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PracticalBandai Resistance X-wing T-70 (Force Awakens)
PixelMagic471
Posts: 663Member
As with all model builds, I start with painting the pilots first. I watched some tutorials on painting table top minis and was insane enough to try some of the techniques on 1/72nd scale figures. Actually worked pretty well.
Post edited by PixelMagic on
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Yes, that.
I started by coating the vents in Alclad Gloss Black Base, letting it dry for several hours, then coating them in a thin layer of hair spray.
After the hairspray dryed, I sprayed Vallejo Model Air Aluminum because you need an acrylic metallic for the hairspray paint chipping technique to work.
After letting the Aluminum dry for several more hours, I took a soft wetting paint brush and burnished the surface on the leading edge surfaces of the vents, as that's where most debris would hit during flight.
I also used Citadel Shade Nuln Oil on the interior of the vents to darken edges and weather. This stuff is amazing and I will probably use it on all Star Wars vehicles.
I then used various Citadel Shades on the back greeble to weather it. It's much too small to weather with oils effectively, so the Citadel Shades are awesome for this.
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Penny pictured as a reminder of the scale of this part.
The cockpit is in progress, so I should have that done soon. Once that's done, I can start to assemble the fuselage and really dig into this thing.
Bandai Star Wars kits are fantastic except for the boneheaded way in which X-wing fuselages go together. They made the color panels as whole separate pieces instead of letting you paint the blue stripe or using a decal for it. This leaves some unsightly misalignments for a smooth hull and huge gaping panel lines. I have done my best to correct this by holding fuselage pieces at the correct angle while the glue sets on the pieces, even though it's a snap kit. I have also hand painted some Tamiya primer in the huge gaps of the panel lines to fill them in a bit. Then sprayed over with high build primer to fill them even more. Hopefully I can get the fuselage as one smooth surface by the time I'm done.
The wing assembles are also done and ready for primer/paint.
If you look at the Star Wars studio models, they all have a grimey speckley texture on them. Word has it this was done by flicking paint off a toothbrush onto the model to create the speckles. However, this model is 1/72nd scale, and I was afraid the globs that flew off the toothbrush technique would be too large and hard to control.
So I came up with this idea and I tried it and it worked great. It gives you really tiny grime/speckles, and it's very easy to control to give you the exact effect you want.
I bought an air conditioner filter for 50 cents at Walmart. This material is very thin and has lots of small open texture to shoot an airbrush through. Basically using it as a stencil to shoot a grime texture.
After the wings were primed with white, I laid this material over the dried wings, and shot Flat Black through the foam filter material. You have to hold the airbrush right up to the foam almost touching it. Surprisingly little paint goes through, so you can build up the effect gradually without worrying about spraying too much at once.
After doing a few passes on the wings, you end up with this. A really nice small scale grime speckle texture...
Obviously it is too harsh in some places, so I mixed up the base color for the X-wing hull, Tamiya Flat White with a few drops of Tamiya Sky Gray to darken it slightly to off white. I then sprayed this hull color in light coats over the wings resulting in a nice subtle grime weathering effect that will be combined with other weathering techniques later. I exaggerated the contrast in the photos to make it show up, but it's perfectly subtle in person.
Even though I sprayed the grime texture as an undercoat to the main hull color, you could easily do this ON TOP of the base coat. As I said, the effect takes a few passes to build up, so you could do this on top of your final paint job without worrying about going to far. You could also use a lighter gray instead of the flat black I used here, and it would give a nice subtle effect. This would especially look awesome on the base coat of a Millennium Falcon.
Anyway, just wanted to share, and I highly encourage you guys to try it if you want small scale grime and speckle effects.
Same here. My hat's off to people like PixelMagic, who have the skills, time and patience to do butt kicking work like this.
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Firstly, I painted the base white, then painted the edges black for a nice contrast. I bought a pack of Scene-A-Rama snow, but I wanted the snow to have that shimmer and glisten that you often see in fresh snow. Therefore I mixed in some extra fine iridescent glitter.
I poured all of the Scene-A-Rama snow into a shaker. I then simply added 3-4 pinches of the iridescent glitter and mixed it up until it had the right amount of shimmer. You don't want to add too much glitter. A little goes a long way.
Next I masked the black sides with tape to keep glitter off them.
On the next part, I could have used PVA glue, but I had already had mixed up a custom thinner I use for Vallejo hand painting, that could also be used to adhere the snow to the base. The way you make it is mixing matte medium and distilled water 3:1. Then you take that mixture and put a TINY amount of flow aid into it so it spreads evenly. The matte medium/water is mixed with the flow aid 20:1.
I then took this matte medium/water/flow aid mixture and painted the base with a wide soft brush. I then immediately took the shaker of my snow/glitter mixture and heavily shook it over the base. I let this sit for about 30 minutes, and then held the base upside down shook off the excess snow. I was left with a nice shimmering snow base. The effect is hard to photograph, but in person looks awesome.
Also completed the first weathering pass on the fuselage.
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Ever try the Salt method for weathering/chipping?? almost the same as the hairspray, and you can use both at the same time. gives off a nice layered chip if your doing layers of painting!
Something like I done on my Mk7 Viper
And a couple with space lighting...
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