After asking for some tips in another thread (Assistance required: planning on repainting a Z-95), I decided it was time to attempt my first repaint!
I am in no way an experienced miniature painter. I painted my first miniatures less than a year ago, after backing Shadows of Brimstone on Kickstarter and opting for the paint kits by Army Painter. I have only painted a few of the 60+ miniatures included in the two boxes.
Since I do not trust myself to free-hand fine details and straight lines, I ordered some Tamiya 6mm Masking Tape off of Amazon for less than 10$. I mentioned this in my "Assistance required" thread and some people seemed to think that paint sometimes has a tendency to seep under the masking tape. I paid close attention not to manipulate the tape too much while masking off areas, so it was as sticky as possible.
Here are the paints I was planning on using.
I thought the colors looked similar enough to the X-Wing red and Y-Wing yellow I was trying to emulate, and I created a grey to try and match the Z-95's base grey color by mixing a tiny bit of black into some white.
I ended up adding some "Desert Yellow" and "Fang Bone" to the yellow, since it was initially too much of a French's yellow-mustard yellow, and the Y-Wing's yellow is more of a pastel color.
Here's what the Z-95 looked like with the masking tape on in preparation for the red paint.
I put on 2-3 coats of thinned grey paint to cover up the blue, and then another 3-4 coats of thinned red paint.
I was a little afraid of finding out that the paint had seeped under the masking tape, but that wasn't a problem, even having diluted my paints quite a bit!
Here's what it looked like right after I removed the masking tape.
I repeated the process for some yellow accents, and am very happy and it all turned out!!
Here's Airen Cracken flying out with Wedge and Dutch. I really like how well I was able to match the paint colors!
And a shot of Cracken escorting two Bandits, like the list I ran that won me a Store Championship!
And, just for fun, a comparison shot with Cracken's pilot card!
My #1 recommendation for anyone attempting their first repaint: Get yourself some Tamiya Masking Tape.
Seriously, the stuff is amazing. Take your time to really press it into the model's details, being careful not to manipulate the sticky edge you'll be painting up against too much. It'll lead to really sharp, straight lines that I would be very hard pressed to reproduce free-hand (not that I tried).
Hopefully this can get some newbie painters to muster up the courage to try their had at a repaint!
