First up is the YT1300 'Courageous' heavily modified light freighter details on the Star Wars wiki:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Courageous_(YT-1300_light_freighter)

Very ugly ship in my opinion but a perfect chance to play with some plasticard

Photos of progress so far (apologies for the rubbish quality!):

Painting pictures to follow.

Any thoughts or comments appreciated!

Brilliant...really true to the original illustration (I might have been tempted to make the turbolasers bigger, but that would be a mistake ) - can't wait to see the painting installment, coz I can never come up with good schemes

I think we have another plasticard wizard in our midst

...only remains to ask - what are you gonna do with the front half of the YT ???

EXCELLENT !

Great use of styrene strip and plastic card there.

Superb execution on the build, good scale of sizing of all the parts.

Nice and neat.

I always give my models at this stage a thin coat of spray primer.

To see how everything looks.

See if any tidying up needs doing and makes it ready for its top coat of paint.

Looking forward to seeing it painted.

"It's always great when people post build photographs of there models.

Nice seeing something come to life ! "

Great job.

All the best.

Barry.

Really nice job, have fun painting it now !

Dal,

Have you got any further with your Custom 1300 ?

intrigued to see how this will eventually come out

Thanks for the kind comments guys!

The rest of the YT will hopefully become part of another YT variant I have planned... Watch this space!!

Dal,

Have you got any further with your Custom 1300 ?

intrigued to see how this will eventually come out

Thanks Barry, I don't generally get much time during the week due to work so there's only been minor progress with painting but that will all be changing today!! Pictures to follow.

Update on the painting as promised!

Block colours added to panels etc:

Black ink wash all over:

Drybrush with a light grey:

Very light drybrush with white:

Added weathering to engine exhausts and a couple of blaster burns:

Added an engine glow and some extra ink in targeted places:

Couple of finished shots:

Sorry for the rubbish pictures! It loses some of the weathering effects, not captured engine glow properly and has distorted the colour as well in some of them!

Don't worry.....You can still see just how superb your model looks !

Excellent job on the build and finish of the model.

It's great seeing repaints of the models.....But it's awesome when more people are converting or scratch building.

Very well done.

Perhaps a back drop might help.

A plain white sheet of A3 or A2 paper.

Sat on your desk in an "L" shape but don't fold the bend.

Tape or tack the one end of the paper to your desktop then lean it up against a box or solid flat object.

Let it be a graduation from horizontal to vertical.

A slope from top to bottom.

It will make the Shadows and back lighting softer.

And your camera will pick up the model better as it won't have to try and focus on the background....Modern cameras and camera phones suffer with this.

Depth of focus distortion.

The white back drop will also help with the lighting.

Even a desk lamp works.

Just not to close....Can also use tracing paper over the desk lamp to soften the light ....Same as a light box.

Little things make a difference.

And then will really show of your excellent models.

Can't wait to see what you do next !

All the best.

Barry.

I love it when people mod their ships, especially their YTs. Excellent work Dalteth!

I haven't had the time to mod my Falcon yet. Since I picked up the TFA Falcon, I figured it would be silly to not mod the original Falcon. Besides if I ever decide to fly two YT-1300s together, it would look cooler to have two distinct but similar ships rather than two nearly identical ones.

Glad you shared your build with us. Hope to see more from you.