So it all begins, someone buys me Armada for my birthday. I am sorely amused, given I'd been refusing to buy into this game for some time (thanks wife!), but have always ogled the imperial star destroyer model in particular. So it begins, play the game. Fall in love (I don't really star wars either, that may be to my benefit, you can decide later). Now what the heck do we do with these hideous plastic fighters. They are too boring beside the painted capital ships. We must correct this... We will learn how to paint miniatures. Fast forward past some internet reading and we get some early work. I started with tie fighters, they were the most numerous, they were the simplest schemes, they were... Boring as all hell to paint. So today, I commemorate my start, progress, and inspiration from the folks of these forums. I slapped the 100mm macro, where no mistake shall be able to hide onto my birdzooka (I photograph birds, not macro images) and did my damndest to keep the depth of field reasonable and photo these things. Some didn't come nearly as well as I would like. Images have been cropped to save internets, not for good photog, and I didn't retouch/process at all. I don't get much light in the winter months, facing north and being in the northern hemisphere, but I make due.

Rhymer with an escort of horribly painted tie fighters, complete with panel lines that shame 5 year olds, I cannot make a straight line to save my life.

Atrociously bad y wings to boot. My first dabbles in rebel painting. followed by MORE TERRIBLE A wings. These will likely both be revisited at some point in the future, after a date with some hot strippers.

We're starting to get a little better here. My cheat 'blood line' on the high fins, as I still probably can't manage it otherwise. Behold the small micro mistakes!

The first squad I was every really happy with (and of course the one I didn't photog all that well). My B-wings. I put a lot of effort into these, and I think they came out pretty solid. This was rather a turning point as growth always hurts.

I lightly washed them in colours compliment to the major colours (green for gold, light blue, yellow/orange for red) and went to town. More intense than anything I'd done, but I still like them, and that is something. The photo didn't really capture the green (or gold for that matter).

X wing time was next, the last of the fighters, get er done. I left 3 out, as I felt the photo too bad even for this. So you get the boring generic ones, not the blue angel inspired (not the happiest with that, don't like working with yellow, too finicky), a red/grey scheme, and the star wars 7 orange/black, which I was rather pleased with. X-wings are the worst of the worst for mould lines though, literally having near 1mm offset front to rear, so instead of cleaning up these travesties, I literally used them as colour lines to hide them as best I could with minimal work.

A bad shot of some x-wings

So I'm out of fighters, surely by this point I've seen some of folks ship repaints, but I am very gun shy. Thanks to flotillas, I get my start, and have a chance to build some confidence on relative cheap, small ships. These predate my fleet plans, unfortunately, but more on that later.

Gozantis!

The blueish/silver was fight, and more straight forward, came out alright. With a rush of blood and glory, I decide to try something monstrously ill advised, 'dark line' the gozanti with red, opposed to grey/black. First it came out pink, that would not do. This was round 2, tossed sepia in with the red and we got the bloody hue I wanted to play with ivory and black. The hunters moon I shall dub it, likely due with some stripper in the future as well. It never really grew on me, but I like the blue/silver.

Flotillas:

Quantum Storm

Bright Hope:

I make no secret my love of metallic paints and the contrasts they provide. These were more experiments, and learning to glaze/gradient to some extent. They came out pretty well. I like em.

So, trial and tribulation behind I set foot onto real ships, starting with my favourite to field. The gladiator. No shots of gladiator trial 1, or 2 (which was a stripped redone 1), but mk iii, came out pretty dandy. I still was not adventurous enough for windows, but I may go back and add them now that I feel I can do them plausibly. This also begins the start of my fleet with theme. Inspired by a guy who calls himself Vykes, and his 'spire guard' white and gold ties, I decide to begin what will be the imperials, painted as heroes. Why are they dingy grey and evil, space terrorist propaganda of course! Are we really going to take those would be pirates words for how events went down? History is written by the victors after all.

Imperial Dawn Fleet

Alternate views

Dusk, one of the 'Dawn's gladiator compliments. Dying light for all who face it, your light too will go out. A terror if there ever was certainly. Brass instead of gold, a little darker. The purplish grey and ivory will certainly be making come backs, being the central uniting theme in the 'dawn'

Alternate Views

First Light, the second installment of the dawn and impromptu flag ship. Where it goes the imperium will follow, and while the sun may set on your former masters, you will share the shining dreams and bright hope the imperium will bring you. Embrace the light,

Alternate Views

Sister ship to the First Light, the Eclipse is one of the most fearsome ships in the dawn, gregariously showing its hull count on its wings. The frightening truths are the hounds tooth marks 10s.

What are these ships without their compliments, design pretty much lifted, glorious ivory and gold..

Oh, and as I forgot rogues. The most fun stuff to paint really.

The jump, and blingmaster

Hounds teeth

Scourge and hawk

Scourge and crow

The falcon and a yt (worst model of the lot, don't like it).

Second yt and freighter.

Some firespray goodness.

SO BRIGHT!

SO BRIGHT!

Yeah I could have knocked back exposure on a few a 1/2 stop abouts. ETTR, capture more data, dial down later, ideally don't blow highlights.

Or if you meant my colours, I like garish... hah

Those look great! You obviously have a natural talent.

Pretty solid first attempt that mate! B-Wings are nice, engine glow on the Gladiator is cool, and those metallic Gozanti's look awesome.

Those look great! You obviously have a natural talent.

I promise that talent is certainly not painting. I'll add photographing miniatures to this not talent list. I am also very slow (those VSDs probably take a good 8-10 hours). I'd say I'm patient, and have put in a lot of hours here.

A few interesting things I've learned:

1) Don't correct mistakes until that stage is done (it might not freaking matter)

2) Flat brushes are amazing, permitting the panels are larger than your flat brush

3) Screw conventional wisdom about not thinning metallics,

Overall, the macro lens really lights up all the flaws (kind of its job, really). I am nowhere near the calibre to hide from that thing.

Barely getting warmed up, already better than stock FFG. (Do I ever hate those dark panels)

Got all the extra wash off the panels.... it is now base coated and ready for the parts that are not prep work. **** that took a long time (probably 4-5 hours and no, I haven't even looked at the bottom clean up prep yet, or the engines... Just the top for now.) I'm a bit slow I suppose, but this model is huge. Whats funny is from the lower light and camera eye it is undiscernable from the previous step.

And because I am a bit of a CAD monkey, getting things ready.

Some completed stuff, as the ISD is still going (shading the top right now... so much shading...

Some gozantis, the hunter's moon is now the boring white one (yay...)

Eat phone pics mortals! ( I need less coffee, or more, not sure, probably more given the one I've had today)

This one I rather enjoy the aesthetic of, I call it the 1 hr gozanti, as I painted it in 1 hr flat.

And a corvette, that for some reason really reminds me of the Lexx, despite colour scheme.

Let's start with Corvettes, I'm apparently playing rebels in my first stab at the CC (hoping for another as imps to come later).

Fly pretties, fly!

Prussian Blue, gunmetal, and jade green, came out pretty fanciful, don't mind it at all.

Black and turquoise with gunmetal accepts, probably my favourite of the 3 by a long bit.

The wrap up of my ISD project, that took some time. I have 1 regret, the shading on the greys needed more contrast. There are 3 levels of shading these, but in the light I'm shooting, with the colour temperature problems that follow it, and the size of image I'm giving you guys it is really hard to tell, you need to get close as is. More contrast next time, but I doubt I'll revisit this one, it is fine regardless.

This is the ISD radiant, of my imperial dawn fleet. Made to play nice with the first light above, forgot to snap a pick of both together, maybe next time.

Some of these ships look familiar...

Some of these ships look familiar...

How goes Kristjan? They do look a pinch familiar, don't they, although generally more a debris pile motif would be appropriate when you are done with the table.

Cool looking ISD mate!

Good looking ISD. Been painting my wave 5 squads. Decimators are a lot of fun to paint, defenders no so much.

Looks like we're in the same campaign pod!

Good looking ISD. Been painting my wave 5 squads. Decimators are a lot of fun to paint, defenders no so much.

Looks like we're in the same campaign pod!

Yeah, I really look forward to painting up the decimators, once I get 4 more of them. I have some ideas. They look a lot like the rogues in detail level (maybe a bit less?), so will be quite enjoyable. Defenders, oddly, don't look as bad as the advanced in my mind. I had the small in curving wings on the advance, looks like I can get everywhere easily on the defenders. Sorely tempted to paint the defenders all kinds of funny spring colours, call them my death flowers.

Same pod indeed, except I'm on the rebel scum side, should be interesting).

Shall we enjoy our vacation further. Light didn't suck as much today so broke out ye old camera again. The shot I forgot last time

First light and the Radiant.

Next, because Christmas is always fun an immediately repaint on a Pelta, rather enjoyed this model. (shots were a bit bright, but so is the paint, so I toned it down some, overexposure if highlights aren't blown reduces noise at least, and gets more detail. Detail which will make us look worse ).

Lastly, with a scheme I enjoyed so much I carried it over to home one, my first MC30 repaint. A nice small model that was strangle satisfying.

And today we have Home Frelling One. Few things I've tried to do differently, a bit darker pictures to capture the shading, I suppose I could doctor the contrast to really pus hit, but that is a bit artificial, and work. Sublte but there. Otherwise sorry if the pictures are too large, figured it deserved it. I like this one top and bottom, something else I don't normally bother with. The bottom was actually to establish a method I was happy enough to put on the top. I'm still not entirely sold on it, but my wife seems to think it improved the aesthetic, and broke up a bit of same-i-ness, where I feel lights contribute to the scale of the ship. Lighting was tough, I lost 2/3rds a stop just trying to catch in on the slightly brighter period. Something about 1.6 second shutters to stop down isn't exactly bright, even with additional lighting (which helps additional glare too, but I dealt with that as best I could)

Looking absolutely awesome mate! You sure got the hang of all the lighting effects there, eh? Well done, seriously well done. Home One never looked so good The Imperials sure look good like that but I keep looking at the Peltas and getting all jealous. I need to find one some time. Seriously, keep it up, lovin' it mate!

Looking absolutely awesome mate! You sure got the hang of all the lighting effects there, eh? Well done, seriously well done. Home One never looked so good The Imperials sure look good like that but I keep looking at the Peltas and getting all jealous. I need to find one some time. Seriously, keep it up, lovin' it mate!

Lighting is getting there, after while lot of error and a bit of trial. As much as I hate dry brushing, it has its place.

The Pelta was really fun to paint, despite using 16 odd colours. Really like that model world consider another just to paint once I clear the wave 5 backlog. And paint that second ISD, the interdictor, liberty, etc.

Revenge of the crappy phone pics! Not that these squads will warrant better pictures.

A Nebulon

Some VCXs

A E wing squad

A really terrible A wing squad that was also my first real attempt at cockpit jewelling.

Overall I could be happier with the VCX, but I wanted to keep them pretty simple this time. The E wings came out alright as well, but again, simple. A wings are just a pain to paint as the model just feels so lacking.

Honestly? They're absolute rock solid - the lot of them.

When it comes to the little fighters, the only thing lacking is a little switch to the colours... I mean, on the VCXs and E-Wings, you've got the Shading done well... Very well. Its neat, its tidy, its in the recesses...

The only thing you are lacking, is the colour transition to highlight.

Without that, they're a little flat, colour wise - especially on the A-Wings which are, indeed, primarily a big flat surface...

If you want to conquer the look at Close Range (as these shots are), then that'll be the next step - looking at an Edge Highlight on the Es, and the more difficult transitional highlight on the As... You'll be a master.

As it is, you're already lights ahead of me in that department - your colourcoat is thin and smooth, and I've always lived with the painting motto that if you can Basecoat smooth - you can do anything with painting...

Thanks Dras, and you are right, I could highlight the Es and As a touch, I did some light highlighting in the VCX, but I'm lazy and tired so maybe tomorrow I'll see if I can make it pop a little more. Great idea, appreciate calling it out. You nailed it with respect to the A's too, too flat. Sad thing is I had the paint mixed, and didn't spend that extra 5 minutes hah (the As are also not as smooth as I'd like, but that's life).

And because I have experienced shame and anticipate punishment.

The extra 10 minutes on the Es was probably worth it.

Not entirely sure I improved the A wings much at all, may have managed to make them worse, such is life. Light somehow got worse at 11pm, not sure why, those ones also don't like the garish light of desk lamp much.