Here is the second component to my squadron Paints - Rebel Squadrons!

In this tutorial, I'll be referencing some of the techniques that I demonstrated in my "SO, You want to Paint some TIE Fighters..." tutorial, which is located here:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/250538-so-you-want-to-paint-some-tie-fighters/

In this case, we're on Rebel Fighters... I'm going to start by showing a basic Rebel Paint Job on some Z-95s, and then provide some instruction on how you can customise a bunch of different Rebel Fighters, because basically, unlike the Imperials, the designs and techniques vary from chassis to chassis... (Painting a Z-95 is very similar to painting an X-Wing, for example, but the X-Wing has some techniques the Z-95 doesn't use... as does the Y-Wing... As does the A-Wing... If anything, the A-Wing is the Closest to the Z-95 in "class" of painting and technique use...)

Equipment Used:

Brush(es)
2 Brushes were used this time. The first is a very Generic larger bristled brush that I believe I stole from my Kiddo's Crayola paint pack. The important part of this brush was its bristles were soft and there was a lot of them. This is a "bigger" brush.

The second was very similar to the GW Brush I used in my previous one, only this time, its made by a generic company (as the GW brush of 15+ years finally died in the intervening time between tutorials!)

Primer
Games Workshop doesn't produce a Grey Primer at this point in time. So I used "Rustoleum PaintersTouch 2X Ultracover" Grey Primer that I found in Home Depot. Its a very generic rattlecan primer. Its used so sparingly here that you can get away with almost any primer.

Paint
Colours and Brands as used
Ivory "Vallejo Model Colour" 70.918
Dawnstone (Games Workshop "Layer")
Abaddon Black (Games Workshop "Base")
Nuln Oil (Games Workshop "Shade")
Agrax Earthshade (Games Workshop "Shade")
'Ardcoat (Games Workshop "Technical")*
Evil Sunz Scarlet (Games Workshop "Layer")
Wild Rider Red (Games Workshop "Layer")*
Flash Gitz Yellow (Games Workshop "Layer)*


* Used for Additional Detail Work only. Can totally get away with not using them if you don't want to.

STEP 01 - THE PREPARENING (REDUX)

Just like in the TIE Fighter Tutorial... Wash and Scrape Mold lines... Now, with Z-95s, there's not a lot of Mold lines to scrape - you can scrape the line off the side of the fuselage, or you can leave it (as I did) as a nice wash separator... But when it comes to X-Wings, you will definitely have to do this, and I'll show how that is done at a later point...

STEP 02 - PRIMING

PRIMED! A Light Dusting. The original colour is still visible underneath, because, as stated, a Light Dusting is what you need for a prime, for your basecoat to stick. Its easier to get that point across here, because I've primed in Grey, but my Base Colour will be Ivory ... So its easy to see. I don't prime Black for these because ivory is White, and it can have some fun times trying to cover black... and I don't prime in White because White Primer is generally super powdery and it messes up when a wash is placed over it...

STEP 03 - PREPARTION FOR BASECOAT

This here really shows the Primer layer being a very light coating... Its not particulate as an actual dusting coat, but the point of calling it a dusting is to convey that its not a thick coloured coat... Here, they're all loaded into my painting stick because its just easier to paint them that way.

STEP 04 - BASE COLOUR

I'm working here with Vallejo Ivory. I am using the same 50/50 technique with Water as described in TIE Fighter, and I'm using my large brush... I'm basically slapping paint on at this point to cover basically everywhere lightly... I will stress "lightly" here. As the paint dries, you will see the grey seem to shadow back in through the paint layer. This is not only normal, this is desired - this means your paint was not too thick, and didn't leave bristle marks as if you would get if you used straight paint. Good Show.

STEP 05 - THE GOOD SHOW

Here they are all based. You can see where the mold lines are at this point, because they really catch shadows - again, you can go back and trim these super gently at this point and re-base, but honestly, Its not worth it... a little bit of Extra Wash on a Rebel Squadron just makes them look at little more dirty, and dirty is fine for the Rebels, because they take what they can.

STEP 06 - THE CANOPY

Okay, A-Wing, E-Wing and Z-95 painters, listen up. Here's where we do the majority of the work on the canopy. 50/50 Abaddon Black and Water as per the previous recipie,a nd just paint that canopy... Make sure you get the canopy right the way down to the bottom edge. Don't be too afraid to hit the bottom edge to make sure of it, too... I'd rather overpaint the canopy at this point than underpaint it...

STEP 07 - OVERPAINTING COMPLETE



Yep. Get that black on. Get it on right and proper... You will go back and make touchups in a minute, but for now, we're grabbing some Dawnstone and getting more of the Messy-May-Need-Touchups out of the way... 50/50 Dawnstone with Water, as per usual...

STEP 08 - ENGINES AND BLASTERS



Blaster Cannon mounts and Engines... Here, were hitting the whole length of the blaster until it enters the wing (and trying to avoid painting too much of the wing root), but we're also hitting the engines on the Front and back... This is repeatable for Z-95 and X-Wing painting, and even to some extent E-Wing painting (which also has engines you can continue to paint underneath), but the important part is, again, ENGINES...

STEP 09 - ADMIRING THE MESS

Yeah. I made a mess of the rear sections while painting... But that's okay. Once again, its more important to get the engine exhausts coloured than to not, and a little bit of overflick is fine. We're going to correct that now.


STEP 10 - CAUTION WITH THE RAW

Here's where I break out some undiluted paint... Very carefully, I take some undiluted white (once everything else is dry) and carefully touch up any cockpit and engine overshot.

Then, I start to Pre-Highlight. I take some of that raw paint, and veyr lightly, very gently, overbrush just the top surfaces with the White... This has the effect of over-strengthening the white on those raised surfaces (front of nose, computer housing, engine cowling, wing tops) where light will hit, but keeping the divots in between the slightly greyer white that we got with our base coat....

The one on Right-Center of Frame has been touched this way, but the others have not at this point.

Its very important to note that even if you are using undiluted paint, you're using as little as possible , and you'r every lightly overbrushing the areas.. You don't want to pool paint on the models...

STEP 11 - MARKINGS

Now we add some simple markings. In the spirit of the regular tutorial, I'm painting these as "Regular" Squadrons, as opposed to "Hero" Squadrons, so they get just something basic... The customer has requested Red Squadron as they will then meet in with the previous paint jobs he had. Additionally, I am going to do a simple "tiger stripe" marking to designate which Squadron they are...

So, A U shape on each Wing (almost like designating a nonexistant aileron), and a simple stripe over the top for squadron. I or II in this case...

Straight on with the standard water-paint mix, this time with GW Evil Sunz Scarlet. Its a middle brightness red, which is good, because it darkens nicely under wash.

You'll also notice I'm being a bit haphazard with that red... Its just going to happen... So once the paint is completely dry, don't feel bad about going back and correcting any over-brushing with some pure white... Just enough to conceal it... But white is super transparent, so make sure that the red is dry - because if its moist in any way, you'll just end up spreading pink about.... Really.

(Honestly, at this point, I think I should point out that there's not really any such thing as a Good Painter vs a Regular Painter. There are only painters who have learned how to cover up their "Oh-S***" ****ups, and those who don't know how to do that )




STEP 12 - CONCUSSION MISSILES

While we have the Red out... We'll hit the Missile Tips, too... Occasionally, i like to do these even brighter - but today, its more Evil Sunz. Should be enough of a contrast to stand out. If not, I'll tip them with a lighter colour later - but that's something I'd consider mandatory for a Hero paint job, but only optional on a regular job.

At this point, take a moment to really see how flat and lifeless that white is... It just looks dull , boring, uninteresting and flatly, unrealistic . Nothing is really like that... That's why it looks fake... It lacks Depth. Let's add some now.

STEP 13 - NULN IT UP

As a contrast to normal, I really want to darken the grey areas and give them some depth... The Blaster cannons, and the Engine Cowlings and Exhausts... So I'm going to keep up my small brush, and use straight Nuln Oil... With a Gentle Dab on the cowling/intakes and a gentle line on the Blasters... Again, mostly to give them a colour depth transition and some shading...

Now we have some beautiful basic transitional colours and shading on the blasters in particular. At this point, I wait until the Wash is completely dry , because I don't want to get a Wash-on-wash kind of overwash mix with the next step...

STEP 14 - GENERAL DIRT

And now, since we've added depth to the Grey areas... let's go to the White.

Now, I'm going for a moderately amount of depth here, without going sillily dirty with these ones... This means a 2:3 mix of Agrax Earthshade Wash with Water... Not quite 50/50. not quite 1:2... Something a little on the watery side, without going bananas...

Now, this is still a targeted wash - its going over most of the chassis, but I'm being careful to not get it on the Grey and Black washed components, or to the canopy if able... I want that to try to remain a "true" black without getting a Wash finish that will muck up its final stage.

As it is, this Wash ended up bieng a little thin, so I hit it a second time with the same mix just after the first mix had dried on the model (but hadn't yet dried on the pallete... A Bonus to having a large pool there...)

This has Brought out the depth nicely, highlighted the nose cone divot, the cockpit line, as well as the drops between the Engine Cowlings and the Computer Core hump... All of that dead space defined, and now, our Ivory is actually looking like a real colour rather than a washed out flat mess.

STEP 16 - FINAL DETAILS

Now, we're going to add those two final finishing touches that are going to bring these together... Engine Glow and Cockpit. The Cockpit is simple - for these Regular fighters, I'm going to touch up the black if needed, and then hit it with a coat of 'Ardcoat, or paint on Gloss Varnish. Gloss works nicely here, but I'm also going to do it after sealing the paint job with a flat varnish - otherwise, the flat just cancels out the Gloss... It also won't photograph well, and work best in person, so you won't see that one.

What you will see is the Engine Glows. Again, because these are "Regular" Squadrons, I'm going to limit myself to two colours - in this case, I'm using a "Bright" Orange in Wild Rider Red... its a red that borders on the Orange, its that bright... And a Yellow - Flash Gitz Yellow...

The Wild Rider red is applied with a dab - basically just pushing the brush tip gently onto the end of the engine - however , once its dabbed, I get it a gentle circular motion - this has the benefit of over-placing a little of that orange colour - covering the entire engine exhaust tip, even going over the edges of it slightly... This is good, because it gives us a solid base for the yellow.

The yellow is then dabbed on, however, no circular motion is used - its just the tiniest of dabs and then pull away. This gives us a yellow dot inside the orange dot, with the orange still showing around it...

The picture above shows 2 with just the orange, and 2 with the yellow added... If this was a "Hero", I'd consider getting out a smaller brush and adding a tiny dot of white inside the yellow, but again, Regular - and the Z-95 Engine Exhausts are really small , so its hard to do multiple transitions on. A Y-Wing, for example, has much larger exhausts to allow you to do further transitions - but for the most part, the Z-95 are on the smaller side.

STEP 17 - COMPLETION OF BASIC LEVEL

So there you have it... Touched up, Dry, Detailed... These Z-95 Squadrons are good to go...

Next up, I'll be taking a Squadron to the "Hero" Detail level as I paint Lt. Blount, and then I'll break out some other Squadrons to show how painting them can be different... (and then maybe even some Canon-ish Rogues, Villains and VCX/Lancers)

PART II - FROM ZERO TO HERO

STEP 1 (18) - GOING THAT EXTRA MILE

Here, we're going to Concentrate on Bandit Squadron (forBlount) and Knave Squadron (For Corran).

We;re basing these "loosely" on some given artwork, here:

SO HERE WE BEGIN.

All We've done here, is take more time and care to remove Mold Lines - Specifically the ones down the side of the Z-95 Fuselage, and across the top of the Computer Core.



STEP 02 (19) - BASE, BASE, BASE

The Mantra here is "The same, but Neater." - So a basecoat of Ivory goes on, and I add the Cockpit black here to delinate it... Get it down... The first coat is somewhat patchy, but we're going to base it up again.


STEP 03 (20) - BASE II BASE.

Another Basecoat layer of Ivory, and Grey for the Gun Blasters and engine mounts... The only difference here is a little more care is taken to touch up, clean up, and be more precise... But otherwise, its the same process.

STEP 04 (21)

Now we start getting into some differences - namely, Bandit Squadron has some Gold markings that the reds we painted previously didn't, and we're going to do the same with Knave as a creative liberty to separate it out as a Hero Squadron...

Flash Gitz Yellow.

The same yellow we use on the Engine Glows. Using the same consistent colours ties things together, as well as keeping costs down to a minimum.

In this instance, the Yellow is around the cockpit mountings, around the Nose, around the Engine Cowling and a little underside the inwing weapon mounts.

STEP 05 (22) - LUBRICATE

'nuff said. Its 3am at that point. I've been up for 2 hours because I stupidly thought my body would let me, y'know, sleep through the night when I didn't have a Graveyard shift... More Fool Me.

STEP 06 (23) - MARKINGS OUT

Again, much the same as previous with markings - we're just doing it more carefully . The lines are thinner, smaller, better placed, simply because we're taking more of our time... In some cases, this can be more complicated markings, too (on Red Squadron X-Wings, it means individually marking them with the Red Squadron markings - including their Red Number...)

STEP 07 (24) - DIRT NAP

Washing down... This is, again, just neater... The Wash however is a little thicker , as I don't mind if I panel wash the surface a little - I'm going to be retouching the Ivory to add even more depth to the model later... Again, Black on the Grey, Undiluted, and Agrax on the Ivory, this time, 1:1 Wash/Water.

STEP 08 (25) - RETOUCHING THE WHITE

As stated, this is a simple paint over of the flat surfaces with Ivory again... Just to take the edge off how dark brown they are, and highlight those raised surfaces... If I'm feeling really adventurous at this point, I'll even drybrush a little to pick up the edges of the fuselage nose and wings... I'll typically do that in off white , a lighter shade, to really make those lines and edges pop.

I also paint the Black next to the Gold Band across Bandit squadron - always neating that up as I go.

STEP 09 (26) ENGINE OVERGLOW


At this point, the engines get their glow... In this case, its a 5 step procedure (although the picture was taken after 4)...

Evil Sunz Scarlet (GW)
Wild Rider Red (GW)
Troll Slayer Orange (GW)
Flash Gitz Yellow (GW)
Linen White (Dot) (Reaper)


And that's the basics of the HERO Squadron... The Cockpit gets a targeted wash to make sure its Black, then, after the model is sealed, its painted in a Gloss Varnish to make it shine out...

BECAUSE I PROMISED THE FILTHY IMPERIAL ...

Lambda Class Shuttles go here, because they're very similar in Procedure... The difference is colour choice.

They are still Ivory down as a base, but their overall wash is a 2:1 Water/Nuln Oil Mix...

Cockpits are in Black (of course), including the Upper Window if you want to pick out a specific Shuttle (For say, Jendon).

Then its a matter of Over-brushing or even Drybrushing the White to bring out the edges and surfaces again...

Then, Colour choice for the Engine Glow is this:

Sotek Green
Temple Guard Blue
Bahharoth Blue
Ghost White

The Sotek is slapped in the whole engine mount,

but the others are painted in concentrically smaller pieces, to show the other colours on the edges, until the white is basically a small line...

Then. if you feel like it, Pick out the Guns on the Front with Grey and Black wash as per usual... But for the most part, the Lambdas as basically done at this point.

I like to pick out the Jendon Shuttle with some glowing lights at the end of its Wingtips - but again, that's just basically "Engine Glow" done through the Yellow Spectrum, or sometimes the Blue Spectrum...

And I hope that's helped...

3 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

I need to paint them for a diplomatic mission.

11 minutes ago, Steck638 said:

I need to paint them for a diplomatic mission.

Bro I like, JUST saw you blow up 2 star destroyers.

7 hours ago, duck_bird said:

Bro I like, JUST saw you blow up 2 star destroyers.

Diplomatically

Well, the Basic Tutorial is Finished...

Of course, now I have to go through my own steps to prepare Squadron #3 for Elite "Hero" Work.

Whoa! Thanks for sharing that Dras!

Not that I dare to paint any of the little fighters...gee...I used to paint BFG ships back in the day, my god my poor eyes.

Just now, Alpha Xg1 said:

Whoa! Thanks for sharing that Dras!

Not that I dare to paint any of the little fighters...gee...I used to paint BFG ships back in the day, my god my poor eyes.

I maintain that most anyone can do it... I mean if I can do it, with my Glasses and Spiking Blood-Pressure Shaking Hands can, most anyone can. And my results are plain to see - its all in the techniques used (and knowing how to cover up mistakes, because, again, you can see I make quite a few...)

I'm really excited to try my hand at fighters, hoping to get to them tomorrow.

On 12/24/2017 at 0:33 PM, Mikael Hasselstein said:

27 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Hey, I melted a Rebel fleet to scrap today.

Job well done, if you ask me.

Just now, Mikael Hasselstein said:

Hey, I melted a Rebel fleet to scrap today.

Job well done, if you ask me.

And I inspired countless reinforcements to the cause.

Your move.

Also @Mikael Hasselstein , I’ve been very well behaved and stayed out of your Academy Thread ?

5 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Also @Mikael Hasselstein , I’ve been very well behaved and stayed out of your Academy Thread ?

I'm reading the implicit message in two plausible ways.

1. "I'm just making conversation (and bumping my thread)."
2. "I'm not trolling your thread; stop trolling mine."

Of course, me "trolling" your thread is justified by the legitimacy of the Empire. Your rebellion, on the other hand, is trolling at a galactic level. Those who are "trolling" my thread are indeed trolling. It's not a big deal though, since it's there to figure out who wants to join the Discord channel (after a loyalty screening).

As for non-trolling, and not to say that I approve of painting Rebel squadrons in any way, shape, or form, you do great painting work. I've been painting quite a bit lately too (as you know from our FB discussion). (The primer, even the white, didn't clump. The black has not been sticking to the FED/FUD, however.

Answer :

a humourous attempt at 1. ?

@Mikael Hasselstein

7 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Answer :

a humourous attempt at 1. ?

@Mikael Hasselstein

"I see," said the blind man.

20 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

"I see," said the blind man.

For your favour, however, I am including Lambda Class Shuttles on one of the supplimentary pages I'm working on, with this post, since the formulae for painting them is very similar to painting the Rebels... And different from just about everything else, including the other shuttles.

So you'll get a splash of Imperial Justice within the midst of the Rebel Swamp.

Speaking of which....

... Hero Squadrons are up (Knave and Bandit).

As well as a post on Lambdas.

Dras what do you do to your paints to be able to use them to those fine lines. I often end up not leaving any paint on the model or too much if I try to use a foo fine brush.

Just the mix with water to the correct consistency on the pallet.

The procedure and mix is in the TIE fighter painting link, with picture...

but reakly, that is it... raw paint either blind if I have too mych, or dries on the bristles with too little.

The paint-and-water dab thinned mix is all I use.

I like the GW yellow wash for getting that dirty off white rebel look.

That last pic for the engine glow on the shuttles isn't working...I wouldn't normally be so picky but that's the one I was really after!

10 minutes ago, SpaceC0wboy said:

That last pic for the engine glow on the shuttles isn't working...I wouldn't normally be so picky but that's the one I was really after!

I’ll get you a direct link on your other post in just a minute ?

my apoligies, as you can tell, I haven’t been able to pay for actual hosting yet