X-Wing Paint Sets?

By JustinKase, in X-Wing

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So.... when do we start to get some X-Wing paint sets?

I know I'd buy the heck out of the Rebel/Imperial/Scum sets :D If the colors are good, they'd likely attract purchases from the modelling community as well.

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Probably like never?

One of the big selling points for many people is that X-Wing minis come pre-painted and ready to play. Most players who like to repaint generally have their own collection of paints anyway.

In comparison Legion comes unpainted and unassembled - so paint sets make a lot more sense for them. And voila, there are paint sets available there!

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11 hours ago, JustinKase said:

So.... when do we start to get some X-Wing paint sets?

I know I'd buy the heck out of the Rebel/Imperial/Scum sets :D If the colors are good, they'd likely attract purchases from the modelling community as well.

I mean, they might as well sell them. Legion paint sets are what, re-packaged Army Painter? Can't be too hard to put together an array of them for X-Wing themes, and that probably sells. Probably less to X-Wing players and more to folks who want downed ship models in Legion, or Shapeways conversions, and so forth.

The main reason I paint ships in X-Wing is to get them to look like something different from what they are. I don't want to paint a TIE Fighter to look like a TIE Fighter.

But I suppose there are folks who'd like it if their X/Y/A/B all had the same paint scheme as each other.

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So, you're creating a SKU and doing a bunch of packaging, and splitting the profit between two companies - FFG/Army Painter - and probably also giving a take to the IP owner. So paint sets have to not just sell period, but sell well enough to justify all that over whatever those bottles of paint would have sold normally. The three ways to create that value are:

  • Bundling many paints together, and selling them at a discount versus the individual bottle MSRP, thereby offering discounting prices in exchange for "bulk" purchasing.
  • Offering a weak service, in the form of identifying and grouping paints so that individuals don't have to identify and compile a shopping list for those particular colors on their own.
  • Creating a unique product, by offering precise color-matched paint to the factory schemes, so repaints and minor alterations can exactly match the stock colors.

Option 1 works best when people are going to be painting many models, needing many colors, but repeating those colors frequently - eg, exactly Legion's use case, and not so much X-Wing's. Even if you're painting a large number of ships in uniform colors, the typical case is going to be using like 5-10 colors total across maybe 15-20 models, as opposed to 15-20 colors across 40-50+ models. (Varied infantry are more color-diverse than a uniform-themed fleet.)

Option 2 is similar, and benefits from people trying to replicate an scheme from source media - obviously not so much the case for X-Wing, where things come in canon colors already.

Option 3 is, uh. Suffice to say that paint is hard and complicated and the chemists get paid a lot of money for a reason and it's not as easy as you'd think.

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I just do not see a good reason to do this. The biggest selling point to a new person is look no paint necessary.

The community keeps us together, sure, but that’s not typically how you can sell a game.

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Good points (especially to @svelok ) - I appreciate the discourse ;)

I was kind of in the thought process that the paint set would be something useful to Legion players and also to X-Wing players. Considering that the the majority of star-ship colors could be consolidated into a single set - it could be a 'Vehicles' set for Legion and find alternate usage in X-Wing / Armada (and Armada does have some unpainted tiny ships that could benefit).

While I know the appeal to many is that X-Wing is pre-painted, as many examples on these forums (and the tournaments I've been to) show, a fair number of people like to do customizations (along the lines of what @theBitterFig mentioned - some people like to have a matching squadron). While I have well over 200 little paint bottles, there are times I just want to add some extra details amd I'd love to have some colors that match their pre-painted ships without me having to manually mix them :P Wishful thinking, but it never hurts to toss it out there.

12 hours ago, Transmogrifier said:

Vallejo has a DEFINITELY NOT X-WING themed set that covers Rebel/Imperial starfighter colors - these are formulated for air brush but you could still brush paint with them too:
https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/producto/hobby/sets/sets-sci-fi-en/star-fighters-colors-71615-en/

That is pretty awesome - thanks @Transmogrifier (love your forum name)!

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If they at least did a tutorial video with a list of paint matches for convenience, that would be nice. Show off a few simple paint conversions and tips? Like I try to fill in the paint on engines for that we don't get. And if there's a feature that I can change to make the ship no not look identical I try to add a touch here and there. Like different colors on Astromechs goes a long way and it's subtle enough that most people don't even realize I slipped it in until they notice it's how I identify differences in the squad. On old T-70s I changed the squad counts on the wings and it was subtle enough that folks couldn't quite make it out until it would suddenly dawn on them after about thirty minutes of a game 😂

If I knew exactly what the color matches were, it's make that modification a ton easier.

Edited by ForceSensitive
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On 5/20/2020 at 7:30 AM, Transmogrifier said:

Vallejo has a DEFINITELY NOT X-WING themed set that covers Rebel/Imperial starfighter colors - these are formulated for air brush but you could still brush paint with them too:
https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/producto/hobby/sets/sets-sci-fi-en/star-fighters-colors-71615-en/

Up until this, I was going to suggest they already have a "set" for Star Wars: Nuln Oil. That stuff is magic, grits up your ships, and makes them look ever dirtier!

I honestly can't believe the product above. How does Spain get that!?

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It's worth noting that those Vallejo paints aren't specially mixed to rip off Star Wars paint schemes - they just put the paints that already exist in their paint line that are useful for Star Wars scale models into a single box. You can buy the individual paints separately if you're just looking for a particular color. Similarly, you can probably find equivalent color matches in other scale model-oriented paint lines (say Tamiya) if you search for a painting guide/conversion chart. Beware that this can lead you down a rabbit hole if you're trying to match colors for a specific model used in a specific movie etc.

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9 hours ago, Transmogrifier said:

It's worth noting that those Vallejo paints aren't specially mixed to rip off Star Wars paint schemes - they just put the paints that already exist in their paint line that are useful for Star Wars scale models into a single box. You can buy the individual paints separately if you're just looking for a particular color. Similarly, you can probably find equivalent color matches in other scale model-oriented paint lines (say Tamiya) if you search for a painting guide/conversion chart. Beware that this can lead you down a rabbit hole if you're trying to match colors for a specific model used in a specific movie etc.

Yup, been down that rabbit hole - which is why I'd like the lazy solution :D

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I dont' think we really need paint sets, personally. But that's just me!

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I'd love it if we could get paints that match the red, yellow and maybe even blue used on the Red 5 X-Wing in the core set.

I really want to do a Red 2 and 3 X-Wing paint scheme, but I like the subtle tan/yellow used on FFG's Red 5. Most customs I've seen use a brighter yellow, which might match the models themselves well, but I feel like FFG's more subtle take looks more like it does under film lighting.

And, y'know, it would mean I get a consistent look without having to repaint the very acceptable pre-painted core set model.

Throw in an appropriate dark red so that I can do Red 6 and maybe a carbon scoring grey for Red 1 and things get really interesting.

I realise that a paint set for just one ship model is incredibly niche and unlikely, though. I'd absolutely settle for FFG either telling us what paints and formulations they used, or at least giving an 'approved' substitute.