I had a lot of fun at Sullust yesterday and so started trying to work on my models. It's not enough to call a re-paint but I remembered in the X-wing computer games the VSD had darker colored wings, although they also were oriented quite differently. So I started with some windows and this, though I might undo the change to the bridge extension. Anyone else repaint these guys or have any ideas on what else to do? I'll add some weathering at least. I'd love to see what others have done to make this ship not just look like a runty ISD!

simple but looks awesome

ownership is awesome!.....nice@@!

Nice work! I really like the "wings". Do you mind me asking what color you used, and how you did it? I have painted my squadrons, and am tempted to try something similar to what you have done with my own VSDs.

Thanks! The wings are just 2 coats of Citadel Paints Skavenblight Dinge, and the windows were just yellow paint on a toothpick, although it took a few tries to get paint into some of the holes. Acrylic thinner doesn't seem to do anything to the factory paint job, so you can wipe up any mess pretty easily. No real technique to anything, just that I finally learned I need to water down the paints to get them to not be gloppy and uneven.

Thank you for the information! I gave it a go and bought a Skavenblight Dinge and tried it out. Applied one layer of it, then a quick wash, followed by another layer on Dinge. Lastly, I lightly washed just the crevasses. Don't know if the extra trouble was worth it though, but I think it turned out ok! Thanks again for both the information, advice and inspiration!

Here's two very bad pictures of it:

I also tried to make the damaged antennas look like they were blown of by a blast. It didn't really work out...

Nice, I like the black bases as well!

Nice, I like the black bases as well!

Me too. Do you put a gloss coat over the black to protect the paint?

Both of those are awesome looking squadrons. They look right proper, both individualistic and uniform in just about the right proportions. Colour me impressed. My own VSD's are sort of motley, with one being an aged hunk of junk (which I so do love), and the other having a blue tint (which I also do love) but I'm also in the habit of applying decals which, you know, complicates things further. I adore painting threads, and after Sullust, I reaaaally hope to see more painting done. (so much grey... so so much grey, the horror).

My only suggestion, at least to Viper Jr., you can add one little finishing touch if you have a sharpie or other permanent marker: colour the edges of the cardboard bases. It'll blend with the black, and you took time to do the stands which really does look great Colouring the cardboard edges just adds a little bit of polish, and doesn't distract the eye from a fantastic paint job

Both of those are awesome looking squadrons. They look right proper, both individualistic and uniform in just about the right proportions. Colour me impressed. My own VSD's are sort of motley, with one being an aged hunk of junk (which I so do love), and the other having a blue tint (which I also do love) but I'm also in the habit of applying decals which, you know, complicates things further. I adore painting threads, and after Sullust, I reaaaally hope to see more painting done. (so much grey... so so much grey, the horror).

My only suggestion, at least to Viper Jr., you can add one little finishing touch if you have a sharpie or other permanent marker: colour the edges of the cardboard bases. It'll blend with the black, and you took time to do the stands which really does look great Colouring the cardboard edges just adds a little bit of polish, and doesn't distract the eye from a fantastic paint job

That's a great idea! I didn't really think about it, but now that you mentioned it, I can't stand the white popping out... I'll be doing this first thing tomorrow. Thanks a lot for the advice!

Nice, I like the black bases as well!

Me too. Do you put a gloss coat over the black to protect the paint?

I spray painted them with one layer of Citadel's black paint (Chaos black), and then spray painted them with three thin layers with a matte varnish, to both protect they paint and make them less glossy. I used Army painter's "Anti-shine matte varnish", just because that's what I could get my hands on at the moment. I really like how they turned out, and the matte varnish made them really durable! It's actually quite hard to scratch them. Just make sure that you tape the end of the stand which goes into the base. I forgot that on some of them, which resulted in me manually removing the paint from that part at some of the stands... It hurt

I always love groups of ships. Great work. I need a 3rd Victory...

Just make sure that you tape the end of the stand which goes into the base. I forgot that on some of them, which resulted in me me manually removing the painted at some of the stands... It hurt

Tip of the day, thanks.

Also tip of the day. This was a productive thread.

Pretty soon I'll paint my other VSD and the regular fighters, but got started on the Heroes and Rogues I was lucky enough to snag at Sullust. So far these two were the easiest to make look good. I wanted to do the red stripes around the Houndstooth's wings, but they were hard to get even free-hand and didn't seem like they were going to show up very well, so I just made the in-set panels red instead. I still wish I knew what the deal was with the random smoke-stacks on the back of that thing. The HWK is probably the best. It's hard to resist the urge to paint every little bump on the thing though that would probably look too patchwork at this size.The other ships in their various greys are taking more time. Learn from my mistakes and paint recessed cockpit panels FIRST and you'll save yourself a lot of frustration.