Back to the Berbers

Having finished the first unit, it's time to tackle the Berbers in their more traditional dress. Remember the Jawas from Star Wars? Guess where Spielberg go the idea?

I've cheated a bit here. Hey, anything to make the painting go quicker! Started with the usual dark gray undercoat and some dark gray touching up. Here's the cheat: almost the whole figure is painted burnt umber. The paint is a bit on the thin side and you might be able to see it pooling in the shadows, which is what we want. I've left the face unpainted so I can do the red-brown base coat, but the legs and hands are painted over, too. The rifles are not painted because I usually use Rifle Butt, but I have covered the rifles, too.

Next, I use light gray where the gandoura shows in the front and I'm well on my way.


Here they are complete. The face, hands and rifle are done in the usual way. The light colored parts are all light gray, not white. There are two highlight colors over the burnt umber: a yellowish color like Teddy Bear Tan is good. The string or piece of leather catches the dark color along the base and the lighter ones on the top. You may not even need to go over it later.

I did a couple of variations on different batches including starting with Nubian/Dark Umber instead of Burnt Umber. On that batch I even painted the base at the start.

By the way, this figure is modeled after a Berber in a period photograph.