Hi, I have 2 X-Wings coming from the 2 core I bought. Now I'm looking around online to get an other X-Wing but each picture I see (and also pictures in the same papers I found in the core boxes) show a lighter, more white, more cool X-Wing, while those I got are dull gray.

Is it normal? Expansion X-Wings are lighter?

Thx!

Not in my experience. It depends on how much of the wash the person at the factory wiped off.

Yes, I have noticed a colour change between the core and expansions. The TIE Fighters are also different! The core have more light grey, heading towards white, and the expansions tend to be more bluish.

Not in my experience. It depends on how much of the wash the person at the factory wiped off.

What is the wash? Is something I can remove my self?

What I would like is to have the X-WING white, not gray.

The 'Wash' is just a mix of dark paint with water to help delineate the fine lines of the model. It sometimes can darken the overall piece, but not always. It would be hard to remove from the minis, but you could dry brush over them to cover it where it darkens the figure, or just repaint the whole thing.A few of us have repainted a lot of these and they are easy to do.

If you want a good color that is lighter, try painting them with Camouflage Gray.

The original models for the movie were painted in Reefer White from Polly Scale Acrylics. However just about a month ago they decided to halt production on all Polly Scale paints *sad face*. That being said, you can hardly tell that the models were "white" because they were so heavily washed and brushed and what not. I have repainted mine with the Reefer White and while they look good (better than the beige of the unpainted plastic) they don't like quite "right" if you catch my drift. But I'm not an expert painter like some people here are *cough* rodent *cough*.

The fact is the everywhere you see an X-Wing expansion, they look white. I was wondering if it is related to different batch production or simply to misleading images.

They shouldn't be white. The majority of the X wing model is unpainted. The plastic used is a beige color. Thus the X wings are beige. Changing the material is quite a complicated task, one that no company would undertake for the reason of making the X wing white. If they cared enough about it being white, they would have started with a different material.

The alternative is to add an entire step to the assembly process of painting it white. This too costs lots of $$, more in capital than in piece price. Stands would have to be created to hold the trees, and drying racks in between steps, not to mention the space required to add that all. And then the issue of assembling an already painted model, which is bad design since you're gluing paint to paint instead of plastic to plastic. So then if you decide to paint the model, you drastically increase the production time of each ship, and a complicated device to hold it in order to provide a repeatable process.

You and I can just air brush over a piece of cardboard, but 1) that takes waaay too long for mass production, and 2) have you ever had to go and check to make sure you didn't miss any spots? Imagine now doing hundreds of these a day, eventually you'll decide you're good and don't need to bother checking, and thus quality slips because inevitably you'll miss something. Therefore, a bench stand is required to ensure you get all the angles. And probably some additional quality checks would have to be implemented.

So, until someone shows me a live picture of a production X wing in white, I'll maintain that they're all beige.

My first core set came with my darkest TIEs, while my second core set and TIE expansion came with lighter ones.
Not that it really matters because I painted them all red, and I love them

There's no significant difference in color between my core and expansion X-Wings (Sep13).

Probably, what you're seeing is the normal color and brightness changes that come with multiple generations of images.

First generation: Photo of the painted model. If there's a flash on that camera, that's a good source of whiteness.

Second generation: Photo editing software. In the process of turning a raw photo file into an image you see on the internet, it can get cropped, hit with Auto Levels (another source of whiteness), and resized (which can do all sorts of things to your apparent color).

Third generation: Your monitor. Maybe your monitor brightness/contrast are contributing.

Guys, I mean this:

This is from Amazon, and to my eyes, brightness or not, it's a dirt white, not the dull gray my X-Wings are.

Yes, I have noticed a colour change between the core and expansions. The TIE Fighters are also different! The core have more light grey, heading towards white, and the expansions tend to be more bluish.

I have the opposite feeling.

All my core TIES looked the light Grey mentioned, I actually gave them a darker wash just to make them look more menacing. I have also noticed the photo of the 'brighter' looking X-Wing... i just figure it's probably a photography issue.. lighting would be my guess, when they took that picture.

Guys, I mean this:

This is from Amazon, and to my eyes, brightness or not, it's a dirt white, not the dull gray my X-Wings are.

I think that's a 3D rendering. And it's not a Sep13 reprint. It's the same image they've been using all along.

http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=SWX02

I am sure any color diffrence is minor and not on purpose. I have a noticable color diffrence on an A-Wing I have. 2 diffrent colors of red on the same ship.

Aye. The Sept 13 reprints have a picture of Yavin in the background. While I didn't pick up anymore X wings, my Y wings were all the same from the original prints.

I think its likely there would be some variability of paint used on X Wings by the Rebellion - they were not cash flush, BTW.

I dug my xwings out and out of 5 of them there is three distinct shade differences.