Hey all,

My first paint and mod. I would love some feedback. I recently got into X-wing a couple months ago and I immediately spent all my life savings buying all the things. Then I found out people were modifying the models and I nearly peed myself when I saw my first LED A-wing. Needless to say I had to give it a go. Spent my kids college money on paint and now here is the result. I am hoping to add magnets eventually.

A sound investment! Who needs to go to University anyway?

Great weathered look you have there with blast/scorch marks to boot, and the engine glow no less!

Thanks majeure,

I found harker's posts last night. So naturally I didnt get any sleep because I was up all night going through page after page of amazingness. Now I want to start cutting up my ships too. The price of the ships makes me hesitate but I will definately be taking some of the painting/weathering techniques he and others have explained and trying them out.

For conversions, start small. Try a simple mod see how it works for you. A small change is easier to get right and easier to recover from if something goes wrong. Build up to the really ambitious stuff.

Thanks nail,

I am thinking about trying to make a tie avenger out of the body of an inquisitor's tie and inverting tie defender wings for the wings. Honestly it will probably be a while before I have the guts to chop up 2 ships. Gonna focus on learning how to paint first.

Looking good. Especially the LED.

I want to to that someday.

I have two Victory Star Destroyers from Armada, one of them is already a bit droopy, it would be my first choice to get popped open and practiced on.

Any advice on an LED setup?

Thanks anthemius,

I wouldnt know where to buy the supplies new. I tore apart old electronics and stole all the parts I used for the LED. I don't know your knowledge level of how electricity works so I am not trying to sound condescending, but LEDs are pretty simple to wire into a circuit. The wire I got from old cell phones. The led and switch I scavenged from a toy I was supposed to fix for my kids. It was an annoying toy so, sorry not sorry. You can barely see the switch in the picture of the engine on the right side of the cowling.

I used several layers of cell phone screen filters from an old flip phone to diffuse the light.

I used a low heat glue gun to hot glue everything in place inside the model.

I would be happy to break the steps down some more if you would like. Making a simple circuit can be daunting if you dont have any experience with it, but it really is quit simple. Almost all electronics have parts you can use just waiting to be harvested.

There are some pretty good videos on you tube that I got some ideas from. Here is one.

You sound pretty handy with tools. It's not hard to mod. Just make sure you have the right paints, tools & glues. Modding is going to be a breeze for you.

If you're worried about chopping up ships, you can find "naked" ships on ebay (no upgrades, just the ship, pilot cards, dials & most tokens) for reasonable prices.

Looking good! I've been collecting x-wing ships for a while, but just started painting them. My first paint/mod is also a YT-2400 and it's about 50% finished at this point. I'm thinking of moving the turrets because I used a gold on the viewport frames on the top and bottom and it looks great without them there. I'm painting it like more of a luxury merchant's ship in shades of blue with gold details.

4 hours ago, dadocollin said:

Looking good! I've been collecting x-wing ships for a while, but just started painting them. My first paint/mod is also a YT-2400 and it's about 50% finished at this point. I'm thinking of moving the turrets because I used a gold on the viewport frames on the top and bottom and it looks great without them there. I'm painting it like more of a luxury merchant's ship in shades of blue with gold details.

You should post some pics so we can see the progress.

I just finished a second coat of the dark blue on the bottom. Still have to do the top and the extension and a second coat of the light blue. I painted right over the factory and kept some of the details.

Nice! Where are you planning to put the turrets?

I've seen a few mods that have them elsewhere. I thought about putting them both on one side (top or bottom) or even stacking them into one big turret. I've also seen them on either side of that loading dock in the dark blue area. I'm (probably foolishly) trying to keep it true to a turret with full 360 fire, but then I saw the Tie Agressor was taking some freedom with that... hehe... I might consider even shortening them. I'll probably look at a few different configurations.