RichWllmsn

Thanks for sharing this fantastic work with us all. I can't wait to see the falcon finished. I have just uploaded my first step by step model onto this community and the response has been fab. I hope to have some nice pic of my mpc Falcon as it develops. Do you mind if I ask if you did the LED lighting rig yourself?

Thanks PhantomMajor, I had a malfunction with the images as I've been organising my photobucket so they should all be working fine again now. It was a base coat of vallejo surface primer (grey), then a coat of vallejo chain mail as it has a scratched metal look once dry then I dry brushed Tamiya dark copper around the lower portion of the exhaust nozzle. As with the rest of the model it did also have a very light coat of Vallejo black (dark vehicle) wash to get it grubby from the exhaust fumes. You cant really see in the pics but I also mixed an almost oily purple which was achieved using Tamiya blue x-4, Vallejo flat red and the chain mail. This solution was only used on the inside of the nozzle in order to get that post high temperature effect.

<<SKIP THIS IF YOU WANT TO GET STRAIGHT TO THE MODEL BUILD>> So a little bit of back story before I get to the fun stuff. So this build took place over the space of 48hrs and was a mad rush of a Christmas present for a friend of mine who is quite possibly the worst person to buy for in history. So it has now become apparent that I must make stuff for him stat h cant get anywhere else, so this x-wing is a one of a kind because even if I painted it again, it would not be exactly the same. <<END OF BACK STORY>> So I opened this Revel easy kit with the understanding that I would need to re-paint the whole thing from scratch and in my opinion that's exactly what has to be done. The paintwork is passable for your younglings if they wish to build their first model and put it on their shelf. They could eveN practice their detailing, washes and dry brushing on it to make it really pop. But for those modellers that need to make an impact on everyone who sees their work you will need a blank canvas. So below are some photos of the unboxed pieces. Pretty bland paintwork. The initial paintwork has been put directly onto the black plastic and gives a very unrealistic glossy finish to what should be the metal armour of a starfighter so this is my main issue with the original pieces. So first things first, masking, because unless you have the steadiest hand ever, achieving the pin width lines on the nose of the x-wing will be a hell of a lot easier. I would go over the orange and grey panels that revel painted on later with my own orange and grey mix. I then went straight into vallejo black surface primer (2-3 coats) this was essential in order to ensure adhesion of the paint and then 2 coats of Tamiya flat black all airbrushed. Once the black and the primer were done the rest was achieved using brushes. I focussed mainly on the s-foils to begin with, applying the orange detailing first. This was very nearly a disaster, as I first used Humbrol enamel orange which went well and truly wrong. It ended with me wiping it all off and starting from scratch with some custom mixed orange from red Vallejo and yellow Yamiya acrylic paints. It was a close call though so in my opinion be very careful with Humbrol paints. The s-foils and their additional panels and air intakes were then washed and dry brushed (before being assembled with the main body of the starfighter. Parallel to all of the s-foil painting I was applying detailing to all of the cockpit and the mechanical parts of the fighter. The easy kit is surprisingly detailed and has plenty of opportunities to experiment and include as much detail as you want. Once I was happy with the detail of the cockpit and the s-foil mechanics I was happy to assemble the model. Make sure you are absolutely happy before putting any of the pieces together. Easy kit means snap kit so once snapped together there is no going back without potentially destroying the model, YE HAVE BEEN WARNED. The following lot of pic's are of the final completed model which had undergone vallejo washing and dry brushing. I also added some scorch marks to the exhaust nozzle to show wear an tear and some additional detailing to the panelling once I had seen the movie again (perfect excuse ) So that's the full story, I hope you enjoyed this post as its my first any feedback is very welcome.