But Sorastro’s Stormtroopers look way better than mine, so I bow to the Buddha in him. His Stormtrooper tutorial is here.

To show the difference, I used Sorastro’s method on these E-WHB Engineers. I think they came out much better than the Stormtroopers. Primer as a base color. Who’da thunk?

My first Imperial Assault miniatures are here. Now I have only the Nexu, Trandoshan Hunters and the AT-ST to paint to complete the Imperial Faction. Then onto the Rebels, and finally I can play the damn game!