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Bandai Star Wars 1/144 X-Wing and Tie Fighters


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Hello everyone! My first entry into the Sci Fi section of this amazing forum! I have built pretty much all of Bandai's 1/72 Star Wars vehicles, but these are my first in the smaller 1/144 scale. I am very impressed with the amount of detail in these little things! So far I have two X-Wings, one Y-wing, the Tie Fighter set, the Millennium Falcon, and the new AT-AT in 1/144. My plan is to put the Falcon and the Rebel Fighters together with the Ties. I have other plans for the AT-AT.

 

Here are the three main ships I started on. The Y-wing has to wait, because I only have 20 alligator clips for painting :P

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I started by building most of the sub-assemblies and priming them. I tired using a new Vallejo black primer. In the past, I had tried using alcohol based thinners to thin Vallejo, such as Mr. Levelling Thinner and Tamiya X-20A. I was never able to get the Vallejo to airbrush well with this method. There was always clogging issues and splattering problems. So this time, I just used distilled water. It worked so much better! I had some issues to start with, but once I worked out the right water to paint ratio, it actually sprayed pretty smooth. Nice thin layers and it leveled itself out and looked nice!

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I had read that others on this forum and others across the net where seeing flaws in the 144th Tie solar panel wings. Unfortunately mine had the same flaw. I was hoping that the black primer would hide some of this, but it doesn't look like it.

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Next step is the dreaded masking of the Tie wings and all of the cockpit glass. As for the base coats, I'm thinking Tamiya Ocean Grey RAF for the Ties and somw Vallejo White Gray for the X-wing. Need to do some tests first to see how they look over the black primer. Thanks for looking! Hopefully get some more paint on these soon!

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Hello all! Thank you for the kind words and encouragement on the new thread! I spent the evening mixing up paint colors for the X-Wings base coat. I tried using several different ratio combinations of Tamiya's Deck Tan and White. I ended up with a decent warm whitish-grey color that I thought would look good over the black primer.

 

Here is where I'm at so far.

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Look how adorable that little R2 unit is! I have no idea how I'm going to paint that little guy...:huh: As for the X-Wing, I almost made a colossal mistake by pushing the two S-foil pieces together. The paint has now made the fit extra tight, and I probably wouldn't have been able to pull it apart without some damage. Luckily I paused for a moment and realized I still had some painting left to do. As for the markings on this particular Starfighter,  I'm thinking of going with the Porkins colors I have seen around the web. The one with the dark red canopy and the yellow and medium red markings. I have seen several outstanding 1/72 ships done up like this, and have always wanted to try. Funny thing is I cant remember seeing that ship in the original movie. I watch it around 3 times a week with my 2 year old son cause he insists. Really, its him insisting, not me! ^_^ I think ill give it a go with this outstanding little X-Wing. Still blown away by how much detail they pack into the thing. Bandai is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition , in my honest opinion. Now if you'll  excuse me, I have to get back to masking all the mind-numbingly small canopy glass and Tie wings :lalala:

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More progress!

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The masking was actually fairly simple. I was dreading it, but the Tamiya masking tape I have was actually a pretty close match to the sizes I needed.

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I got the base coat down on the two Ties.

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I also painted some of the markings on the first X-Wing. I used a mix of airbrush and paint brush. Kinda rushed some of it, and I wasn't happy with some of the markings, but at this scale it was hard to mask some of the tiny panels and try to spray it.

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There is some clean up to do, and its a little rough, but I think I can pull it together with the weathering. Just don't look to close!

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I gave it a wash of Citadel's Nulin Oil black shade. I still have a few more colors to put on, like the dark red on two of the cannons. Also needs a matte coat to take off some of the shine and hopefully blend it all together better. Stay tuned!

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I think I am going to call these first three fighters done!

 

Here are the Ties

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The Ties were definitely easier to paint than the X-Wing. I gave them a black wash which really brought out all the detail in these awesome little things. gave the cockpit frames a drybrush of Tamiya German Grey, followed by some heavy black washing. I think the effect looks pretty cool. I let the wash pool in the recesses of the cockpit. Detailed the little cannon tips in Tamiya Cooper.

 

Here is the X-Wing. Not as happy with this one. I got a little frustrated and rushed several things, the paint isn't very clean and the markings look very suspect up close. But with the washes and weathering, and viewing it from a distance, it works :P I have another one of these X-Wings to do next with the Y-Wing. Hopefully I can take my time with that one and get a slightly better final product.

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Next up I'm going to start on the second X-Wing and the Y-wing. Still thinking of color schemes for those two. I'm not to worried about 100% screen accuracy, as I'm more concerned with an interesting final product. I'm also not sure who I want to display all these guys, and if I want to include the 1/144 Falcon with them. Decisions, decisions...

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On ‎5‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 0:28 AM, Hunter Rose said:

Very cool! the Ties look sharp, and I like the colour scheme of your x wing

Thank you! I have one more small X-Wing, and I'm not sure how to paint it. Thinking maybe just Red Leader. Also have the tiny Y-Wing to do.

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On ‎5‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 0:40 PM, R0ver said:

I love these little kits. Yours look really great, fantastic paint job.

Thanks! These little guys are a great break from some of the bigger Star Wars kits I've been working on. The detail Bandai can get into these things still amazes me. I'm working on the Y-Wing now, and all the little pipe work on the main body is there. Still deciding how I am going to paint those...:shrug:

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I cracked open the Y-Wing the other day. This thing is great! All the beautiful detail is there and its all nice and crisp. I built all the sub-assemblies to prep for paint. I really don't have a plan for the color scheme on this one yet. I think im going to go a different direction and do something not exactly canon. I was thinking maybe a fictional Red Squadron Y-Wing to go along with the two X-wings. Not sure yet... But the next step is to get some black primer on this thing.

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This thing is awesome! Anyway, thanks for looking. Hopefully I can get some paint on this thing over the weekend.

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Agreed - the Y-wing kit is amazing! While it's not my favorite fighter in the movies, I think it's my favorite mini-kit. There's just so much detail in a tiny package to go nuts painting. Brush painting it feels like a form of meditation to me. I've done two now, both in non-canonical color schemes. 

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3 hours ago, monsterpartyhat said:

Agreed - the Y-wing kit is amazing! While it's not my favorite fighter in the movies, I think it's my favorite mini-kit. There's just so much detail in a tiny package to go nuts painting. Brush painting it feels like a form of meditation to me. I've done two now, both in non-canonical color schemes. 

Yes, painting these little things is pretty fun. I like that they are forcing me to do more with brush work and less of masking and airbrushing. Its a good change of pace.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally finished the Y-Wing. I tried to take a little more time with this one, as I wasn't happy with the X-Wing final finish.

 

After much deliberation, I decided to paint this guy up like a member of Blue Squadron. I really like the blue markings over the original Red Squadron markings from the first film.

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Took it outside for some natural light. I didn't have any sort of plan as far as paint. I just started going. All the molded detail is just begging to be picked out in different grays and metallic.

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Took a side by side with the 1/72nd Ywing to show the scale difference. This little guy is tiny!

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Now that all the fighters are done, I have to decide how I'm going to base these guys! Do I build the 144th Falcon to go with these guys? Do I wait for the 144th Awing set due soon?? Do I separate them into multiple displays?? So many questions! I thinking a Death Star base dio for the Ties, One of the Xwings, and this Ywing. The other Xwing can go with the Falcon and the forthcoming Awing set. Maybe... Thanks for looking!

 

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