You know CheeseyRobMan, the windows really do give a sense of scale, don't they? Hmm, that's some pretty consistent bracketing on the inside panels of those TIEs. Got a secret for that, mate?

No secret, just a fine brush, patience and a slightly unhealthy perfectionism

Did you prime the TIE's or just paint the black sections?

TIEs were primed black, then bodies and panel lines painted grey, and then touched up where necessary with more black/grey. The bodies then got a light black wash, and finished off with green dots on the lasers and red dots on the back for the engines.

I finally had time to transfer photos over to photobucket.

Here are just a few.

The ISD Impoverisher

A Rebel task force.

Imperial taskforce.

The Pirate Frigate Harpies Kiss

That Venator is wicked man...can we get some close ups of it and the Acclamator?

I don't know how you had the patience to do the inside struts on the TIEs, I gave up on mine after the first two! Anyway I've almost finished all the fighters, just 9 X-Wings left. I enjoyed painting he As, Bs and Ys, but have found the rest a horrific chore;

Two pictures of 'the swarm';

Red Squadron Xs; the one on the left is supposed to be led by Biggs but my paint skills don't quite make it at this scale;

Bs

As

Ys

And a rebel group shot;

Fighters are best primed black and then outlined in a dark grey, then highlighted in slightly lighter colors for contrast?

Such a stunning thread.

For you Battletech enthusiasts out there (I created the #3 FASA fan club ever, Phantom Blue Assault Company), check out http://www.camospecs.com/ for some "formal" color schemes...

That kind of perfectionism has its place, CheesyRobMan. Well done and congrats on it too, like Sbloom said so well, '” don't know how you had the patience to do the inside struts on the TIEs, I gave up on mine after the first two one! “ (Sbloom's got double my patience it seems )

I'd looove to see some shots of that Acclamator too, Cynan.

Sbloom, I couldn't agree more with you about the whole 'it feels like a chore' thing too. X-wings -sighs unhappily and shakes head-. Rebels are fun to paint, and it usually shows, That said, your X-wings look pretty good, so the work paid off, Good plan to have the 3 Red Squadron leaders fashioned on the 'big three' of A New Hope. I like it, it solves the 'how do I add them all in when Luke and Wedge are different characters?' problem. Any particular plans for the remaining X-wings?

That is a bloody fantastic and really demoralizing site Kealios -laughs- seriously though, I've been looking at it for quite a while, and given I need to find some inspiration for some upcoming projects, I'm going to be sifting through Mad Cats and Space Marine colour plates mumbling, 'You know, on a B-wing it wouldn't look half-bad'. Thanks a ton, that is pretty useful for a novice in that franchise, like myself. Just to refresh my memory, are those hex bases 40mm?

Alright, well my little contribution is still a WIP thing but it's far enough along that I don't feel too bad about posting it. It's the escort to my Wingless Liberty... not sure if that's ironic or not.

My first pic upload, not sure if this will work now. When it eventually does, my MC30 surely lacks pro level details and techniques, but I wanted to show the color scheme (thanks Vykes for hints!). Any comments, suggestions, critique welcome.

Edit: Ok, that didnt work, showed only a link and I guess its supposed to have the pic directly...working on it.

That time it worked! yep, I'l admit it, I like it, I like it a lot Bit of a change from last time but I think it actually flatters the Mc30's odd structure quite a bit. Hmmm, very very interesting, I'll have to keep that pattern in mind.

NebulonB, that looks awesome. Highlights the structure a lot. My first MC30 is due to arrive by post in a day or so.

Vykes, thanks for the comments. TIEs weren't much fun for me! The remaining batch of X-Wings I have painted as another generic red squadron, green squadron, and...purple squadron (!) pictures will follow at some point. Purple actually looks quite good, saw it in some artwork whilst Google imaging.

Do keep us up to date on that Mc30 Sbloom, mate. And those squadrons too for that matter. I'm particularly interested in how the purple and green ones turned out. Purple is really under utilized as far as colour selections go. Drasnighta used it to good effect in his squadrons and D503 has an exemplary corvette, but I don't see it too often. It's a shame really, purple can be such a striking colour.

Green, well, it's my bane in Armada so I like seeing others succeed where I've failed (I have a whole 40K marine army in green and white but I can't do it here! I haven't a clue why).

Tie fighters... ugh, between having to bend their wings back in place with a hot water bath, and the purely painfully similar schemes, I just don't have the stomach to do any more of them... that aren't super special one offs or devilishly different.

Here's some pics of my Imperial fleet, "The Bloody Spear". Wanted to get back to the stony grey which I loved about the look of the movie models, but with my own flair to make them stand out.

Went for a holographic effect with the fighters - not sure how well I nailed it, but I'm happy enough with the results.

That is a bloody fantastic and really demoralizing site Kealios -laughs- seriously though, I've been looking at it for quite a while, and given I need to find some inspiration for some upcoming projects, I'm going to be sifting through Mad Cats and Space Marine colour plates mumbling, 'You know, on a B-wing it wouldn't look half-bad'. Thanks a ton, that is pretty useful for a novice in that franchise, like myself. Just to refresh my memory, are those hex bases 40mm?

Yeah, CSO's painters are usually top notch. I play against one every so often, and seeing his minis next to mine on the table is definitely bad for morale.

I think whenever the time comes to paint my Rebels, I'm just going to click the random button on that site about a dozen times, and take whatever scheme it takes me to as a challenge.

Those bases are roughly 30-33mm from corner to corner.

I'm trying to hunt down q-tips with a hallow tube to put/paint my ties...

I have so many battletech Decals from actually painting 5 Regiments of mixed BattleMechs and Vehicles... I specifically went away from those schemes for the Armada because... A Bloody Regiment is At Least Three Battallions of Troops, with a Batallion being THIRTY SIX at a Minimum...

I submitted to CSO a few times before I had my kid... Their standard at the time was different to my style of painting, so although I was detailed enough, I was not soft enough in the colours...

@Gottmituns205 - The trick is not to use actual Q-Tips. Q-Tip brand Q-Tips have a solid cardboard tube that's flexible and has no edging... Look for super cheap brands that still have the plastic stick... Personally, up here in Hothgary, I looked, but came up a bust, so I used some old Plastic Tubing I had laying around from making rivets and axles...

Another option is an alligator clip. You really just need something that will grip that tie point strongly, and won't get in the way...

Also, @Vykes is a piker. Can't even paint a handful of TIE fighter inner panels... Hell, my first official commission had 16 of the buggers And that was on top of my own.

What are he Q-tips used for? The imperial insignia? I have loads of them, earmarked for use as turbo laser barrels for X-wing!

This thread is also reminding me that I have a hoard of CAV minis to paint!

Some people will use them to get a baseline circle for the emblem.

I use them as painting sticks.

Do keep us up to date on that Mc30 Sbloom, mate. And those squadrons too for that matter. I'm particularly interested in how the purple and green ones turned out. Purple is really under utilized as far as colour selections go. Drasnighta used it to good effect in his squadrons and D503 has an exemplary corvette, but I don't see it too often. It's a shame really, purple can be such a striking colour.

Green, well, it's my bane in Armada so I like seeing others succeed where I've failed (I have a whole 40K marine army in green and white but I can't do it here! I haven't a clue why).

Tie fighters... ugh, between having to bend their wings back in place with a hot water bath, and the purely painfully similar schemes, I just don't have the stomach to do any more of them... that aren't super special one offs or devilishly different.

Well Vykes, It really depends on what type of green you use and the colours that go with it.

So far the "greens" I've used is mostly the greens used on tanks and other military vehicles. They have a more muted feel to it and works well with a lot of other colours.

Proof of concept -

Try using NATO Green from Tamiya. You may like that shade of green

Good strong pattern, Jhox, executed well too. I'm not sure about the TIEs effect, but that's also because I couldn't begin to think of what a hologram might look like I'm just used to TIE Fighter and their red blippy pixel pieces. But it's always refreshing to see non-grey TIEs. Nice Assault Frigates too

Couldn't have said it better mysself, Weirdo. I'm really considering something like that. Those are pretty small then, with ~30mm bases. I've seen them before but I didn't have much to compare them against except Adeptus Titanicus.

Aye, Gottmituns, I use the hollow plastic Q-tips for painting sicks too. They seem to form poorly to get that circle though. Smudgy junk things -sighs- I may have to try it again on a Lambda.

Decals... they any good, Drasnighta? I mean I know how great some of GW's are, and I've seen a few decent things in model kits around, but I really have no expectations for what Battletech's spread is like. Quite the number though, I'm rather impressed (this is coming from someone with a 10,000 point Empire infantry army). CSO is a pretty good benchmark, I might start trying to do some more soft blended colours. Ugh, Tiiiiies -laughs- I guess I am. I just don't do them. I can't, they hurt too much and I can't do straight lines well enough I'm looking forward to doing a few Defenders, but then I think I'll have my fill of them for another 6-8 months. So many good .jpeg 'nope' image macros out there, buuut I try not to proliferate those things.

I typically go towards a grass green to shamrock green, Cruiser. The more military shades might be okay, a Russian green might be interesting but even a teal or pine green could work (not really a true green but why not?). And and some light tinted greys might produce a good look. As it stands every attempt I've done with the colour makes the unit look like a football team. Bleh.

Decals... they any good, Drasnighta? I mean I know how great some of GW's are, and I've seen a few decent things in model kits around, but I really have no expectations for what Battletech's spread is like.

http://www.fightingpirannhagraphics.com/are the "Official" Supplier of Decals. They have quite a large selection of units.

For actual quality wise. They're white backed clear, so not transparent... They are a thinner decal sheet to GW in comparison, though - very much like some older airfix decals I used to use a bunch of... But if you're careful, they shouldn't split too much... I have found a few of the metallic ones (such as the Lyran Alliance symbol) wore poorly on the metallic side of things, but the rest of the time its been pretty good...

Best part of them is they are tiny... So goddamn tiny. Some of them you could easily put on fighters.

The only drawback is the delivery time - they keep almost nothing in stock, and essentially run everything on a 4-6 week backorder continually..

Painted my first ship, a Venator:

More work on my squadrons

I'm trying to hunt down q-tips with a hallow tube to put/paint my ties...

Here is a link to my squadron painting setup, if it helps anyone, though I love elijahdprophet's alligator clip setup.

https://plus.google.com/117993279660351289096/posts/dC3AcRr93nS

I'm trying to hunt down q-tips with a hallow tube to put/paint my ties...

Here is a link to my squadron painting setup, if it helps anyone, though I love elijahdprophet's alligator clip setup.

https://plus.google.com/117993279660351289096/posts/dC3AcRr93nS

I also paint Gundam models with my airbrush so I figured why not use the same tools. It works out pretty well.

I scored some q-tips that work, gonna use the weekend and mass produce ties.