X-Wing and TIE Fighter colours

[Seamus]

Morning all,

I've received a Bandai X-Wing and TIE for Christmas and, being on such a massive Star Wars binge at the moment, can't wait to get stuck into them. My only issue is knowing what colours to paint them. Reading around, there seems to be a bit of a conflict of opinion, but I'd appreciate any further suggestions for both the interior colours and exterior greys on both fighters.

Thanks in advance,

Shaun

[Caerbannog]

AFAIk the studio models were painted Pactra "Stormy Sea Blue". I have noted that Tamiya TS-32 Haze Gray should be a close match - but I did not write down who said so and if this person had both colours to compare. If TS32 is good I would think that Humbrol 87 should be workable too.

Rene

[Smiffy]

With the TIE, it all depends which film version you want to represent. The ones in A New Hope were a very light, almost white colour on screen. In Empire & Jedi, they had the blue-grey appearance (the Pactra colour mentioned above).

The X-Wings were painted with a black undercoat, then oversprayed with white. This white base was then scuffed, scraped, sanded and weathered in all manor of different ways.

Of course, this might not be the best way to duplicate the effect with a much smaller scale model & I have seen a lot of good looking X-Wings, with people using a base coat of light aircraft grey.

Hth.

[Caerbannog]

Just checked two articles in SciFi and Fantasy Modeller #37. One article is about the TIE Bomber and one about a studio scale TIE Fighter.

The Bomber article mentiones the Star Wars Itentities exhibition (I managned to miss this even it was just 20 km from my home. Arggghhh!!!) and that the various TIE versions there had different shades. The TIE bomber colour in the article was made according to the exhibit colour (not sure how this was done) from gunze colours (H323, H335, H56 and flat base H40) - no proportions given.

The TIE Fighter article is not a lot better in this regard. They quote "Pactra Sea Blue" and that they did "a custom mix of blues and greys". But they say that "Some TIE fans swear by straight from the can Rust-oleum Slate Blue".

This might be of interest: http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=91&page=2

Why oh why did I miss to go to the Exhibition with my colour fans?

[Seamus]

Thanks for the input chaps, much appreciated.

With the TIE, it all depends which film version you want to represent. The ones in A New Hope were a very light, almost white colour on screen. In Empire & Jedi, they had the blue-grey appearance (the Pactra colour mentioned above).

The X-Wings were painted with a black undercoat, then oversprayed with white. This white base was then scuffed, scraped, sanded and weathered in all manor of different ways.

Of course, this might not be the best way to duplicate the effect with a much smaller scale model & I have seen a lot of good looking X-Wings, with people using a base coat of light aircraft grey.

Hth.

I hadn't noticed the colour change after episode IV, but given the X-Wing I'll be modelling will be Luke's, I suppose I really should model the TIE to go with it as he's chased up the trench. I have the Battlefront game which has the TIEs coloured more grey than blue (including interceptors) and my original plan was to colour match against that unless someone has a firm suggestion to the colour, especially as the blues suggested above appear to be out of production and/or not in my preferred colour range- Xtracolor.

As for the X-Wing, LAG was the colour I had in mind for a base, with plenty of panel variation in accordance to the films and also the game, which rather usefully allows you to examine the two fighters closely and in detail, so that's the way I'll go for that.

If there are any further suggestions to the early TIE colour I'm all ears

Thanks again,

Shaun

[Raven Morpheus]

I did my AMT Tie using Tamiya XF colours. XF 2 (White) and XF 82 (Ocean Gray 2) 50:50 mix as per this thread at therpf - http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=91957&page=2

Turned out OK for me - http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234985058-148-tie-fighter/

From what I've read they were all painted Pactra Stormy Sea Blue throughout all the original trilogy, it was the lighting which made them look different after ANH.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Raven Morpheus

[Stuart Wilson]

I used FS 36622 for my Fine Molds X and Y Wings and was happy with it, Xtracolor was the brand I used.

For the Tie and Tie Interceptor I used Tamiya RAF Medium Sea Grey. The Tie is difficult as sometimes it looks white and other times a blue-grey, The MSG seemed a good match for the grey shade.

Stuart

[ScootyPuffJunior]

For a more neutral grey on TIE fighters, I use Tamiya Sky Grey (XF-19) and for the blue-grey I use Tamiya Ocean Gray 2 (XF-82) and Flat White (XF-2) mixed 1:1.

For X-wings, I used a custom mixed color using one 10mL jar of Tamiya Flat White (XF-2), 2/3 of a jar of Tamiya White (X-2), twelve drops of Tamiya Flat Earth (XF-52), and four drops of Tamiya Neutral Grey (XF-53).

[Seamus]

Apologies for the late reply, thanks for the additional replies chaps. I'd rather avoid mixing colours if I can should I need to make any touch ups, and I do have X140 in the paint drawer, so will give that a shot

[Caerbannog]

I was in Munich this weekend and visited the Star Wars Identities exhibition at last (it just just opened in Munich on Staurday). With good spirit I went there together with my FS colour fan (and BS and RAL). My idea is clear - I wanted to check and compare the colour of the original models with the fan deck but found this much more difficult than expected:

My high hopes to find a good match for the TIE Fighter so we have a definite colour to refer to were not 100% fulfilled. In fact I am not even sure if the shown TIE is a good starting point as there was no information at all about this model. Furthermore I am not sure if it was used for filming at all. The solar wings looked to be casted - they are certainly not made of the sun shield material (there is no see-though effect).

I did not try to find a colour match for the other exhibits because of the tricky lighting.

Hope this helps nonetheless.

René

[Mick4350]

Information taken from the Mech 9 website for the X-Wing Gunze paints Main body: white ( 90 %) + gull grey ( 10% ) + a pinch of black. main body etc black part: flat Black ( 100% ), main body etc silver part: silver (100%), pilot suit: orange (70%)+flat base (30%), pilot head flesh (100%), pilot helmet,R2-D2 white part white ( 100%), pilot helmet visor clear orange (100%). photon torpedo :clear red (95%)+white(5%), photon torpedo tip clear red (100%). R2-D2 blue part blue (100%). R5-D4 red part: shine red (100%) and death star surface stand white (90%) + neutral Grey (10%) + a pinch of black.

For the Tie Fighter the colours are main body etc light grey part neutral grey (70%) + white (30%), Main body, cockpit grey: neutal grey ( 100%), solar panel flat Black (100%). laser canon edge part: silver (100%) as a base + clear orange (100%). laser clear yellow (70%) + clear Green (30%) + a pinch of white. death star surface (stand): white (90%) + neutral grey (10%) + a pinch of black. Tie pilot helmet, boots etc black (100%), tie pilot suit: flat black (100%) + a pinch of blue and tie pilot belt (buckle part): silver (100%).

All of the colours are Gunze Sangyo and I am not sure of their specific numbers.

Edited May 20, 2016 by Mick4350

[JMChladek]

I've done more than a few Star Wars kits over the decades. My advice, don't get too crazy with exact colors, especially if you are building only the 1/72 models because the studio models by comparison were A LOT larger. Combine that with bright studio lights and blue screen and their on-screen appearance was a bit different than how the models were painted.

The TIE Fighter from ANH is a classic example (only ANH since the later movies used a totally different color). Yes, the original models were done in a Pactra shade and yes, Haze gray available through the Tamiya spray can line is as bang on as you are going to find. I even have some cans of it myself. But it is a relatively dark color. It looks reasonably good on Revell's big TIE Fighter, but it just looks too dark on a 1/72 subject. By comparison, FS36492 Light Gray produces a nice coloring that seems to match on-screen appearance for ANH just about right. Tamiya also has it in their "AS" spray paint line. The same color was used on both of the TIE builds below.

1/72 FineMolds TIE Fighter

1/48 AMT/Ertl TIE Bizarro kitbash (from the LucasArts X-Wing Alliance game)

Now as for the X-Wing, you really don't have to go the "black basecoat, white overpaint, rub panels down with steel wool" approach if you are working on a small sized model because honestly, it is a lot of work. Only time I might use that approach would be on Revell's big 1/29 X-Wing or a studio scale offering. Plus, I don't think ILM used that approach for all their X-Wings. Hero models yes, more than likely. But for pyro models? Just use something close because the model will get blown to smithereens anyway. Plus, today we have the benefit of A LOT more paint colors than what ILM had access to at the time. Secondly, when you add trim paint, washes, drybrushing and weathering to the mix, the base coloring is going to get even more obscured anyway.

Now as for what color to use... when FineMolds did their kits in the early 2000s, they had access to the original ILM models and came up with some decent equivalents. For the X-Wing, they recommended a gull gray shade. I tried it, but IMHO it is too dark since it was apparently a paint recommendation for somebody who wanted to paint their X-Wing and not do a wash or drybrush weathering. The coloring I eventually settled on was FS36622 Camouflage Gray. Over that I gave it a wash of a dark gray color and over those panels I drybrushed on some straight white to get the classic "used universe" look. When done, my final fully weathered coloring looked like the recommended gull gray shade. So mission accomplished. You can see my results below on this model of Wedge's Red 2, built from the FineMolds 1/72 kit.

As for where to get FS36622, in the States Testors no longer offers it as an enamel bottle. But, it is still available in spray can form and as an acrylic bottle (which sucks for me because I love airbrushing it as an enamel and I hate decanting spray paint since it is so messy). In Europe, Testors has also pretty much pulled out from shipping paints there, but perhaps a shop or two might still have some bottles. Thankfully it is one of the most common colors you can find in other paint lines since it is the underside gray color for USAF aircraft painted in Southeast Asia camo. So other manufacturers likely have it or an equivalent.

Ultimately though, use what looks good to your eye. With Star Wars models you can take multiple approaches and the results usually look equally good in the end.