When I thought about painting the Imperial units, I feared Vader. It wasn’t the way childhood me feared him (his telekinesis, lightsaber expertise, or force choke), but the fact that I had to paint him black. Aside from the Emperor, he’s the first fully black model I would be painting and there are quite a few shades of black across his different uniform materials (cloth, leather, plastic, metal). With the emperor, I didn’t think that my blacks were well varied, so I wanted to do that better this time. At the same time, I wanted to be true to film and avoid over-highlighting the miniature to prevent a cartoony feel that can occur when painting and highlighting black.