U probably know me from my please help with the TIE bomber hoo-ha, but today I do not cry for help but I politely ask for it, since I stripped both wing panel things on the TIE bomber with rubbing alcohol I needed to figure out how the heck to repaint the thing without it looking like garbage. So my question is what bright colors would look good on the black panel parts and how can I remake the Shading detail and how could I paint good without an airbrush.

(Takes deep breath) thank you for your time spent helping the garbage 13 year old that is me ?

Not sure how classic you want it to look, but you could try the First Order look on a Bomber for that awesome color scheme. Otherwise, to look great on the table, I think you want a stark/sharp contrast between the colors on the panels against the color of the hull. Panels really do look good in white or black (or neighboring grays) against about any color of hull.

If you go with a dark grey or black for panels, I'd paint that on first. Then paint a few VERY THIN layers on the hull until you can't see through the paint to what is below. I think what is next is giving a wash, but I don't really do that because I don't like having dirty looking ships.

I've painted all my ships the old-fashioned way and they've turned out pretty great, in my opinion. Just go slow and be patient. I'd also recommend pointed Q-tip things (I found mine at HobbyLobby) for small detailing, I've had pretty good luck with them for making checker patterns on my Rebel ships. I also use fine tip metallic paint markers by Sharpie for trimming out my Imperial ships, which I've loved.

Otherwise, just browse around. There are a ton of different people on here that have posted tutorials, pics of their ships, and general tips and such. There's also a lot of painted miniatures posted on Google, Pinterest, Reddit, Imgur, you name it.

15 hours ago, Mr. Magpie said:

what bright colors would look good on the black panel parts and how can I remake the Shading detail and how could I paint good without an airbrush.

If you want bright colors to look you know, bright, you need to underpaint them with a lighter color. In other words, if you want to use yellow for example, and you want it to look nice and bright, you'll have to paint the area white first.

The thing is, if you are planning on painting onto a black portion, you may have to paint the area grey first, then white, then yellow. Does that make sense? When you paint over an existing color, the color that goes over it is going to be influenced by what is underneath, especially if you're using less expensive paint that has less pigment in it.

People here will always tell you to thin your paints. The reason for that is that the thicker paint will glob up and muddy the details. If you thin your paints, this shouldn't be an issue. Yes, you'll have to repaint the area multiple times in the same color, but in the end you'll have a more finished look. (By the way, your paint should be about the consistency of whole milk.)

In your example, you're starting with a black or dark grey solar panel on the bomber. Plus one or two layers of grey, plus one or two of white and then another two, three or four more layers of your bright color. That's about 7 passes over the same area! And we haven't even done a wash or highlights & dry-brush yet.

Painting takes patience, but it's also very meditative in some ways, that at the end result in some cool stuff most of the time. And the only way to get good is to just do it.

I wasn't good at walking when I first started, but I kept at it. Look at me now! I can run around and not take a tumble & scrape my knees.

Seriously though, you just have to put the time in to get better.

For washes, you can mix a one to two ratio of paint to water and get a fair home-made wash. Add water to thin it out more if that suits you better. Then paint into the cracks & crevices where you'd normally expect there to be shadow or grime and oily build up.

You don't need an airbrush to get good results. They're a cool tool, but optional.

Here's some info regarding doing a dry-brush technique. Dry brushing is basically wiping off the paint from a loaded brush until you've basically cleaned it--but guess what? There's still paint in there. Now you're going to brush that dry brush around like a broom wherever you want that color to catch the edges and raised surfaces and boom! You've got the poor man's highlights. I say "poor man's" because you don't have to invest too much time to get a decent effect. I use it all the time.

There are tons of more techniques to learn and try, but these should be a good place to start.

Good luck!