Every Star Wars nerd has their favorite handful of characters from the series. (You didn’t ask, but your intrepid author’s are Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hera Syndulla, Chirrut Imwe, Jyn Erso, the Bad Batch, and Captain Rex.) Thus when I joined the Goonhammer team and noted that the Obi-Wan Hello There! squad pack box didn’t yet have an official How to Paint Everything article, I jumped at the chance to chatter away about painting up my favorite member of the Jedi order.
Overall Approach
I knew I wanted to hew closely to the “canon” color schemes for this one. There are plenty of opportunities to go wild in miniatures painting (I myself painted the Bad Batch in their Season 2-3 armor colors, complete with a little scarf I sculpted from green stuff for Hunter, so I get it), but Obi-Wan and the 212th have a distinctive ‘look’ that I really wanted to capture.
Painting Clone Armor
The single most important piece of painting this kit- and many other Republic boxes- is getting your white clone armor to look right. I like mine to look a little battered, but still largely clean, and have developed the following method that I use for all my clone troopers. (It also works great for Imperial Stormtroopers, but I start those with pure white primer to make the contrasts more stark and inhuman.)
Normally, we don’t do a ton of step-by-steps in HTPE articles these days, but I thought this one was worth showing, as it is fairly specific and as something ubiquitous to the faction, it can be referenced in future Republic HTPE articles.
Step Zero: This is as good a time as any to point out that I paint all my Shatterpoint models stuck with just a touch of superglue on extra 40mm GW bases so that I can paint their bases without the models in the way, and vice-versa. When the project is done, you just gently pop them off the painting base and pin them to the Shatterpoint base through the foot using “won’t frost” superglue. I also generally paint my Shatterpoint models’ arms separately if they impede access to the body, as you can see on the models below. I find this both speeds and really simplifies the stress of the process- though you do have to be careful about not wearing paint off through handling. (The astute amongst you will notice these models are actually Commander Ponds and the Wolfpack, none of whom come in the Hello There! box, but they were the only unpainted clone troopers I had that I could use for this step-by-step! Rest assured, I painted Commander Cody and his 212th using this method as well.)
Steps One and Two: prime the model with Citadel’s Grey Seer spray, then give it an all-over wash of Citadel Apothecary White contrast paint (or your favorite equivalent) as a base. I do this on the whole model, even areas I know are getting other colors, both for speed and to establish some uniform depth.
Step Three: Making sure the previous step is 100% dry (some hours later or the next day, ideally), give the model a gentle drybrush of your favorite white- I use ProAcryl Bold Titanium White. This is not a quick step- take your time and build up those layers. You’re doing 80% of your work on the model here in this one step, so you can afford to go slow and steady. If you take your time, you’ll find you get really nice white edge lines on the various hard points and some ‘dusted’ depth that reads really well as wear and tear on the armor (the right hand torso plate of the clone trooper on the right shows what I’m talking about here). Don’t despair if you make a mistake here and drybrush a little too hard, as long as you don’t do it too frequently. We’re going to be adding color markings to the unit, and since those vary trooper to trooper with no official rules on what they look like, we can place them strategically to cover any spots we might have gotten a little too overzealous with the white.
Step Four: This is the fiddly, time-consuming one. Using Citadel Black Templar contrast paint (or similar from your favorite brand), go through and paint all the joints in the armor and the visor slit. This is not your typical “slosh it on” contrast work like it was when we did the Apothecary White wash. Use a detail brush in many cases, and don’t load it up too heavily. Rinse your brush between each location and keep the paint flowy and your brush control sharp. This step is also fairly tedious, and you will probably have to do two coats in the visor slit and a few other locations to get the deep black you’re looking for. The one nice thing about using contrast for this is that if you slip and get black on an area that’s supposed to be white, you can often quickly rinse your brush and use it clean but just a bit damp to suck up the paint you misapplied. Any slips you can’t clean this way will be corrected in the next step.
Most Clone Armor also has a little…I can only describe it as a “mostly rectangular comm-unit thingy” on the right wrist. Use thinned-down Black Templar to outline it and shade the central recess.
Step Five: Touch up and details are next! Start with your white paint (PA Bold Titanium White for me) and go back and fix up any little slips from the prior black. Keep your paint thin here and remember that you applied the last white layer through drybrushing, so you don’t want big brush strokes here. Neaten up the places you have to and don’t overdo it otherwise.
Next, take your clone squad’s colors of choice and use it to pick out each trooper’s markings. Apply this as a thin coat of a color one step darker than you want the final highlight level to be, then go back and highlight it up, leaving the darker color as the base and in shadows. For the 212th, I used Citadel Nazdreg Yellow contrast paint to establish the base patterns (I often use Contrast paints for this, as they’re nice and flowing and easy to control/tidy if needed) followed by a layered highlight of ProAcryl Warm Yellow. Fortunately, I do have a WiP photo on the 21th for this, showing the initial armor markings with the contrast paint. You could leave it here if you wanted to keep it simple, or add the highlights you’ll see in the final photo below. Notice I’ve also labelled the base so I don’t mix up which clones are which before they get their distinctive markings!
Paint the rifle with two thin layers of Citadel Black Templar contrast and then gently drybrush its raised edges with Citadel Dawnstone layer paint (any mid-tone grey works well for this). Glue the model together, pin it to the base (which of course you’ve painted separately by now, right? If not, you can check out my scheme for doing so below.), and you’re ready to defend the Republic!
The Full Squad (Commander Cody and the 212th were painted using the above method):
Painting Obi-Wan
Obi-Wan was, like most Jedi, very simple except for two elements: the face and the lightsaber. He’s a bit fancier than some, since he’s wearing partial armor as well as his robes, but fortunately, we just learned how to paint that armor above! I did the armor first and then painted the rest of the model around it. Two tips specifically for Kenobi: paint the recessed Jedi logo on his shoulder guard first and after changing your water, go back and carefully re-apply the Grey Seer basecoat around the marking. It is really, really easy for red to contaminate white surfaces. To that point- be extra careful the contrast paint doesn’t get in the logo when you’re washing and then be gentle drybrushing that shoulder plate. If you just smoosh your brush against it and flick it around, you’re going to get drybrushing inside the logo and have to start over, likely with obnoxious if not ruinous results.
Once you’ve done the armor, you can easily do his robes, belt, shoes, etc. with basic wash and layering techniques. I’ve listed the colors I used in the image above.
For Obi-Wan’s face and hands, I started out with Citadel’s Bugman’s Glow, followed by a highlight of Formula P3 Midlund Flesh, a wash with Citadel Reikland Fleshshade, a reapplied blended highlight of Midlund Flesh, and final highest level highlights with Formula P3 Ryn Flesh. His hair was done with a Citadel Doombull Brown base, followed by an Agrax Earthshade wash and a loose drybrush highlight of Citadel Mournfang Brown. I wasn’t really quite happy with the color at that point, so I decided to embrace tedium and do a strand-by-strand edge highlight with Citadel Skrag Brown to get a color that felt closer to me to Obi-Wan’s appearance on the show. This was a bit time-consuming, but fortunately the detail depth is very good on the sculpt and I was able to just use the side of my brush for many of these.
OK, let’s talk about lightsabers. I decided on a specific look for mine, a “glowing” central point (and tip on some models where the saber is facing outwards, like on Obi-Wan below) with the color shifted to the ends. Yes, I know this isn’t what lightsabers normally look like, but it is impossible in miniature form to paint what they do look like- a white center surrounded by a colored corona that is identically and simultaneously visible from every angle. That being the case, you’re going to have to make a choice about how you want to depict yours- uniformly glowing, a single color, OSL, etc. All choices are valid, but you’ll have to make one!
After some long, hard debate, I opted against OSL for my Shatterpoint models. I might change my mind on this by the time I get to models wearing predominantly black like Vader and Luke Skywalker, but for my Clone Wars models, I really wanted their overall costumes and appearance to be bright and dramatic, like on the show, so I didn’t want to make the sacrifices of overall brightness I thought I would have to in order to carry OSL off to my satisfaction. However, I wanted something that would suggest glowing…so that’s how I came to this. I have done this technique two different ways and honestly can’t really tell the difference, so I’ll share them both with you.
Airbrush Lightsaber
For this method, use your airbrush to paint the lightsaber (ideally while not attached to the parent model!), going for a strong, pure white in the middle and fading out to grey towards the ends. Add another “hot spot” of white at the tip if you like. Then you just come back with your favorite contrast/speedpaints/etc. and glaze on the color as appropriate. You can use a little bit of white to neaten up anything that needs it as well in the center. This method is faster but the colors at the end are a little less rich unless you do a great job with your airbrushing basecoat.
Traditional Brushwork Lightsaber
For this method, you paint the lightsaber blade in the base color (blue here), then gradually mix in lighter hues and eventually blend up to white in the middle. As you go, use contrast and glaze paints to smooth any transition areas between colors. Keep your paints thin and apply carefully- it’s very easy to “overcommit” in this stage. Remember you can always add more! You can see the colors I used for blue lightsabers in the image below (I have since transitioned to ProAcryl 05 Blue and ProAcryl 12 Sky Blue instead of the Citadel blue paints, but the technique is the same).
The Bases
I decided to go with a vaguely “Geonosis” themed look for my Clone Wars era models, so I adopted the following technique for everything from that era:
Prime the whole base a mid-tone grey/brown. I’m using a can of Citadel Stormvermin Fur (now OOP) for as long as I can and I guess Citadel Mechanicus Standard Grey after that. After that initial layer, apply a patchy second prime coat of Citadel Wraithbone from directly above. You don’t want to get this even; the gradations are part of what you’re looking for. Finally, spritz just a spot or two of Citadel White Scar spray onto each base to create some even greater contrast.
Grey Deck-Plating
Once the base is dry, do the grey first, in the following steps:
- Cover the whole base in Citadel Basilicanum Grey contrast (not too thick!)
- Wash the whole base with Citadel Nuln Oil. (You want the new version specifically for this; it’s runnier and won’t ‘tinge’ as much as the old.)
- Paint in all the vents, scrapes, bullet holes, seams, etc. with Citadel Black Legion contrast. Be as careful as you can, but this will get neatened up a bit in the next steps if you slip a little.
- Drybrush the base heavily with Citadel Celestra Grey.
- Do a final, lighter drybrush of Citadel Ulthuan Grey.
Orange-Brown Rock
The “natural” parts of the base are done largely the same way, but with the following colors:
- Cover the whole area with Citadel Gore-Grunta Fur contrast.
- Drybrush heavily with Citadel Deathclaw Brown.
- Drybrush more lightly with Citadel Tau Light Ochre.
- Do a final light drybrush on just the top edges of Citadel Flayed One Flesh.
Don’t worry if you get some of the brown drybrushing on the edges of the deck plating where the two textures meet; this just makes the deck look “dusty” and more lived-in.
And that’s it! Pin your models to their new bases, get out there, and fight for freedom and justice across the galaxy while quoting as many of Obi-Wan’s memorable lines as possible!
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