I've had this notion in my head for a while.

There are a lot of talented painters on this forum, myself included, but some people either don't have the time or ability to paint miniatures. Maybe it's because of poor eyesight, poor hand/eye coordination, or they just don't need to spend a heck of a lot of time practicing just to paint some tiny little X-wing miniatures.

So I figured why not help those people by creating a set of accurate decals in order to replicate Red Squadron, circa the Battle of Yavin? And while I'm at it, why not do up Gold Squadron, Rogue Squadron, and add some TIE Fighter elite markings?

Here's a preview of what I've got so far:

I'm starting with the major hull panel colors for each ship (including some hypothetical ships flown by Reds Seven through Eleven), then I'll add some weathering and battle damage, accurate to the miniatures of course, and finally I'll test them out on my minis and get them picture-perfect. After that, I'll do up decals to represent Gold Squadron, then the TIE Fighter decals, and finally the Rogues circa the Bacta War.

Then I'll put the file on Media-Fire for everyone to download and print on decal paper.

I might put in some really tiny pirate and New Republic markings as well, and maybe some Imperial logos.

UPDATE (5/16/2015):

The decals for Red Squadron are finished, boyos! Here's a link in case you don't want to scroll through 8 pages of forum posts:

Red Squadron decals: http://www.mediafire.com/view/df76ok24wwl11k9/X-wing_Decals.pdf

Decal placement guide for the X-wing: http://www.mediafire.com/view/waezbo9csi4b5cu/Decal_Placement_-_X-wing.pdf

I'll post more links as I finish more sets of decals. Thanks for your patience, and happy modeling!

looks good.. I have a sheet I need to print and try out, just haven't had the time recently.. maybe soon.. I am wanting to see the end result, keep up the good work..

I know I will be far more likely to do some repaints if/when decals are available. I'm a fairly good painter but freehand symbols at 1/270 are not my strength. At all.

Jim

love it!!!!! Millennium Falsehood you are a multi-talented master artist!!!!

Thanks, you guys! I'm plugging away at these . . . I'm hoping I can get Red Squadron done in a few days.

Here's a quick update:

I'm using the Finemolds decals as a template for creating these, so once I finish the four fighters from that kit it will probably go a little slower, and slower still when I try and create the non-canon Red Squadron fighters.

Can you please explain to me what Canon and EU (think that was the term used) means? I've seen it a few times but have no idea what they mean...

Can you please explain to me what Canon and EU (think that was the term used) means? I've seen it a few times but have no idea what they mean...

Canon means from the films.

EU = (Extended Universe) this refers to the books and other media, but mostly books.

This is an awesome idea. especially for somebody who can't paint detail worth a **** like me

What kind of paper will you using to print these on?

Exactly. I might add that there are two versions of EU: Extended Universe and Expanded Universe. Both mean essentially the same thing, but Expanded Universe seems to be the version preferred in the pre-Prequel merchandise, so if you run across it in older source materials you should assume it means the same thing.

This is an awesome idea. especially for somebody who can't paint detail worth a **** like me

What kind of paper will you using to print these on?

Clear inkjet decal paper for me, though paper meant for laser printers exists (I bought some by accident once). Regardless, you'll want to get clear because white decal paper has a layer of white ink already on the page which will have to be trimmed.

Perhaps you could do some generic Rebel and Imperial markings as well. These would be great for simple customizations of models.

Chris

I intend to. Imperial logos, Rebel crests, New Republic crests, Green Squadron's crest, Rogue Squadron's crest, the Flaming Claw pirate logo, Seinar Fleet Systems logo, etc. As many as I can find, and if anyone has any suggestions besides those I'll include them as well.

I'm toying with the idea of including battle damage markings, like blast marks, replaced panels, oil streaks and carbon scoring. I'm also thinking about making a full set of multi-colored X-wing panels for custom ships and replacement panels.

That's a cool idea, the blast marks... Garvins model from the movies has some left over burn marks on the nose area where it looks like a panel has been replaced, I figured I'd set some tape down and black smudge some paint and streak it to try to replicate the look.. this is turning into quite the project.. I'll need to get new decal paper..lol.. been trying ideas of my own and failing miserably.. lol

What would be cool is the spiral candy cane like striping for the x wing guns.

They're there now; I had forgotten to copy/paste them into each X-wings decal set. ^^;

Currently I'm gathering some references for the other members of Red Squadron. The ships made for the original film were Red Leader, Red 2, Red 3, Blue 4, Red 5, Red 6, and Red 12. Blue 4 I'm just going to recolor as Red 4, and the rest will have to be invented.

Gold Squadron consisted of Gold Leader, Gold Five, Bill George's Y-wing (I'm not sure which designation it was supposed to have), and the Red Jammer Y-wing. Red Jammer will be converted to Gold's color scheme, and I'll add in some custom markings for other Gold Squadron ships.

As far as TIE Fighters go, there are some ships with these red hexagons painted on the upper starboard side of the cockpit, so I'll include those. I've already painted some on my own ships to signify the named pilots, and I figure other people might want them as well.

Great Stuff, I wish I was so gifted in the digital arts...

i want to try this also but i have no idea on how to scale it propperly and what program ect i have a few ideas for custom skins for my ships but its to detailed to paint it

can you pm me or something with what tools you use and how u get the right scale / size or maybe 1of your finished decals so i can use it as a refference ? =D

MF it's a red pentagon not hexagon on the Ties, it's also on the port hand side, I've painted a fair few... kill markings would also be good for ties, I know there is a least one picture of Soontir's TIE/IN with them along the starboard side.

Heh, my mistake. ^^; I really should have known that . . . I painted two of them on my miniatures and decaled one of my 1:72 TIE Fighters with it.

I might do some kill markings after I finish Red Squadron and Gold Squadron. Gold is going to be easy-peasy: just the yellow markings on the nose and the ones around the engine domes. Only seven Gold Y-wings participated in the Battle of Yavin, so that makes my job even easier.

I think I'm going to put in some blue, yellow, gray and gold markings for the X-wings for anyone who wants other squadrons, with some other random, mis-matched panels. I think a good way for the mis-matched panels to be done is to do an entire area (nose, wing, etc.) in one color and put in dashed lines where to cut them out with an eXacto knife. You'd need one anyway for the markings of the other ships, so it's not a bad idea, I think.

i want to try this also but i have no idea on how to scale it propperly and what program ect i have a few ideas for custom skins for my ships but its to detailed to paint it

can you pm me or something with what tools you use and how u get the right scale / size or maybe 1of your finished decals so i can use it as a refference ? =D

Don't worry about the scale. I'm going to make it a PDF, and then you just need to print it as-is on 8.5"x11" decal paper. Just make sure you don't fiddle with the scale settings.

As long as you can open PDF files (Adobe Acrobat is a standard install on all Microsoft machines) and have access to decal paper and decal film solution, you should be fine.

The program I'm using is Paint.NET. It's a raster-based program, so these decals aren't as sharp as they could be, but at this scale they really don't need to be super-sharp, like they would for a larger model. I will be putting dashed lines around the decals so you know where to cut, and you can use that as a guide, and if you want I'll include the DPI settings so you can print it at the correct scale.

Anyway, I've finished all the panels I can on the canon "hero" X-wings in ANH:

I'm going to do some more weathering on them and then move on to the non-canon X-wings. John D. (Red 4) and Red Twelve are both as close as I can get, because there are only two references for Red 12 and one for Red 4. I'll probably make up some more mis-matched panels for them.

I also had to really work to get Red Leader's blast mark right. There is only one picture of his starboard side, and it's at an angle, so the most extreme part of the mark is not too clear. But I think I got a reasonable approximation.

Got a little more work done. I was browsing the Replica Prop Forum and they have this AWESOME thread on the X-wing where they've gathered up all the other major threads and put them in one spot to peruse. I found out that there are two types of models for ANH: the "hero" miniatures and the pyro models, which were meant to blow up. The hero minis had pyro counterparts, but they weren't always painted the exact same scheme, so they work well for making alternate paint scheme.

There were several models created for ANH: Hero Red Leader, Pyro Red Leader, Hero Red 2, Pyro Red 2, Hero Red 3, Pyro Red 3, Pyro Red 4, Hero Red 5, Pyro Red 6, and Pyro Red 12. The hero models will be used to represent their on-screen counterparts, but like I said, the other models will serve as inspiration for other ships. Case in point, Red 3's pyro miniature is what I'm using for Red 7.

I've also added some new decals for each fighter already completed, as well as added canopy and nose cone decals for them, and I've done some work on Red 7. Here's the update:

This is brilliant.

Have you done any testing?

Well, I haven't been to the hobby store yet to pick up some decal paper, so I'm entertaining myself in the meantime with coming up with the designs for the other members of Red Squadron.

I will do some testing once I get the paper, and if I need to modify them it shouldn't be too difficult.

Great Ideas..I'm looking forward to it! Thanks for your effort!

When will you be selling these?