Star Wars Miniatures Viper X-1 Droid Repaint

I purchased these awhile back as combat robots suitable for a variety of scales. The Viper X-1 Droid comes from the Dark Empire comic series that also featured a couple more Imperial superweapons, the New Republic E-Wing starfighter, and the notion of resurrecting Emperor Palpatine. Even as a part of the Star Wars Legends continuity, these should be obscure enough to fit into a variety of sci-fi settings with looking too out of place. These models were made by Wizards of the Coast as part of the Star Wars Miniatures game.

There's a local crawfish boil coming up. Don't know why that came to mind.

Repainting these models serves a few purposes:

• One of them had some surface damage when it arrived. A coat or two of paint covers up the scuff marks nicely.
• Changing the colors further obscures their origins.
• I just really didn't like the brown color.

I couldn't make up my mind on which military themed color to use. Olive and khaki are both classic colors for military hardware, but aren't suitable for all terrain. Since I had two models, I decided on one of each color.

Priming
Both models were pre-painted, so I didn't feel the need to prime them.

Spray Coats
I began by spraying the underside of both models with Krylon Camouflage Ultra-Flat Black. Next were the base colors for each model. One got a coat of Krylon Camouflage Ultra-Flat Khaki and the other got the same brand of spray paint in Olive. The base colors were sprayed in a downward direction on the upper portions of the models. This left the black layer on the bottom of each model intact to provide shading.

Front and rear comparisons.

Wear Marks
The appearance of paint worn away to bare metal was achieved with a Sharpie Silver Metallic marker. I ran the marker around edges that seemed more likely to suffer from wear – the claws and areas that might bump into surrounding objects while moving.

Detailing

The one detail I wanted to pick out were the optics. They were originally painted black, but I wanted them to stand out. A little Reaper 09279 Fresh Blood did the trick.

Wash
I brushed on some black wash all over the model and wiped off the excess with a sponge. The wash was a mix that was left over from a previous project. It works well enough for terrain or large models like these. In addition to bringing out the recessed details, it all smoothed out the shading provided by the spray coats.

Scale comparisons with 28mm and 15mm figures.

Basing
I painted the base edge black and spread some sand over a layer of watered down PVA glue over the base surface. After the glue dried, I applied a mix of PVA glue, brown craft paint, and water to color and further secure the sand. Once the glue/paint/sand mix dried, I brushed on some lighter colored craft paint to create the appearance of dry soil.

The repaint turned out well. Although I can't decide if the weathering is too much or not quite enough. In any case, I'm looking forward to when these robots will be menacing some 15mm or 28mm figures on the tabletop.

Black Friday / Cyber Monday Haul, Part One

The short sales season immediately before and following the Day of the Turkey here in the United States has come and gone. The idea behind Black Friday and Cyber Monday is for stores to take advantage of the time off and need to do Christmas shopping that many folks have after Thanksgiving. Then there are people like me who like to take advantage of the deals to do a little shopping for themselves at the same time.

The better looking X-1 Viper Droid miniature of the two I bought. I can't decide if it reminds me more of a beetle or armadillo.

From Modiphius Entertainment

Star Trek Adventures: Voyager Player Characters - PDF

This Star Trek Adventures product was introduced at a discount on Black Friday. It's a PDF with the official stats for USS Voyager and key crew members. The release version had some issues - the math for the character stats was off and the graphics looked pixelated. Modiphius put out an updated version a few days later.

I'm not sure if I would have picked this up if it wasn't available at a reduced cost. The stats are handy for comparison when making characters, but I already own The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine character PDFs for that purpose. And Star Trek Voyager is honestly not my favorite series from the franchise.

That said, the game rules for holographic and liberated Borg player characters may come in handy. Besides, I was curious about how they would stat out certain characters. Neelix has enough useful quirks to explain why Janeway would keep him around. And, as I've long suspected, Seven of Nine could arguably do Harry Kim's job as well as he could.


From Miniature Market

X-1 Viper Droids

From the Star Wars Miniatures game published by Wizards of the Coast from 2004 to 2010. I've been considering this purchase for awhile. These are inexpensive war machine models that fit a variety of scales from their intended 34mm to 28mm to 15mm. Even though they are from the Legends continuity (Dark Empire II), they are fairly obscure and shouldn't break immersion when put on the table for a non-Star Wars game. This versatility promises to be useful in the coming year, since I'm planning on dipping my toe back into sci-fi miniatures gaming.

One is in excellent condition. The other is scuffed and was stored in a way that pushed the left arm in. This isn't a huge issue, as I was planning on touching up the paint and weathering them anyway. Or I could just repaint them - a new color scheme would help conceal their Star Wars origins.

Close up of the scuff marks on the worse off of the X-1 Viper Droid miniatures. It looks to me like it was dropped at some point. A little paint should fix it up.

Star Trek Deep Cuts Unpainted Ships: Jem'Hadar Attack Ship

From Star Trek Attack Wing by Wizkids. I got these for menacing player characters and their Eaglemoss starship in Star Trek Adventures. These scarab-shaped ships made a strong first impression by blowing up the Galaxy-class USS Odyssey in the last episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine's second season ("The Jem'Hadar" DS9 episode 2x26) and continued to threaten the Federation and its allies throughout the rest of the show. The "Deep Cuts" in the name refer to the more pronounced detailing. It looks like these models will take a wash and highlighting well. The fact that these figures come pre-primed saves a step. I just need to do a little more research for a screen-accurate paint scheme.

Star Trek Deep Cuts Unpainted Ships: Cardassian Galor Class

Also from Star Trek Attack Wing by Wizkids. The Galor-class is the mainstay of the Cardassian fleet. Vaguely resembling an ankh from the top, these ships first appeared in Star Trek The Next Generation ("The Wounded" TNG episode 4x12) and even showed up on Star Trek Voyager, but most of their screen time was on Star Trek Deep Space Nine. These models are smaller than I expected, being way out of scale with the Jem'Hadar Attack Ship.


This is post one of two. I'm waiting for my last shipment to arrive. Then we'll see how many words I can type about paint.