A Mon Calamari crew prepares to repel an Imperial boarding party on a Rebel ship.

WEG made two different Mon Cal figures, one walking with a pistol and one standing with his hands on his hips. I wanted to make two figures with rifles to serve as specialists in Mon Cal squads. I cut the tip off of one pistol and made a new rifle barrel from a piece of wire cut from a paperclip. Other parts like sights and the butt were cut from wire or thin polystyrene card and superglued into place. Overlapping the little pieces gave the finished rifle more strength.

The unarmed Mon Cal figure makes a good officer figure to serve as a squad leader or as part of a bridge crew squad. I wanted my second rifle specialist to be different from the first, so I based it on this figure. I didn't think a rifle added to his hand would look very convincing, since his hand is flat against his belt, so I used another simple conversion trick and slung the rifle on his back. I cut a piece of wire from a paperclip and glued it behind his shoulder to be the rifle barrel, then built up the details with more wire and tiny pieces of plastic card. The strap is a thin piece of polystyrene shaved from the edge of a flat sheet, which gave it a natural curl. I cut it to the right length and glued it into place so one end is attached to the rifle barrel and the other seems to disappear under the trooper's armpit.

I used Delta Ceramcoat's Caucasian Flesh paint (which is a rather orangish color) for the Mon Calamari skin, and Apple Barrel's Territorial Beige for the skin blotches. This seems to match my reference pictures exactly. One error I made was painting the eyes solid black -- Mon Cal eyes should be light yellow with large round black pupils.

I checked my sourcebooks and searched the web for Mon Cal pictures before deciding on a yellow color for most of the crew uniforms (Delta Ceramcoat's Empire Gold) and grey for the officers (my own blend). Off-white might be more accurate than this strong yellow, but the yellow does match Ackbar's pants stripe and the coat Luke wears at the award ceremony in Ep IV, and it looks right next to the blues and oranges of other Rebel fleet uniforms. Most Mon Cal seem to be dressed entirely in one color, including their shoes, belts, and belt buckles, so I chose to make the helmets or hats the same yellow color as well. Some Mon Cal have slight differences in a few uniform parts, so I gave both officers darker grey boots and gave one officer a darker grey belt just for a little variety. It also would be appropriate to add a slightly contrasting color bib over the top of an officer's tunic. I ignored the stripe that was sculpted on the side of the pants, treating it as a seam in the fabric, since I didn't see a contrasting color stripe in any reference pictures except for Admiral Ackbar's yellow stripe on his white pants. I also decided not to add rank badges to these lower-ranking Mon Cal, though a simple grey bar on the left breast would look appropriate.

One more picky detail: There is a small disk on the side of the belt that I painted yellow or grey to match each figure's uniform color. I later noticed that some reference pictures show this disk to be a dark gunmetal color. However, Ackbar's white belt has a white disk that matches his white uniform, so either color choice may be considered correct.

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