Topic: Restoring Star Wars Action Figures: Neimoidian Commander - Revenge of the Sith

[Darth More]

Tamer: Thanks for sharing the modified link! I hope the affiliate links make a difference and help the forum a bit.

The quality of the lightsabers sold by this seller is phenomenal! No inclusions in the blades, to dirt, no scratches just clear colors and well-applied silver paint.

Starchaser:Thanks for commenting! I've always dreamed of having so many extra lightsabers left in my parts bin. I'm going to modify some of them. I started making some double-bladed ones in blue for the generic Jedi Temple Jedi from the original Battlefront II videogame.
If Hasbro won't release a Satele Shan, I'll customize one myself. But Serra Keto is first on my list.
For some off reason my to-do list gets longer and longer...is anybody familiar with this phenomenon?






Update: 07/12/2022

I ordered some clear acrylic rods on AliExpress for some custom lightsaber blades. I also want to light some of them up. Another reason why I cannot wait to continue working on them!
I shared more images on the thread about my experiences with AliExpress.

[Tamer]

These look great. Great idea on the double versions. Off to share your update on the front pages.

[Don]

Enjoying this thread! Tempted by the lightsabers now that you're starting to make other thingsd out of them!

[Darth More]

Thank you, Don. Well, you don't have to spend $40. Here's a set of five unpainted "prototype" lightsabers for less than $5 shipped:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-5-prototype-Lightsaber-For-Star-Wars-Clone-Trooper-3-75-Action-Figure-Toy/383876774297

[Starchaser]

The double sabers are a great idea and they are looking good. I might need to do a couple, or a saber-staff.

[Darth More]

Starchaser: Thank you! Yes, I can really recommend to you to do so! I don't regret getting over 250 sabers over the past 6 months. These unpainted lightsabers are perfect to be customized and I'll use the painted ones for future custom projects. I'm especially happy with so many extra red and green lightsabers since they had gone for crazy money on ebay before.
Blue lightsabers for some reason weren't in such a high demand. I'm looking forward to tackling some of the Jedi customs on my list, soon! But first, I'll share a background character of my favorite Star Wars game below:

[Darth More]

Neimoidian Commander - Revenge of the Sith

Source: Revenge of the Sith videogame



Screenshot from the original Star Wars game for Nintendo DS consoles. See images at the end for source and more reference material.


Neimoidian Gunnery Battalion

    "'What happened?'"
    "Some kind of weapons malfunction, from the looks of it, sir!"
    -- A Neimoidian councillor and a Neimoidian guard


The Neimoidian Gunnery Battalion, also known as the Royal Guard, was a Separatist military unit created by the Separatist Council of the Confederacy of Independent Systems to provide important officials with sentient guards when it was too risky to use droids that were vulnerable to centralized deactivation.
Source: Wookieepedia
Read the full article on here.



First, I wanted to share this custom on my main thread of custom figures, but since this figure was missing a couple parts, I thought I show you how I replaced them here.
As you might already know, Revenge of the Sith is my favorite Episode of the Prequel Trilogy.
Therefore the videogame to this final Episode of the Lucas' Saga is my favorite of all times. I have it for XBOX360 and my brother used to play it on his Nintendo DS. That's how I recognized that there were some differences in both versions of the game. This brass color Neimoidian Warrior only appears in the portable version of the game.
And to me they are Neimoidian Commanders. We got two different Neimoidian Warriors from Hasbro so far, which is an absolute blessing compared to the poor selection and variety of today's Vintage Collection, but back in 2005 Hasbro made no cuts on expenses to even give us the most extreme "blink and you miss them" characters.


Source: Wookieepedia


So here's my take on the Neimoidian Commander and you'll see throughout the following pictures that I also added some details of my own. During the process I thought of adding a second metal color to go with the brass dry-brush.

But first, I had to complete this figure, which I found on eBay for 4,75€. I especially like to use figures like this that are incomplete and even played with for my customs.



Completing the figure: Replicating the missing helmet and finding a nice blaster for him










I found this blaster for him, which I believe belongs to a TCW figure. I only have it once and I didn't want to sacrifice it, so I replicated it the same way that I did with the helmet:





You can see my full tutorial on molding & casting by following this link. Special thanks to Clonehead for sharing some of his tips & tricks on this interesting topic. I actually opened the helmet's mold live when I was talking to FialaFernbrugg and it was a great surprise for both of us to see that the helmet was casted well. And also the details on the blaster came out better than expected even though I got some slight lagging in the cast.



Priming the figure & accessories:



Here are some pictures of the "black series" stage of the figure. And since JDeck is a fan of Samurai and Ninjas I thought I share this as part of the process.


Materials and Paints I used:




Primer (acrylic):
- Vallejo's Black Airbrush Primer

humbrol (enamel):
- Brass MET 54 for the armor
- Polished Steel 27003 for the blaster rifle
- Gun Metal 27004 (30%) & Revell's Iron 91 (70%) to paint the details on chest plate of the armor

Revell
- Green SM 384 (20%) & Iron 91 (80%) to paint the scope's lenses in green metallic

Varnish Seal:
- Vallejo's Satin Airbrush Varnish


Painted figure:










Varnished figure:

When I tried to varnish the figure, the enamel paint started dissolving, again. So I decided to stop sealing the metal colors with an acrylic varnish. Instead, I finally sealed blue Snaggletooth, which I painted with acrylic paints by Citadel.
You can take a look at the full making of Snaggletooth here.




Maybe I'll try to seal the Neimoidian Commander with a spray-varnish later on. Even though I don't touch the figures a lot, the metal enamel paint by humbrol tends to be quite sensitive and rub off rather quickly.


Reference Material:

Wizards of the Coast is owned by Hasbro and released a brass metallic version of the Neimoidian for their MINIATURES tabletop game, which is a great reference:






Here's a full gameplay of the story mode played with Anakin on Nintendo DS:

Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (DS) - Longplay (Anakin) by Tsunao the Faker on YouTube:

And here are some more screenshots I've taken from the video above:








Source: Kingdom Hearts Unlimited Wiki





If you got any questions, please let me know by leaving a comment below.


- Philipp

[Starchaser]

Nice! I really appreciate the detailed tutorial as well. The parts turned out really well and its cool that FF was part of the reveal:)

[Darth More]

Thank you Starchaser. Yes, I pressed the Epoxy clay into the mold in the morning and spent the rest of the Friday at the desk. The clay needs about 2.5 hours to cure. And I was looking forward to open the mold in the evening when I was talking to Christoph. I showed him all projects I'm working on at the moment. They include 2 dioramas and 3 custom figures. One of them was the Neimoidian Commander.
I added pictures this morning and will add the paints I used as well. Doing some tests on the varnishes I got recently.

Again, thank you for being one member on here keeping the forum and threads alive. I'm always happy to read your comments, that makes all the editing worth the effort!

[Tamer]

Wow, you did a great job casting up the parts you needed. That paint work is just fantastic too. Looks spot on to me. Off to share this on the front pages.

[Starchaser]

Thank you Starchaser. Yes, I pressed the Epoxy clay into the mold in the morning and spent the rest of the Friday at the desk. The clay needs about 2.5 hours to cure. And I was looking forward to open the mold in the evening when I was talking to Christoph. I showed him all projects I'm working on at the moment. They include 2 dioramas and 3 custom figures. One of them was the Neimoidian Commander.
I added pictures this morning and will add the paints I used as well. Doing some tests on the varnishes I got recently.

Again, thank you for being one member on here keeping the forum and threads alive. I'm always happy to read your comments, that makes all the editing worth the effort!

Thanks Philipp, I know how I feel when I post something and there is little acknowledgement. I can always count on Tamer, but if I just wanted to "put it out there" I would use pintrest or some other "looky-loo" format. The thread is to share ideas, inspiration and feedback - at least that's what I think. Some of our folks are really brilliant and have their own Facebook and websites and such to showcase their amazing work. I'm more of a "tinkerer" - dipping in when I have some time and an idea I like. I enjoy Star Wars and I enjoy customizing, and think I have enough artistic talent to not embarrass myself and even inspire something occasionally, but my life is full and I will never master the craft like some of our amazing artists. That being said, I try to comment, though not with the depth that most entries deserve, because I believe that acknowledging the investment to create and post deserves to be acknowledged, and I'd rather say something than not say something because I can't say all that could or should be said.

[JDeck]

Very cool nemoidian. The castings came out perfectly and the paint selection is great. Yeah they do have a samurai look to them.  Like the layers of plated armor, and of course the helmet. They also remind me of 16-17th century dutch armor. The Trade Federation/ Nemoidians were loosely base on the Dutch East india company, which was a trading company that used it's own military force to obtain a monopoly in the worldwide spice trade during the 17th century.   

[FialaFernbrugg]

The Neimoidian Commander turned out great. The recasted parts look fantastic and the paint job is phenomenal.
It is very impressive how much work you put in your posts.
Excellent work as always.

[Darth More]

Tamer: Thanks for sharing & the compliment! Sometimes enamel paints are the best way to go when it comes to dry-brushing. And as it turned out, I rather leave it like that because the satin varnish takes away the metal pigments again...


Starchaser: Well, I do my best to keep up and comment on as many projects shared as possible. Yes, I love Pinterest. I had the app on my old phone, but haven't logged in there since. In fact I like Pinterest a lot more than Instagram. I leave Instagram to all the bling-bling models and rich lifestyle boyz. Pinterest is for the creative minds out there. But I guess most users are where most bare skin is at. But there are also incredible customizers on Insta.
I'll have to see what I do with my accounts outside this forum. Imperialshipyards is like a home to me, I'll always stay here and really appreciate Tamer's daily featuring.

I love understatements! Well said - and I really enjoy following your projects on here. Thanks for the welcome on here. I'm really glad to be part of this small & happy community now.


JDeck: I'm once again impressed by your in-depth knowledge about history! That's exactly what they look like! I remember John Smith wearing such a helmet in Disney's Pocahontas! Thanks so much for your comment and the really interesting hint!


FialaFernbrugg: Thank you so much for the spontaneous talk. Just when I was writing this comment I had to go get my coffee. Thanks for the compliment! I'm also happy with the quality of these rather simple and cheap re-casts. Well, I know many truly skilled artists out there don't see dry-brushing as skill to be proud of. But I'm surprised by the results one can achieve with this simple technique every time again. I'm satisfied with this enamel metal tone. In my opinion it does justice to the character as he appeared in the game. And I could well see a Neimoidian in this exact armor on Mustafar or Cato Neimoidia. And yeah I try to provide as much background inforamtion as possible for everyone who wants to try this out as well.



By the way, I also spelled it "Neimodian" before - only recognized the difference when I read the headline on Wookieepedia. Thanks for your comments guys!

[JDeck]

  Yeah you probably know the Dutch East India company better as the Verenigde Oost-idische Compagnie or VOC. they were the largest company in world history, worth in today's money over 7 Trillion Dollars. Unlike the British East India company the VOC was granted powers to wage war and create fortifications.  Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the Governor General of the Indies once said, " We cannot make war without trade, nor trade without war",  So I guess that's why Lucas modeled the Trade Federation after them, they were insanely powerful and corrupt, which lead to their downfall.  Anyway I found a picture of 17th century dutch armor and if you squint your eyes it looks exactly like a nemoidian.  I'll remove it, I just wanted you to see it.  But again great work on them.