1:24 X-Wing Red 3 **WIP**

[StevenBills]

Love it!!!!!!!

That looks fantastic.

Looks brilliant

J

Thanks guys!

Great way to mask fast...and no bleeding is a +. Looking very good

Vinyl masks are definitely a time saver and they turned out perfect!

That was always the most tedious job when painting the X-Wings.

Yes, the vinyl masks are the way to go. So easy to make and save boatloads of time. I think on the Bandai 1:72 models, the gaps between the stripes on the wings work out to something like 1mm? Just tedious and takes lots of time! Definitely a great workaround.

I have masked off all of the areas on the model that will get the green color. There seems to be two shades of the green on this X-Wing: a lighter green, and a darker, more yellow green (on the bottom of the fuselage as well as the nose cone). Hopefully I will get to spraying the green later this evening. I'll update with photos when that happens.

It's starting to look like an X-Wing!

SB

 

[StevenBills]

Alrighty! Little paint update for today. Got all of the green masked off and chipped using Winsor & Newton masking fluid (chipping hadn't been applied yet in these photos):

Then looked at a lot of reference and a few other builds and mixed up a pale green color. It was quite difficult to try and match the hue and the tone of the green, but eventually I landed on something that I was happy with, although probably not exactly 100% correct to the studio scale model. I applied the liquid masking while looking at reference, but then ended up freestyling it a bit. I guess I just need to be a little more patient, eh?

I mixed up a darker, more yellow green for the panel on the belly of the fuselage, and then I misted that darker color onto the nose cone as well. Turned out kinda dark, and will get a little darker with the weathering that will come, but hopefully will lighten up a bit with the misting of the base color at the end.

As for next steps....? I have painted the pilot orange, but am utter garbage at painting small details, so I am putting off working on him for as long as I can... Same kind of goes for the cockpit, so I think I'll just keep plugging away at various panel colors that are all over the body. There are some tan/orange ones around the fuselage, as well as some lighter blue ones for the canopy and on the engine cans, some gray ones mixed in here and there... This X-Wing is just a smorgasbord of colors!

Stay tuned for more!

SB

 

[joberg]

Really looking good

 

[Jkirkon]

That’s coming together nicely! Can’t wait to see more!!!

 

[StevenBills]

The clown car phase continues! Lots of masking and masking and masking and masking and.......

I painted the blue last night, and that includes some barber poles on the cannons. We're so used to seeing Red 5's arrangement, but Red 3 is the opposite:

So I masked them off with Tamiya tape and went to town with the airbrush:

I'm not too thrilled with the saturation of the blue. It was waaaay too blue, and then I mixed in some gray, and then misted white over it, and it still looks too bright. Hopefully it'll get toned down with a bit of weathering.

This morning I spent masking for the all the yellow, and got that sprayed today. There are two different hues of yellow, and I don't think that I captured that very well. Let's just say it has been a learning experience all around!

Like I said, lots and lots of masking for all this, even though it doesn't look like a lot. I'm a little worried about how bright and saturated the colors are looking at this point, but I just need to keep telling myself that it'll all get faded back with forthcoming mist coats and more weathering to tie it all together.

That's all for now, thanks for looking!

SB

 

[Jkirkon]

Trust the process. The colors will become more muted as you weather and add filters.

Red3 was heavily weathered.

Looking great!

 

[joberg]

Yep, the mist + wear and tear are certainly going to diminish that brightness

 

[Jkirkon]

 

[rbeach84]

Funny and uh, "on point"
;^P
R/ Robert

 

[StevenBills]

Okie dokie, little update for this morning. I really wasn't happy with how bright the blue was that I had painted last week. I was looking at reference photos and a few other builds, and I decided that it needed to be more gray-blue than blue-blue

So with my mind made up, I masked off all of the blue again, and painted it back to the off-white color of the base coat, and then mixed up a gray with a hit of blue (maybe not enough blue? haha), and I'm much much happier with these results:

You can still see a hint of blue on the engine can in the yellow chipped area, but I think that'll be okay. I think the next step is to do the brown-ish bands around the engines, and then I think I'm going to practice weathering on the droid strip as well as the back plate. Maybe.

It's all subject to change

SB

 

[edge10]

It works.

In real life, if yellow was painted over blue, and yellow was scratched, you might see blue underneath.

It's yours, have fun!

 

[StevenBills]

Got some dark lark gray onto the thrusters as well as the inner engines. Once this is dry I'll go in and scuff it up and add some rust spots here and there as well.

Slow and steady....

SB

 

[edge10]

If that's slow, my progress is utterly glacial!

Nice work as always.

 

[Jkirkon]

Anxiously awaiting more!!

 

[joberg]

^^
What he said

 

[StevenBills]

Anxiously awaiting more!!

Haha me too!

Honestly, I have been stuck until I can figure out these darn AX paints. I have all of the panel colors down. Now it's the weathering that has me a bit stumped. I don't want to just hose down the model with dark colors and call it a day. But there's so much surface area on these larger models, that I feel like I need to do something to every square centimeter or it won't look right.

So anyway. Kind of stuck at the moment.

SB

 

[StevenBills]

Over two months since my last update?!

Just a little update tonight. Not much actually done on the model, sadly (I'm still in the paint-paralysis stage). I wasn't 100% happy with the thruster nozzles that came with this model. They are just rather plain on the inside, and I know that's how the ILM birds were in the 70s. That comes down to the 1/32 Revell Phantom II kit that was used for these parts. However, after seeing what Josh and Jason did with their idealized X-Wing, I just couldn't get the image of super-detailed turkey feathers out of my head, and it's been bugging me for a while on this project. Here is the original part, with the Aavid heat sync attached to the turkey feathers:

So I have been searching online for some STLs that would work. Problem is, that if someone has a Phantom model, usually they didn't super-detail the engine thruster nozzles. So most of the models that I found were a bit plain. That is, until tonight.

I found this upgrade file for the F-4. Seemed a reasonable price. I know it's not the same as what's on the X-Wings, but the details on the inner nozzle are present, and would look really cool, in my opinion. However, I will miss the little pokey parts on the tips of the nozzles. RIP.

So I went into my slicer and did some hacking and slashing, marrying the Aavid part from Dom's model to the nozzle part of this model, and came out with this:

Lots of detail on the outside as well as the inside that I'm pretty excited about. Here is a detail comparison in the same photo:

Mmmmmmmm.... details.......

I'm hoping that the LED lighting in the engines will play off of the details on the inside and work well for the photography that I am planning on doing with this model.

I will get it all sliced up and run some prints off tomorrow after work, and then update this thread.

Thanks for looking, and not giving up on me!

SB

 

[joberg]

Looks more detailed than the original design

 

[modelerdave]

That's a great upgrade!

 

[Jkirkon]

Over two months since my last update?!

Just a little update tonight. Not much actually done on the model, sadly (I'm still in the paint-paralysis stage). I wasn't 100% happy with the thruster nozzles that came with this model. They are just rather plain on the inside, and I know that's how the ILM birds were in the 70s. That comes down to the 1/32 Revell Phantom II kit that was used for these parts. However, after seeing what Josh and Jason did with their idealized X-Wing, I just couldn't get the image of super-detailed turkey feathers out of my head, and it's been bugging me for a while on this project. Here is the original part, with the Aavid heat sync attached to the turkey feathers:

View attachment 1814635

So I have been searching online for some STLs that would work. Problem is, that if someone has a Phantom model, usually they didn't super-detail the engine thruster nozzles. So most of the models that I found were a bit plain. That is, until tonight.

I found this upgrade file for the F-4. Seemed a reasonable price. I know it's not the same as what's on the X-Wings, but the details on the inner nozzle are present, and would look really cool, in my opinion. However, I will miss the little pokey parts on the tips of the nozzles. RIP.

So I went into my slicer and did some hacking and slashing, marrying the Aavid part from Dom's model to the nozzle part of this model, and came out with this:

View attachment 1814634

Lots of detail on the outside as well as the inside that I'm pretty excited about. Here is a detail comparison in the same photo:

View attachment 1814637

Mmmmmmmm.... details.......

View attachment 1814638

I'm hoping that the LED lighting in the engines will play off of the details on the inside and work well for the photography that I am planning on doing with this model.

I will get it all sliced up and run some prints off tomorrow after work, and then update this thread.

Thanks for looking, and not giving up on me!

SB

Man, those look awesome! I’d love a set for my 1/18 x-wing.