Like in the X-Wing forum, I'd like this to be for all you painters to help those of us who aren't painters get started.

I leave the floor for those of you with the expertise to give advice.

Paint Red Go-Faster Stripes On EVERYTHING

Here are some Threads to Peruse:


https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/200211-new-to-minature-painting-stupid-questions/

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/207018-painting-methodology-supplies-advice-etc/

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/197672-looking-into-painting/

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/190947-painting-armada-for-beginners-by-beginner/

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/177566-painters-gimme-colour-advice/

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/174058-painting-washing-first-timer-seeks-advice-awseomeness/

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/144939-painting-questions/

And of course.


ASK FOR ADVICE.

We're here, after all! And there's a Variety of us... From the Quick-but-Effective Budget Job to the Simply Glorious!

Go get a half-gallon of Simple Green, and dont be afraid to try new things. You can always strip it all off with the green, and start over.

Go get a half-gallon of Simple Green, and dont be afraid to try new things. You can always strip it all off with the green, and start over.

Because Simple Green will strip back to the original FFG paintscheme , and no further .

Go get a half-gallon of Simple Green, and dont be afraid to try new things. You can always strip it all off with the green, and start over.

Because Simple Green will strip back to the original FFG paintscheme , and no further .

And it is water soluble, so a good rinse, and there will be no residue left behind to affect the next paint job.

When I finish Imperial Assault, Armada squadrons are next. I'm kind of terrified.

My plan of attack is to prime them gray, dry brush the base color, use tape or some kind of edge to get the detail and striping straight with clean edges, then wash.

Am I on the right track?

Personally,

For Imperials:

I Prime Black.

Then I attack them with a Sideways Brush - dragging across edges like the whole **** thing is one big edge paint, which, really, it is...

Then I can pick out details.

What you CAN do, is basically, after a black prime, Grey Drybrush the whole thing if you want... And then go back and re-paint in the black recesses on the Wings, so long as you're okay with holding the brush almost parrallel with the model

Rebels, Grey Primer (because I hate White primers in Rattlecans)

Ivory basecoat,

Then detail work, and a thinned down wash to dirty them up.

Yeah, I had rebels on my mind when I said grey primer. Black for TIEs with a grey dry brush seems ideal for the empire.

Just started with mini painting. Bought some simple green, white, grey, black primer, and several different colors ( prob a shade or two incorrect) and will start on the squads this weekend.

Then detail work...

This step, which often gets reduced to these 3 words, is where I typically freeze. I am perfectly adequate at painting, washing, blending colors. But then it comes to making my nicely painted ship actually look like a ship and I freeze.

Any advice as far as where you get your inspiration for details, or some techniques you have picked up that work to add that little extra to ship that takes from looking like a painted plastic ship to an actually believable representation? That would be worth it's weight in gold to me.

Then detail work...

This step, which often gets reduced to these 3 words, is where I typically freeze. I am perfectly adequate at painting, washing, blending colors. But then it comes to making my nicely painted ship actually look like a ship and I freeze.

Any advice as far as where you get your inspiration for details, or some techniques you have picked up that work to add that little extra to ship that takes from looking like a painted plastic ship to an actually believable representation? That would be worth it's weight in gold to me.

"Detail Work"

Weapons

- If a Fighter. Pick out overt weapons systems. I don't care if they're normally flush or a similar colour, make it a different colour to stand out. For example. I make sure all blaster points on my Rebel fighters are Grey... That means the Front Portion of X-Wing Blasters, A-Wing Blasters, B-Wing Blasters, and even the little goddamn nubs on the Front of the Y-Wing. Blasters. Rebel. Grey. That differentiates them from the Body. Even though in the series, they're all the same White as the Wings.

Cockpits/Bridges

- Even if you're not into doing a bunch of window lighting on ships, running lights on fighers, etc... You need to pick out the Home. The command. The Brain. That's easy on Y-wings, B-Wings, A-Wings and TIE Fighters. On X-Wings. It sucks. You kinda have to draw the whole **** thing on yourself. I'll give a shot on that later, on how I do it... But I pick one common colour, and make them all that.

Markings

Canon or Not. Overt or Not. Put some markings on it. Do this before you wash ... You know why? You can touch up a base colour if you screw up. Simple as that. ALL of my markings go down before I wash. If I need to brighten it, then I do it with the smaller brush afterwards, but right up front, that stuff is done so I can FIX IT.

This also goes for TIE internal Wingroots... Its hard to paint a Thin, Straight Line... Its EASIER to paint a Waver, Thicker line, and then go back and neaten up the Edges with black AFTERWARDS ... Because you can kind of sweep the paint from the Wing Root to the Empty space...

Fiddly little bastards

Astromechs. I hate 'em. I paint em. They go one colour for the whole bit, and then the tiniest dab of white or silver on top, because most of them were kinda domed. Hate 'em. Do 'em. Its a spot colour.

X-Wings. X-Wings have distinctiv Nosecones, that the Armada Models don't have. Put one on there... Slash a little black line across the top of the nose, and then sweeping back on the sides at a 45 degree angle. If you have a tiny artists pen, fantastic, use that instead, but I sweep with a brush. Again, if its not neat, tidy up with Basecoat.

Advanced Stuff

Glows. Engines. Windows. Glows... At the very least, the simplest way of accomplishing this is doing a little drybrush around the glowy area with one of your glow colours, and then building up the area that actually glows with successively lighter colours to White.... I'm not great at it. Others are better at it.

Windows, I cheat. I paint the Window White or Blue. I then splash a little ink around it... Then bring up the middle of the window with a very light yellow/blue as required to make it stand out.

Other than that, any specifics I can talk about, and give all my Trade Secrets away while I'm at it?

Already some awesome advice, more in depth than honestly anything I have been able to find about miniature painting so far. And I've been looking . They go on and on and on about priming and base coating and washing and highlighting and all that jazz which I am already *somewhat* proficient in, but this gives me a huge leap forward as far as method to the madness.

I think I need to invest in a fine tip ink pen, because not only am I not awesome at straight lines, I have had less than great luck with going back and touching up. So far, however, I have only had one squad of A wings that have turned out an indecipherable mess and had to be returned to base coat.

I think I may take some of this and go back over some of my models, however, and hopefully then I will have something worth putting up here in picture form.

Magic tape. Perfect for fighter markings. Got a great result on my A-wings and Y-wings with this stuff (although I forgot to take a snap of the y-wing tape placement - masking the corners of the nose).

And cotton buds/q-tips with bluetack to hold all them squadrons while you paint

Like in the X-Wing forum, I'd like this to be for all you painters to help those of us who aren't painters get started.

I leave the floor for those of you with the expertise to give advice.

Then detail work...

This step, which often gets reduced to these 3 words, is where I typically freeze. I am perfectly adequate at painting, washing, blending colors. But then it comes to making my nicely painted ship actually look like a ship and I freeze.

Any advice as far as where you get your inspiration for details, or some techniques you have picked up that work to add that little extra to ship that takes from looking like a painted plastic ship to an actually believable representation? That would be worth it's weight in gold to me.

"Detail Work"

Weapons

- If a Fighter. Pick out overt weapons systems. I don't care if they're normally flush or a similar colour, make it a different colour to stand out. For example. I make sure all blaster points on my Rebel fighters are Grey... That means the Front Portion of X-Wing Blasters, A-Wing Blasters, B-Wing Blasters, and even the little goddamn nubs on the Front of the Y-Wing. Blasters. Rebel. Grey. That differentiates them from the Body. Even though in the series, they're all the same White as the Wings.

Cockpits/Bridges

- Even if you're not into doing a bunch of window lighting on ships, running lights on fighers, etc... You need to pick out the Home. The command. The Brain. That's easy on Y-wings, B-Wings, A-Wings and TIE Fighters. On X-Wings. It sucks. You kinda have to draw the whole **** thing on yourself. I'll give a shot on that later, on how I do it... But I pick one common colour, and make them all that.

Markings

Canon or Not. Overt or Not. Put some markings on it. Do this before you wash ... You know why? You can touch up a base colour if you screw up. Simple as that. ALL of my markings go down before I wash. If I need to brighten it, then I do it with the smaller brush afterwards, but right up front, that stuff is done so I can FIX IT.

This also goes for TIE internal Wingroots... Its hard to paint a Thin, Straight Line... Its EASIER to paint a Waver, Thicker line, and then go back and neaten up the Edges with black AFTERWARDS ... Because you can kind of sweep the paint from the Wing Root to the Empty space...

Fiddly little bastards

Astromechs. I hate 'em. I paint em. They go one colour for the whole bit, and then the tiniest dab of white or silver on top, because most of them were kinda domed. Hate 'em. Do 'em. Its a spot colour.

X-Wings. X-Wings have distinctiv Nosecones, that the Armada Models don't have. Put one on there... Slash a little black line across the top of the nose, and then sweeping back on the sides at a 45 degree angle. If you have a tiny artists pen, fantastic, use that instead, but I sweep with a brush. Again, if its not neat, tidy up with Basecoat.

Advanced Stuff

Glows. Engines. Windows. Glows... At the very least, the simplest way of accomplishing this is doing a little drybrush around the glowy area with one of your glow colours, and then building up the area that actually glows with successively lighter colours to White.... I'm not great at it. Others are better at it.

Windows, I cheat. I paint the Window White or Blue. I then splash a little ink around it... Then bring up the middle of the window with a very light yellow/blue as required to make it stand out.

Other than that, any specifics I can talk about, and give all my Trade Secrets away while I'm at it?

This is all awesome advice. The only thing I will add is my little trick for X-wing nose cones. After you have painted all of them ivory, go back, and put a thick blob on the last mm or so of the nose, and smooth it forward. It actually gives it the nose cone it lacks. Nont touch it till that dries.

Detail the Fighters before or after is up to you. It works really well at adding in the missing nose cone.

This is all great!

Keep it up!

Magic tape. Perfect for fighter markings. Got a great result on my A-wings and Y-wings with this stuff (although I forgot to take a snap of the y-wing tape placement - masking the corners of the nose).

And cotton buds/q-tips with bluetack to hold all them squadrons while you paint

You put this up after I did nearly 50 of these little bastards....

(cool idea!)

Hook a brotha up with those Y-wings man...got a bunch to do.

I'll be making a painting guide for Imperial V-wings and Rebel A-wings

Magic tape. Perfect for fighter markings. Got a great result on my A-wings and Y-wings with this stuff (although I forgot to take a snap of the y-wing tape placement - masking the corners of the nose).

And cotton buds/q-tips with bluetack to hold all them squadrons while you paint

You put this up after I did nearly 50 of these little bastards....

(cool idea!)

Hook a brotha up with those Y-wings man...got a bunch to do.

Oosh, ****, sorry about the timing haha. (Also I wish I had 50 of them, always loved the look of the A-Wing.)

Will do, i'll have a look back if i do have a photo of the y-wing process, but not sure i took one, failing that i'll chuck up a quick diagram or just stick a piece on one of my finished ones. I basically cut a few tiny square and carefully placed them on to mask the corners (made sure they stuck well with the back of a scalpel to prevent any bleed). Getting them in just the right place was the trickiest part of the Y's. But again, that gave a great result. Will try and put something up later this eve

Edit: Nope. I didn't take any of the y-wings, but I've imposed on this pic, roughly the size and position of where I put the tape squares. So they were like this, one each side, then pressed down firmly with the back of a scalpel blade...

Another X-wing nose cone tip - trim off the side flashing everywhere but the 2-3mm on the tip. Voila, instant nose cone? A thin black line across the top and sides does help define it a bit more if you like.

Here's an example, more visible on the fighter on the right.

It can work, yes

But Flash and Mold lines give me violent conniptions...

They're the only thing I've ever been even half-arsed OC about.

Great advice here!

I want to paint my squadrons but get intimidated when I actually sit down to try.

One thing I do not understand is about washes.....I bought a few pre-made washes but am wondering how do folks apply it to foghters please---any suggestions???

Also how do you make your own wash?

Thx,

Mark

Great advice here!

I want to paint my squadrons but get intimidated when I actually sit down to try.

One thing I do not understand is about washes.....I bought a few pre-made washes but am wondering how do folks apply it to foghters please---any suggestions???

Also how do you make your own wash?

Thx,

Mark

Premade Wash, such as Agrax Earthshade, or Nuln Oil, from GW...

Get Brush.

Dip in Wash.

Dab Wash on Pallete

Dab Brush in Water.

Dab same amount of Water onto Wash on pallet.

Swish around.

Dab once away from wash pool to get the biggest part of the drop off the bristles.

Slap that on the Model. Move it around a little. (Just make sure the wash flows, doesn't pool.)

Leave the model to Dry and clean up the Brush if done.

Done.

Really. A Good Wash should do everything for you. You just need to put it down, and let it flow off the raised surfaces into the recesses.

To make your Own:

Take Paint (or Ink)

Water it down. (Or use an Artists Glaze/Wash Medium, and experiement with both that and water).

Add the tiniest drop of dishwashing liquid to break surface tension.

Done.

Great advice here!

I want to paint my squadrons but get intimidated when I actually sit down to try.

I'm wanting to make the Ties into Tie/fo. I'm going to put some on Tie Advanced bases and paint them like Tie/sf. Feeling very intimidated.

Especially when it comes to putting the white in the solar panels.