How To Paint Everything – Requesting Your Surrender Squad Pack for Star Wars: Shatterpoint

In this edition of HTPE: Shatterpoint, we are covering Kit Fisto and friends, as featured in the Requesting Your Surrender squad pack from Atomic Mass Games. Thank you to AMG for providing an early review copy to Goonhammer for review and painting. 

Primer Chat

Here is where I give my standard spiel about white primer. White primer is criminally underutilized in my opinion. So I’m doing my part to spread the love for it whenever I can get away with it. If you’re interested in brighter, colorful models, or are working with traditionally difficult colors like yellows and reds, white primer can make your life so much easier. If you’re painting, say, clones or stormtroopers that are mostly white, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice priming them black. Embrace the joy of white primer. Seriously though, white primer is an important part of my painting style. If you still prefer to use black primer I won’t judge you (much) but following this guide may lead to very different results.

Clone Commander Fil and Fil’s Clones

We’re going to start with the clones today, because Goonhammer has already helpfully provided a resource about how to paint troopers of both the clone and storm variety. Rather than reinvent the wheel I’ll instead encourage you to check out the different approaches in that article. I followed my standard steps in that article, with some additions specific to Fil and friends:

• I based the armor trim with Vallejo Red. I washed that with GW Berserker Bloodshade. When dry, I mixed Vallejo Warlord Purple 1:1 with the Red, and used that for a first highlight pass. I did a second highlight pass after mixing in a tiny bit of Pro Acryl Bright Ivory.
• I used Pro Acryl Dark Warm Grey to base the pauldron and kama bits. I washed that with GW Nuln Oil. I then highlighted/drybrushed first with the DW Grey, then a mix of that and P3 Bastion Grey.

Nahdar Vebb

Like most Jedi models, young Vebb is surprisingly monochromatic, hewing to a drab brown and tan palette. The key is to try to vary the shades used without making them clash. Jedi tend towards warm browns and tans, so I stayed in that area of the color spectrum. I also intermingled the colors where possible, such as using the Menoth White Base in parts as a highlight color mix, and others as a basecoat. 

• I based the light tan portions of his top with P3 Rucksack Tan, then washed with GW Agrax Earthshade. I highlighted again with Rucksack, then with Rucksack mixed with P3 Menoth White Base. (In fact, I did all the Agrax washes in these first three steps all at once after doing all the basecoats. Efficiency!)
• I followed the same steps for the belt, cloak, and boots except with P3 Gun Corps Brown instead of the Rucksack Tan.
• Next, I based the bright white clothing with Menoth White Base. I washed this with Agrax as well. Be careful to not go too heavy with the wash here. I then retouched with the Menoth White Base. I did highlights by mixing Bright Ivory into the MWB, with more and more as I moved to higher and smaller areas.
• I based Nahdar’s skin with GW Skrag Brown. I washed this with Pro Acryl Flesh Wash. I then painted on the spots using GW Bloodreaver Flesh. I applied highlights to the lighter flesh by mixing more and more GW Deathclaw Brown into the Skrag Brown until I was happy with the final highlight pass. To highlight the spots, I applied a quick dot of Skrag Brown. 
• My standard lightsaber technique is essentially ‘pick a vibrant shade of desired color, then highlight by adding more and more bright off-white.’ Here I started with GW Caledor Sky and mixed in Bright Ivory I still had on my wet palette. It’s best to look at lots of examples, both painted and in movies or shows, to get a feel for all the different looks lightsabers can take from colorful to almost pure white. One trick I stole from a Dallas Kemp painting stream: use a darker color paint or wash right by the handle. This will sell the effect even more. 
• If you want OSL (and drab Jedi really benefit from more color), you can do it simply by lightly drybrushing with your base lightsaber color wherever you think light would hit. Here I did the inner corner of his cloak and his left leg. You can get fancier with it by starting with a shade darker than your base color in a larger area, then going over a smaller portion with the base color. You can even do some sparing highlights with a ‘base plus some offwhite’ mix.

Kit Fisto

All of my rambling above about drab Jedi applies to Mr. Fisto as well, though at least we get a little more divergence in his skin tone. 

• I started with the mid-tone outer robes, using what is becoming my standard Jedi robe recipe. I first hit on it when painting Plo Koon, and really liked the end result. I basecoated with a 2:1 ratio of P3 Bloodstone and P3 Umbral Umber, then washed with GW Reikland Fleshshade. For highlights, I mixed in more and more GW Tau Light Ochre into the basecoat mix until I was happy with the final highlights.
• I next used GW Rhinox Hide to basecoat the dark leather looking pants, gloves, and belt. (Shoutout to fellow GH authors singing the praises of this paint lately, leading me to try it.) I washed this all with Agrax Earthshade. I relayered with Rhinox Hide, leaving alone the darkest recessed areas. I did highlights first by mixing P3 Bloodstone into the Rhinox Hide. I then highlighted with pure Bloodstone. I still wasn’t quite happy so I did some more highlights with Bloodstone mixed with GW Tau Light Ochre, then some dots of pure TLO. 
• I painted the vambraces just like clone armor since that’s what it is and all. So see above for info on that approach. I did do an extra highlight pass with Pro Acryl Bold Titanium White here, though.
• Kit’s skin started with GW Elysian Green, washed with GW Biel-Tan Green. For highlights, I mixed in increasing amounts of GW Nurgling Green. Be careful to mix this in slowly! It can skew too yellow very quickly.
• See the Nahdar Vebb section above for the general lightsaber approach I use. For the green lightsaber and OSL, I used Pro Acryl Green as the base, which was highlighted as above. This shade was much more cool toned and saturated compared to the skintone which provided much-needed contrast. That was  especially important with the OSL hitting the top of his head. 
• I had no idea what Fisto is leaping off in this sculpt. So big props again to the GH Shatterpoint author group for dropping knowledge on me. It’s the helmet worn by General Grievous’ pet roggwort Gor, apparently. That mystery solved, I quickly painted the bowl of the helmet with a metallic silver washed with Nuln Oil. I basecoated the ‘wings’ with GW Morghast Bone and washed with GW Seraphim Sepia. I drybrushed all of this first with Menoth White Base, then very sparingly with an offwhite.

I finished with some touch ups, basing, and blacklining, and that was that. I can’t say I was particularly excited to paint even more clones, but Kit and Nahdar proved more interesting than I expected. I’m looking forward to getting some more table time with them in the near future. Thanks for reading!

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