Hi all,

A quick introduction since I'm new here. I'm Arno a scale modeller who loves playing minature games. After selling my WH40K miniatures, I decided to go and play X-Wing. I really love the game and of course all the possibilities of combining it with my other hobby scale modelling.

A few years back I read something about an Imperial Tanker ship, that could act as a inflight refueler for Star Destroyers. After doing some digging, I found the following (scarce) images:

I did a small scratchbuild before, but I'm still very new to this. So please forgive me if there are some F-ups in my building process

This was my first try, but I soon noticed that the body had the wrong shape:

So... let's start over:

Then add the tank and see if all fits together

Since I was quite happy with the overall size, work started on the bridge

The nose cone was a pain... how to make such a part? Well I'm lucky to have a milling machine, but I'm not very experienced with that too... but after 2 attemps, I had this:

Time for some more detailing parts

And put everything in a coat of primer, to find any mistakes.

So that was a time lapse for the last year. Now the pictures of yesterday. I started out with 'designing' the panel lines on the fuselage. And then using a panel scriber to create the recesses.

Unfortunately I'm not a fast builder, so patience is required to see the model finished. I hope that it is ready (fully painted) somewere next year summer.

Wow, nice! Looking good for a first attempt at a large scratch build.

Fantastic work! Don't stop.

Fantastic!

That thing you're doing? Keep doing it.

Yesterday I took another hour to create some more panel lines. 1 hour is enough of scribing, or else I will be making mistakes.

What remains is the bottom and the front of the rear compartment and the entire tank.

So, I've spend another hour of carefully scribing panels, but this time it was on the tank. The first half has been done and it looks quite crisp.

I had to take off some parts, but that will easy up the airbrushing later as well. And I think I will scribe some panels on the front bulk head too, because it looks far to clean now.

Very Impressive Build so far !

Also nice to see some new blood on the Painting Forum after being away for so long myself.

Looking forward to seeing how your build progresses.

All the best,

Barry.

15 hours ago, Barry Harker said:

Very Impressive Build so far !

Also nice to see some new blood on the Painting Forum after being away for so long myself.

Thanks for the warm welcome. That goes for all you fine people!

I'm not that good of a painter, but building in scale I can do. Normally I build Porsche kits (example: https://modelbrouwers.nl/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=29612 ), but my love for Star Wars and the X-Wing miniature game is so big, that I can't resist to put my own fantasy into these ships.

So yes... I will be posting updates as soon as I have them

Dang, that's a nice car. Nice work! Keep it up!

-DD

Not bad! The panel lines on the tank must have been a big pain in the ****. From hard earned experience I know scribing on anything round can be bloody difficult.

It does feel a bit too big though. If it actually is 150 meters long, it should be pretty much the same length as an Imperial Raider Corvette. Of course, it just might be the photos that give me a false sense of size.

2 hours ago, MacrossVF1 said:

Not bad! The panel lines on the tank must have been a big pain in the ****. From hard earned experience I know scribing on anything round can be bloody difficult.

It does feel a bit too big though. If it actually is 150 meters long, it should be pretty much the same length as an Imperial Raider Corvette. Of course, it just might be the photos that give me a false sense of size.

150 meters in 1/270 scale is 1.8 feet, or .54864 meters. She looks about 1' 9 1/2" - honestly, its nice to see folks modeling in 1/270 scale other than FFG's "1/270"

Reference:

As a matter of fact it is about the same length as the Raider. I've got that model too since I love the Empire

epic models have a scale of 1:440, but I think FFG adapts sizes every once and a while for convenience.

In the meantime I finished scribing and used some putty to correct small mistakes. After sanding I will coat it again with some primer. Perhaps a little more detailing. Who knows

And I'm already dreaming of building the Nebulon B frigate.

Epics are variable scale. The Raider and CR90 are 1:440 but the Gozantis are 1:270ish - the Assault Carrier in particular is in the right scale for the TIEs it carrier.

and the GR-75 is egregiously out of scale, it should be much bigger, though I'm happy with its current sizing (gameplay and balance wise)

I would still love to see everything in one scale. Could you imagine a tabletop battle with a Star Destroyer in 1/270?! Awesome!

Yeah me too. But my room is not big enough for a 7 meter long class 1 StarDestroyer

I did see a table/playing field that was in the shape of a StarDestroyer. They were flying on top of it. That was cool

With the scribing done on the main fuselage, I focussed a bit on the two larger cylinders on the top side of the tank. I put them in my milling machine and scribed a few lines on them as wel. Then I added just a couple of 'fuellines' created with copper wire.

I still want to add a couple of thicker pipes (+/- 1,5 mm) and I'm still pondering if I need to be detailing the smaller cylinders as well.

To be continued...

Wow, just wow.

Looks great so far. I to build the scale automotive subject from time to time. I'm enjoying following along with this build. Can't wait to see it finished.

Not a too fancy update.

I've added the last details I wanted and then blasted the whole into a nice new coat of primer. Next up: airbrushing...

These will form the exhausts ?

Time for an update

During my last two weekends I spend some time in getting the first parts painted. I've started with the brown coloured parts first. Because I want to colour modulate the entire model, I've looked at some examples and found this site with some explanation: http://miniaturepainting.co.uk/tutorials/light-theory/

So this image shows a little of what I want to accomplish on the cylindrical parts.

I've started at the shaded side and worked my way to the mid-tones. Each colour tone was a mix of Valeo Chocolate Brown and Valeo Blood Red, made darker using Revell Anthracite.

From the mid-tone I used Valeo Sand and White to lighten the tone until it's brightest layer.

The trick will now be to do the same with gray and keep the same angle and light intensity.

This looks really good!

Uncommon Imperial ships are my favourite class of Star Wars vehicles, and not only is this part of that class, I also hadn't heard of it before! Double like.
It is really nice to find a well designed ship that you haven't seen before, and even better when someone like you ( @Noosart ) is doing such a great job of building it.

15 minutes ago, Infinite_Maelstrom said:

Uncommon Imperial ships are my favourite class of Star Wars vehicles, and not only is this part of that class, I also hadn't heard of it before!

Exactly the same for me. When I first heard of this ship I was intrigued by it. And besides war ships, there are always supports vessels as well.

Thanks for your kind words.

OMG... has it been that long already? I had to look at page 7 😲

So in the past few weeks I was busy doing 3D prints and small painting. But in the meantime I did some airbrushing on this one as well. I tried to create the color gradients on the main fuselage. You can still see a dark spot in the image below. Later on, I will glue a brown cylinder there, so it acts as a shade.

These pictures are from this morning when I had glued all cylinders in place. Next, I will probably give the model a thin layer of gloss, so I can put on the oil paint better. When that is done, another coat of flat varnis will protect the paint from handling.

All in all, I hope to have a nice convoy to use in one of my epic battles. It's a nice sight already 😊