Here are my first two Naboo Handmaidens, and they can be thought of as an exercise in weathering and mud effects. For both of them, I started with the body of Episode I Queen Amidala (Naboo). At the suggestion of a handmaiden recipe on FFURG, I decided to try my hand at a bit of weathering and mud effects on their boots, pants, and coats; after all, they are in a swamp when we meet them in these outfits. So, at the suggestion of FFURG, I balled up a wet paper towel and dabbed watered-down paint on it, mostly tan (Testors Model Master Acryl) and sandgelb (Testors Model Master Acryl 4789), and then proceeded to blot it around on the coats, boots and pants in a haphazard and muddy looking manner. (My paint-covered fingers came in very handy here too.) Both of them are holding various combinations of Queen Amidala’s twin royal blaster pistols.
Saché’s head came from a POTF2 Ewok Celebration Leia from which I removed the long hair. (Those hairpieces pop right off with a bit of boiling and gentle twisting.) I replaced it with a Sculpey ponytail (which can be seen better in the lower-left picture) and painted it a mixture of flat black (Testors Model master Acryl 4768) and dark earth (Gunze Sangyo H72). Many thanks again to FFURG for their indispensable guidance about how to paint hair!
For Rabé, I kept Queen Amidala’s head, but removed the hairpiece and replaced it with that of POTJ Bespin Escape Leia, and finally repainted it a nice dark brown using the a similar dark brown paint mixture. People will probably cry out against the fact that that wasn’t her hairstyle in the movie, but I figured it was appropriate to give Rabé a nice coiffure, since, according to the lore, she’s supposed to good with hair. Besides, it looks really pretty on the Amidala head.
Speaking of crying out against things, I know I’m going to hear from a number of fanchildren to the effect of “Hey! Rabé wasn’t in the Naboo swamp scene! That was Eirtaé!” I know that, but I really wanted to save the young-looking Amidala head for Rabé (who’s one of the youngest Handmaidens), and besides, I’m sure all five of them (or however many there are) have outfits like this! Maybe they’re on some sort of training mission out in the swamp with Panaka or something. Use your imaginations, people!
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EVCdeL 1.VIII.05
