In this tutorial I will be going over the steps to achieve two different detail levels of X wing, the first which ill call level 1 from now on is a fairly simple process where by you can paint a whole gaggle of squadrons in an afternoon and they'll look great on the gaming table.

The second which ill call Masterclass is a fair bit more involved and will take longer. It will look better under close inspection and may be much more realistically proportioned and painted. However this does not mean that it will look better on the table and especally at distance, In fact at over arms length away the more cartoonishly proportioned level 1 is more sexy (you can actually make out the squadron color)

It is also possible to mix and match any techniques i talk about here between the two levels, you can go for something overly simple but with a detailed cockpit for example or any combination thereof.

The last thing I will add is that I only claim of having a cursory knowledge of painting minis and that anything in this tutorial is just my own process for achieving the results, if you think you can achieve the same or better results with a different method im all for that. I hope you share your creations with the community!

Anyone who uses this guide is welcome to post results in this thread

So lets start off with examples of the finished product!

In this photo the 3 red squadron fighters on the left are examples of Masterclass work while the 3 yellow squadron fighters in the background are level 1, the Orange squadron fighter on the right is somewhere between those 2 levels. If you like any of these paint jobs you may like this tutorial or find it informative.

I will go over Level 1 first.

The Materials used in this tutorial are.

* A size 3 brush

* Razor blade or hobby knife for cutting flash (skipped that step in this one, refer to Tie tutorial)

* A base coat for the X-wings ( I used Celestra Grey for mine, however X wings are very shabby and you can get away with a number of colors)

* A black paint for the darker components of the craft

* Squadron Colors of your choosing ( I will be using Blue in this Tutorial)

* Astromech Coloring ( Green for this Tutorial)

* A dark wash, I recommend nuln oil though i sued baddab black

A shot of the used materials.

So the first step is too give the fighters a nice base coat, unlike Tie's however X-wings are very shabby looking craft due im part to having to repeatedly re paint them and not having the well oiled industrial machine the empire does. Every X-wing speaks to its history with its appearance, battle scars that haven't healed or marking from a former squadron that was decimated and the craft reintroduced.

Because of this you have alot more lee way in the Base coat, you might even consider using different base coats for a couple fighters or not even applying a base coat as the vanilla tan color they come in isnt a bad choice. The choice is yours but you have alot more options than with Ties

Here is a fighter before primeing

And a comparison shot between some Primed fighters and an unprimed one, it would give your squadron a great shabby look to leave some unprimed as such.

Note : Your options for applying the base coat are again varied, you can spray paint, brush paint, or even dip. I will not go over those techniques in this tutorial as it assumes some level of painting knowledge. I applied my base with a brush, though i recommend spraying

Do each step for every fighter that you have in a row, so that by the time you've finished your last fighter hopefully your first will be ready for a new coat of paint, You may have to layer the base a few times to get a good coat.

and here is a wing completed.

After you've applied the Base coat you can move on to the first step.

Applying all of the darker elements of the craft with a black paint. For Level 1 this is the cockpit window (use the grove in the model for level 1 cockpit) and the Engine intakes.

After you've completed that step you can move on to giving the fighters squadron colors, for level 1 painting i would recommend you dont worry about the paint being too large on the model or not perfect, in fact you want BIG marks and a little imperfection as this will look better and make it pop at a distance (of course it won't look that great close up though)

Paint a line on both side of the fuselage using the mold line as a guide, then paint the top, and if your feeling cheeky bottom wing chevrons

After you've completed your Squadron colors you can move on too the next step.

Painting the Engine exhaust ports red to get the sexy back profile. This is fairly strait forward.

The Next step after painting in the engine glow is too decide on the Astromech droid colors.

I have not personally done research into what colors are exceptable for astromechs and if different ones do different things. However Variety is awesome and so is the rainbow!

I recommend using very bright colors to paint the astromechs with so that they pop on the model, Greens, blues, reds all work really well and allow you to really personalize each ship (as opposed to those silly imperials who all look the same, YAY diversity!)

Here is the Astromech painted in with green, don't worry too much about the matte look to it at the moment as a gloss will make it Astro shinny

The last steps are to give the models a good wash with ink, Again I recommend Nuln oil but i used baddab black, and then gloss the cockpit window, the astromech, and the engine glows. That is fairly self explanatory so now ill give you some photos of what a group of level 1's look like on the table.

Blue, Green, Yellow, and Rogue squadron gettin ready to deliver the pain

The Squadron colors are still very noticeable from a distance

So if you decide to go with level 1 you can get a whole core x wing set done in a couple hours with good work flow!

please post pictures if you do!

Now for the bad maama jamma

So for the Masterclass one of the most important thing is haveing good references to base off of, especially with a model that doesn't actually have alot of detail. What we are trying to do is give the illusion of detail where there is none. However again at arms length and further these details become indistinguishable and so I recommend that if you attempt Masterclass you do so on you "aces" or heros. If anyone does a whole wing to this level of detail or higher they should definitely post it!

Here is the reference photo i used primarily to paint my X-wings.

As you can see, its alot more detailed than a level 1! and especially more so than my first attempts without a reference.

After you have the desired reference you'll need materials

NOTE : This tutorial assumes you have a basic to good understanding of painting concepts and are a fairly good painter.

The Materials used in the Masterclass are

* A modified size 2 brush ( Explanation in photos)

* A size 3 brush

* Base color (Celestra Grey)

* Darker Grey for Dark components (Mechanicus Grey was used)

* Squadron Colors (in some cases you might want to use to complimentary colors for a squadron, such as yellow and red)

* One lighter and One Darker Grey for highlighting and paneling. (lighter and darker than the base, I used Administratum grey and Vallejo ghost grey)

* Red paint for the engine glow

* Black paint for the cockpit and front engine intakes, as well as the interior wing paneling details.

* A light blue for the cockpit frame (Lothern Blue was used)

* A dark wash ( I recommend Nuln as baddab is a little dark but baddab was used here)

* Color for Astromech Droid

* Gloss and Varnish

A photo of the materials you'll need

To get a good brush for the details we have to do something a bit crazy. Get a size 2 brush

Next your going to with hobby snips cut off most of the brush bristles to get a very thin brush with a very acute tip

With all that lets get started!

The base is the same, however after you get the base coat painted you will move on to painting the main dark components of the fighter. In this case it will be the back hatch of the fuselage, the back of the engine housing, the engine intake/outtake, and the fuselage compartment on the top of the fighter.

You'll notice a couple things about this photo, one im not that accurate with my brush strokes, and thats OK! you'll just have to go back over them to get it looking good.

After you've finished with your wash you can then do the finishing steps.

Adding in the color for the Astromech Droid. and putting a gloss on the cockpit windows, the droid, and the engine glow.

After all that, you are done! congrats on the new painted model.

Now put a hardcoat of varnish on there and continue to be awesome

Finshed result and reference

I strongly encourage anyone who uses this tutorial to post their results in this thread or on the forums so that everyone can see and be inspired by each others work!

X-wing aces and elite squadrons tutorial under construction.

reserved

I love you.

Thanks so much for making these tutorials! They're going to be super helpful when I paint my squadrons at the end of the month! Are you planning to buy the squadron expansions in Wave I? And if so, can we look forward to tutorials for the new squadron types?

Wow.. this is so inspiring. I just wish I knew more about "basic" techniques

Aww luv you too Madag XD

yes I plan on doing Tie Interceptors and B wings first as they are my favorites but i do plan to get to them all eventually, and the rogues and villains ships when they come out. No plans to do capital ships yet. Though i might for the mon cal cruiser.

And i will have a special surprise combo tutorial ready by the 20th hopefully that I think everybody is going to like. And i still have to finissh the Ace workshops and Tie Masterclass. Sounds like alot huh!

the important thing is im haveing fun and ill keep doing it as long as its fun.

the Tie continueation will regretabally probably not happen for awhile because i ran out of ties though!

Kinnison, if you have any questions on anything just shoot me a PM, whatever it takes to get you where you wanna be. Paint like you wanna paint, ill see if i can help

Are these models too small to use modeling clay as a mask?, and use an exacto knife to make fine lines?

I used Lurtz's guide to speed paint my x-wings, and while the results are pretty simple I'm pretty happy with them. (I posted these photos on BGG and Lurtz asked me to post them here too, so here I am!)

With a little practice I was getting each X-Wing squadron done in about 15 minutes. I used an ultra fine tip sharpie for the black (cockpit, nose line, and engines), and a fine tip brush for the rest (Vallejo Air paints). I dipped a little black wash around the astromech dome to define it a bit, but haven't tried anything more that that yet. I'd love to try using a red fine tip sharpie when I get one, and compare the results to the paint.

Each squadron has a slightly different wing marking, which started out because I kept smudging the shapes (trying for L's, etc). Eventually I settled for fairly basic shapes I could replicate easily - triangles, rectangles, and squares, in different locations on the wing.

Maturin, again they are excellent. And done in record time, just to give you an idea it took me about 4 hours to do 1 squadron of masterclass. Arms length away those will look just as good if not better!

And he brings up good points about using a fine tipped Marker, unfortunately i did not cover that in the tutorial (mainly because i havent used them myself) but I will likely go back and make an amendment eventually.

Thanks for sharing again dude, very kickass.

Wjgo- i dont think it would be impossible but i think it would be very difficult and im not overly familiar with masking with putty. I think its worth a try though!

Ok, I got myself a red sharpie (ultra fine tip) and quickly scribbled on this X-wing, in literally about 60 seconds. It doesn't look half bad, and while I think a good size 1 or 0 brush is still just a bit better it's not off by much! I'm not sure about durability, but for those of you without paint this seems like a very viable option!

Red sharpie X-wing is the left one in both photos. Sorry about the quality of the pics - iphone in poor light conditions.

They look extremely good for 30 seconds. Ill have to make an amendment for a good marker spped paibt in the tutorial at some point. Im sure non painters will have a much easier time with that appraoch.

Here is my squarden of X-Wings, minus one set who were missing when the painting started, they have since been found, so no worries!

All I did was spray paint white, was black and put some red stripes on, blue for the cockpit and silver on the engines, over all took about 60 minutes (not counting drying time).

They look great! I like your cockpits!

Thanks, I was going to do the dark windshields but laziness took over,

Hello all, New here and thought I would drop in some of my attempts at painting the squadrons. I should have checked this site before I did, A lot of good advice here.

My "Elite" element.

One of my lesser flights.

Another group shot.

Not bad I think, but no where near as good as your Mastercraft squads. I used a lot of the same techniques you used, and nearly identical paint choices. As an old 40k player I have a LOT of GW paints laying around. lol

Thanks for the great how-tos, I will use it whenever they get around to releasing the expansions. Want my A and B Wings to look awesome.

They look great! And will be just as beautiful on the table as anything j could manage. I would think GW paints will be getting alot of traction from this community XD.

I will be doing B wing tut for sure soon as I luvs me my B wings.

Thank you for sharing!!!! XD