"U" isn't a word. You have a full keyboard, man - use it!

For my first ships, I used DOT 4 brake fluid - but for the E-Wing, I tried rubbing alcohol and within an hour or so it was practically spotless.

Ah sorry What kind of alcochol, how strong ?

An afterthought, how the hell pilots get in/out of E-wing ? cockpit is just below the cannon O_o

Kepora,

A couple of suggestions for airbrushes. Badger 150 with fine tip, or a Paasche VL. Both are double action internal mix brushes. Depending on your hand size, the Paasche is fatter (bulkier) than the Badger. Badger is more pencil-like and it's a gravity feed. Needs less pressure than a siphon feed to work. External mix brushes are cheaper but don't give as fine a spray pattern. Internal mix brushes, with acrylics, are going to need a retarder added to the paint. The paint will dry on the needle tip screwing with the spray pattern.

There are other brushes out there that will give a finer line but for model work and masking either one mentioned should work well for you.

You might also try adding a retarder to the paint you're using now. Liquitex makes two that I find useful. Also try dropping your pressure.

On YouTube look at Ichiban Studios and do a search for Ammo by Mig. Both sites will give how tos on using airbrushes and painting techniques. Ichiban actually repaints several X-wing models.

Hope this helps. I got my first Paasche in 69 and it still works fine. Had to replace a couple of seals but nothing major.

Forgot to say how much I like your repaints. Nice color combo. They'll stand out on the table for sure.

U have a good day. (Sorry, couldn't resist :-).

Thanks for the info! My current airbrush is a cheap one, but it's a good internal mix gravity-fed double-action for basecoating. Need to look more into liquitex; I have generic fluid retarder, but I think I put TOO much in some of my paints (like my white, for example).

And thanks! I wanted something clean and striking, seeing as they're well-maintained New Republic/private Bothan Clan vessels. The X-Wing and Y-Wing will eventually be phased out and only brought into bigger games in the future, pending the arrival of my B-Wing, the release of the K-Wing, and the inevitable release of the T-70 X-Wings from The Force Awakens.

"U" isn't a word. You have a full keyboard, man - use it!

For my first ships, I used DOT 4 brake fluid - but for the E-Wing, I tried rubbing alcohol and within an hour or so it was practically spotless.

Ah sorry What kind of alcochol, how strong ?

An afterthought, how the hell pilots get in/out of E-wing ? cockpit is just below the cannon O_o

Just 91% Isopropyl Alcohol from Wal-mart! As for the E-Wing, I hope this picture helps. It's actually quite a clever idea!

Also, question for you guys: Should I chop up the Y-Wing into a Y-TIE to represent a Y-Wing wiht an R2 unit (all speed 1 and 2 maneuvers become green maneuvers)? If not, what would you guys suggest? The engines have been a major roadblock in painting it, and the "arms" trailing behind the engines have been trying really hard to break off.

So, I got a little ahead of myself and got chop-happy. here's what the night's work ended up with...

"Old Bird", Drovus Fen'dor's old ship, now flown by a clanmate Kalya Fen'Dor. Originally slated to be scrapped, Drovus purchased a heavily damaged Y-Wing some time after the Battle of Endor. Combined with salvaged TIE parts, plenty of hand-machined custom pieces, and a whole lot of TLC, the resulting ship ended up surprising Drovus and his friends - the ship being faster, more agile, and even more survivable then any of them had even dreamed of. However, the TIE engine was finicky and prone to malfunction, often "burning out" under the stress of pushing around a hefty Y-Wing frame.

Time passed, but despite the newer ships available to his young (yet prosperous) clan, Drovus couldn't bare the thought of junking Old Bird, or even selling her; thus, she was relegated to ornamentation int he hangar. That all changed after a battle that erupted on the Fen'dor clan's doorstep; the young, ambitious - and slightly insane - Kalya Fen'dor bringing Old Bird out of retirement. Unbeknownst to Drovus, not all of Old Bird was "old" anymore; the fussy TIE engine had been gutted, now replaced with a far beefier custom-built Corellian ion engine. While still sluggish compared to more modern fighters (such as Drovus' personal E-Wing), she surprised clanmate and raider alike with not only the stability of the new engine, but the sheer ease it could pull off even hard turns at low to medium speeds. Kalya put the shocking agility of the fighter to great use, feinting enemies into her clanmates' fields of fire, playing a pivotal role int he defense of the Fen'dor clan's holdings.

With the remaining parts, I started putting together the inverse of a Y-TIE, often referred to as a TIE-Wine or DYE-Wing - the Crusty Mynock. It may receive a rename, though; this will actually be a gift to a good friend's fiancee, a sort of wedding gift since she's getting into the Scum & Villainy faction hardcore.

It's darker in-person, but either way the TIE-Wing looks a LOT better now that it has primer and a basecoat of GW's Rhinox Hide. Going to airbrush a coat of GW's Mournfang Brown from above and at an angle on the sides later for a basic zenith highlight. I'm likely going to airbrush the brown fading to black down the "arms" of the engine nacelles, and the frame of the cockpit is going to be either red, brown, or silver. May add additional red or yellow markings/details here and there, not sure what to do with the "nose" dome of the Y-Wing engines.

Did some more work on the Crusty Mynock. Would love to hear suggestions on what to do with the colors!

Aaand I did more since I've been really inspired/motivated to work on this thing!

Sorry for the flood of posts, guys. I finished the Crusty Mynock - and even faster then I finished my X-Wing, I think! This little beauty came together nicely, and I was super-motivated to work on it, so...yeah! She's all sealed up with Testor's Dullcote, and ready to be presented to my friend's fiancee to count as a Z-95 for her Scum & Villainy fleet!

Did somebody say "family photo"? ...No? Well, here's one anyways!

...Well, more of a Clan photo. but you get the idea.

The heavy hitters:

The speed freaks:

And all together now!

I still love the idea of a TYE-Wing. Something so unspeakably sh*tty in every way. Slow like a Y-Wing. Fragile and weak as a TIE fighter. Takes all the worst parts about the both of the ships and puts them together into one supremely cheap, ineffective piece of garbage.

There's something endearing about that.

Right, got a small - but still very important! - update. Finally started getting my airbrush primers to cooperate, so yay! I had to do a little cleaning up with my Exacto Knife, so they could use one more coat of white; after that, I'm going to start trying to mask off areas in preparation for the orange markings! Once those are done and the canopies are painted, it' pretty much just picking out details in black/grey/silver and doing a wash.

...Assuming the models decide to cooperate, that is.

So, I've run into the problem I feared I would.

Orange is a horrible, messy PITA to paint.

To alleviate this problem, I'm considering going to another color for the markings and such; however, I have a number of good colors I can't decide from! Here's some of my best options:

I'm kind of leaning towards dark blue or a dark green (possibly a darker forest green then the ones shown, if I can find some!). I'm completely and utterly torn. So, I leave the floor to you: If you feel I should try one of the above colors, name the number of the color (or colors if you can't pick one!) above you think would be ebst for my clan's markings - and if the hulls of the vessels should be white or grey!

I'm a big fan of 2, 11, and 13. I'd most like to see 11. I think the purple would go really well with the white or a really light gray.

Right, so. For a day or two there...I'd completely given up all hope of repainting my Rebel fleet. I was just having way too mcuh **** trouble painting such small, fiddly figures! A recent, rather lengthy bout of depression further diminished my mood and my ability to focus. However, with the stubbornness us Americans are famous for ('Murrica!), I forced myself to calm down, sit down, and take my freaking time . I started at around 6-8 AM, and it's 12:35 PM now - and only this much is done. However, for once, I don't want to throw it to the floor and roll over it with my chair's wheels. It may be A New Hope after all - which is funny, since it's been my most problematic fighter to paint so far! I was even happy enough to take it outside (and internally make a few swooshing sounds) to take some "flying" shots:






Needless to say, the orange and white combo is dead . It has given me far too much grief -and something's really 'clicking" with this new scheme! I'm going to make the grey areas darker so they pop a bit more - but I honestly think that this little bugger's finally going to look great! I'll likely give it the blue engine treatment too, unless I can find some good yellows...

Pictures are way too **** small, but I had to hold the camera far away or else the flash washed everything out. The dark grey went on a little too thick, but otherwise I'm liking where this is going!

I am really liking these, especially the uglies. <3

Hey everyone! Boy, it sure has been a while, huh? Well, I've decided to give this another try, so...here's to hoping that things go better this time around!

Also, of a moderator would be so kind, could you please move this back to Painting & Modifications?

Hey, did you ever finish these ships? I'm guessing you did, but I'm curious to see them.

The white-grey-orange scheme on the X-Wing looks great! Such a striking effect despite it's simple (looking) execution.

...but more importantly...

...how many died to bring us these pictures??

The white-grey-orange scheme on the X-Wing looks great! Such a striking effect despite it's simple (looking) execution.

...but more importantly...

...how many died to bring us these pictures??

None - we did our jobs right.

As much as I like this scheme, I've been unable to replicate it on any other ships. I've tried white and green as well to limited success - certainly not to the level I want. So I'm scrapping this scheme in favor of basically copying Black Squadron's colors - black, orange markings, and potentially grey accents. I plan on doing the cockpit canopies in a dark green so set them apart from the ships' bodies, and I can easily achieve the colors by basecoating in white, spraying in orange, then hand-painting the black areas. I MAY opt for a really dark grey rather than black, though; any thoughts on this?

I'd suggest keeping the black and changing the orange. Red maybe? Those colors work well together. Generally I print out those black and white ship schematics you can find online and get my colored pencils and markers out. It helps me visualize and try out different color combos.

Love it!

The object source lighting on your ships is great! The Mynock ugly and the original orange X wing both have fantastic OSL on the engines. Keep up the great work! I am a huge fan of Liche Purple as well, and I want to break it out to do some repaints on my ships, too. Can't wait to see what comes next.