Welcome to Death Watch!

My new poison (I warned you this blog would be all over the place) is Fantasy Flight Games Imperial Assault, and to a lesser extent, Armada. I'm a child of the 80's, so while I missed out on the initial phenomena of Star Wars when it first came out, I was pretty well positioned to enjoy the series right after. It thrills me to have little Star Wars figures to paint and play with after so long (Micro Machines being the last I had my hand on).

I've got mixed feelings on the Prequels, but I did enjoy quite a bit of the Clone Wars. Of the original characters introduced by that series, the two that really stand out to me are the badass bounty hunter Cad Bane, and Pre Vizsla of the clan Vizsla of the Mandalorian Death Watch. When he began his alliance with Darth Maul in the series, you knew it couldn't end well for him, but damn me if the fights against the Hutt Council's bounty hunters and the Maul/Vizsla duel weren't some of the best in the series. At present, there are no figures in Imperial Assault that would represent a good Cad Bane, but Boba Fett in all his Mandalorian glory was recently(-ish) released. With a little trimming and work, I present to you not Boba Fett, but Pre Vizsla!

 I used one of my wife's hairdryers to warm the plastic and make it slice like warm butter. I trimmed down the sides of the helmet, the half-cape, and the braided Wookie scalps. I have to confess, I legitimately felt bad for carving up Boba. :-D The two antenna "earmuffs" are actually the head lasers from a Robotech Tactics VF-1S trimmed to size. Greenstuff was used to add caps to the jetpack and armor to the thighs and shins in accordance with source images from the show.

I sliced the jetpack and the arms off at the shoulders so I could swap weapons on the figure. Instead of Boba's characteristic EE-3 carbine, I scratched the Unidentified Death Watch Carbine as shown on Wookiepedia with some styrene plastic strips. I used a few small styrene bits to present the sheathed Darksaber on the jetpack. I'm both very proud and slightly ashamed of how this turned out (cause I chopped up Boba.)

The inspirational source

I've also been working on some of the starter set's figures. Most have a good number of mold lines to trim down, including the ones you never see till you put paint onto them, but are otherwise very good figures.

 This is my Jyn Odan figure. Instead of a vaguely Oriental-featured Human female I went with one of the myriad near-Human species in Star Wars, the Pantorans. You definitely want to make sure you use a blue-grey to avoid immediate comparisons to the Chiss. Since I wanted the skin and hair to be the bright colors on the figure, I went with a much more subdued outfit compared to the Jyn presented on the card and box. I freely confess that miniature figures' eyes give me fits, and while the eyes look somewhat less derpy in person, it isn't by much.

 This was the first figure I completed. An Imperial Officer done up as an officer of the Imperal Security Bureau (Imperial secret police.)

 Couple of Royal Guards done in the style of the great Sorestro, as seen by his videos on Youtube. Still debating if additional glazes are needed to darken and unify the reds used, but over I'm happy with how they turned out.

Instead of a grey base, I used a black for my probe droids, drybrushed a dark silver, and added minute details before sealing. 'Ardcoat for brightening the main lenses on the droids.