How to Paint Star Wars: Legion Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker

By Travis Pasch | November 24th, 2022 | Categories: How To Tutorial, painting miniatures, Star Wars, Star Wars Legion, Tabletop Gaming News, Videos

With this easy painting tutorial, learn how to paint Star Wars: Legion Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker miniatures!

The force is strong with the Skywalkers, providing them with the means to lead their armies to greatness as opposing generals for the Star Wars: Legion starter set!

These Star Wars: Legion models come unassembled and unpainted. Each miniature assembles pretty easily, with push-fit models requiring a little glue to stay together and minimal mold lines to clean up, which is nice.

Take a look at this quick painting tutorial and see how to paint your Dark Vader and Luke Skywalker miniatures.

How to Paint Star Wars: Legion Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker

Before we get into the steps for painting these Star Wars: Legion models, let’s check out the paints used in this video.

You can click the links below to grab your own!

How to Paint Star Wars Legion Darth Vader: Painting Tutorial

Darth Vader is first sprayed with Matt Black Primer to prime and set the base of his clothes. You can use the Matt Black from the paint pot to also cut in black that was missed. This is one really nice thing about the Army Painter color match.

Every primer has a dropper bottle color to match!

Step 2: Base Coats

Necromancer Cloak is next for Vader, using a little on the brush to pull lines on the various edges (especially on the back cape). For the buttons, line with the Necromancer Cloak as well. For the helmet and cape, mix the Necromancer Cloak with Warpaints Mixing Medium to thin it down, then brush over the flat surfaces.

Considering there are so many flat areas on him, you need to add a little of the medium to give the flat areas some pop.

Step 3: Final Base Coating & Washing

For all the metal areas, Rob is using Gun Metal. This is a base coat, so get good coverage and try your best not to get any on the black. Use a spray Gloss Coat to seal the miniature at this point (we recommend this after all big stages like this to seal your paint)! Washing black doesn’t take very much.

Using Dark Tone, coat the entire model with the wash and dab up the sections that have pooled up.

Step 4: Highlights

Highlight back up with Necromancer cloak, hitting the areas that you want brighter than others since the wash knocked back the previous step. Next, highlight more with Castle Grey to bring out more of a shine on spots where the most light would hit (nose, edges, fingers, etc.).

For the cape, Rob only edged the very tip of it. Vader is honestly a dark model, so don’t get too carried away with the highlights here, as you’ll take away from the overall effect.

Step 5: Lightsaber & Base

For the Lightsaber, use Chaotic Red as the base, Dragon Red mixed with Warpaints Mixing Medium as the highlight tone, and glaze up towards the tip. Pure Red is applied in the same glazing fashion to create a glowing effect, with the tip being the brightest.

Just go from the bottom to the top, and blend the dark red from the bottom to the brightest on top. The last stage of Pure Red is really just on the very tip, be sure to leave some dark areas so you can really see the contrast of colors.

For the base, Rob did it the same as the Stormtroopers, which you can find here. Finally, seal with a matte varnish to protect everything you just did!

How To Paint Star Wars Legion: Luke Skywalker Painting Tutorial

Priming Luke starts with Desert Yellow spray. If needed, use a brush and the Desert Yellow paint pot to apply paint wherever the spray might have been missed. The Desert Yellow is also the base coat for his clothes.

Step 2: Base Coats & Washing

Now it’s time to block in other base coats on the model. Leather Brown is used for all straps, belts, and on boots. Matt Black is also used on the blaster and handle of the Lightsaber.

Gun Metal is put on the belt buckle, blaster, and lightsaber hilt. Barbarian Flesh is used to basecoat the hands and face. Just like with Vader, the base coats take some time, but be sure to get good coverage and not be too messy.

Seal the model with a Gloss coat spray here before washing not to mess up the previous steps. Then wash the whole model with Strong Tone, applying the wash from the top and working your way down, pulling off any wash that pools. You want it to get into the recesses, but don’t let it pool.

Be sure to keep your brush moving in this stage, and this will help with pooling. You can also dab it off when you remove the wash, but always keep the brush slightly wet.

Step 3: Highlights

The hair was highlighted using Babe Blonde, edging all the higher spots on the hair to bring out the definition. Barbarian Flesh and Elven Flesh are mixed in a 50/50 to highlight the skin.

Considering Luke has many more raised areas than Vader, this will take some time. However, just be sure to hit all the raised areas on the skin and hair, but take your time here, as too much highlighting will make the model come out a little wonky. This is Star Wars after all, not Tron!

Step 4: Lightsaber

The lightsaber was based with Viking Blue and glazed up with Troglodyte Blue in the same method as Vader’s lightsaber. Finally, Stone Golem was used as the brightest blue, glazing up, so the glow ends up at the tip.

Again, you want the top of the Lightsaber to be the brightest part, so as long as your base level is darker and the top is brightest, you should be good to go.

Step 5: Base & Finishing Touches

Again, we want to seal with matt varnish to keep our work protected. Then for the base, you can see how to do all that here.

What’s your favorite way to paint Star Wars Legion models like Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader?

Let us know in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group, and make sure you enter the latest monthly giveaway for FREE today!

Get ad-free access to our videos, a monthly crate of miniatures, and support some of the best creators out there for as little as $6 a month on Patreon!