salshred Posted May 31, 2017 Share Posted May 31, 2017 This is great! I love that you are doing your own color schemes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted June 8, 2017 Author Share Posted June 8, 2017 (edited) Continuing on with more tiny fighters.... After mostly finishing (it still needs weathering) a Poe Dameron T70.... Photos of the whole thing to follow, but I wanted to highlight how amazing these little Bandai kits are. I was able to easily paint all the detailing by brush, without any masking except for the main body and wing panels and squadron markings. The inner wing engine detailing, with the orange vane in the middle, and the pinstriping on the engine nacelles, can all be very cleanly freehanded, taking advantage of the natural edges of the pieces. It's really a joy to paint. Anyway...while nearly done with that T-70, I started another one. One of my first "a-ha!" moment inspirations after starting to take this hobby up again was AndyRM101's McQuarrie Concept T-70 X-Wing. I almost immediately knew I wanted one in the 1:144th scale, and that was the first ship I attempted to brush-paint (aside from the rattle-can base coat). It turned out OK (you can see the somewhat sloppy results here), but they've been getting since, so I started another one which is turning out much cleaner so far. I've gotten a lot better at masking and handling the paints. Obviously, I'm deviating from Andy's version and from the original painting, but in small ways. I had to throw some of the Medium Blue in there... I think it goes very nicely with the Tamiya yellow and Deck Tan. Edited June 8, 2017 by monsterpartyhat 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted July 4, 2017 Author Share Posted July 4, 2017 I didn't make any progress for a while because I went to Iceland for 2 1/2 weeks, but I hit the ground running once I got back (well....once I got over the crazy jet lag from Iceland to California). The McQuarrie V2 and Poe Dameron T-70 X-Wings are done except for weathering: P7033774 And before I left I'd put primer on a couple more T-65 kits, for a Rogue One Blue Leader, and an ANH Red Five (sort-of). Blue Leader is coming along quickly, although I neglected to take many WIP photos: P7033762 I'm still loving adding detail to the rear engine panel, even through it's not canon: P7023734 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Moore Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 Excellent work. The Blue Leader T-65 is looking very nice. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted July 5, 2017 Author Share Posted July 5, 2017 8 hours ago, AndyRM101 said: Excellent work. The Blue Leader T-65 is looking very nice. Andy Thank you! I had a bit of a "patience problem" with the blue wing markings - as in I didn't have enough of it, and had some paint start to run when I applied the clear coat too soon. Fortunately I was able to clean it up and redo the edges, and the remaining blemishes just fade into the weathering. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, overall - and now I have representatives of all the major canonical X-wing color schemes in 1:144th. Time for more customs! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted July 5, 2017 Author Share Posted July 5, 2017 Masking progress steps on Red Five (or as I'm calling it, "Red Five-ish". It's not a perfect Red Five because, frankly, I eventually did run out of patience for masking off body panels P7033749 P7033755 Masking off the first pass of red, for the main fuselage stripes and the squadron markings, minus the number pips. P7033758 With red applied: P7033769 And with some metallic detailing of the access panels and engines (Vallejo Metal Color acrylics and Nuln Oil again): P7043781 And then the really fiddly bit - those wing pips. P7043783 P7053785 Those didn't turn out nearly as cleanly as I'd like - I'm sure they'd have less bleed if I were airbrushing them instead of brush painting. With such tiny pieces of tape, getting a perfect seal is difficult. However, once weathered they look fine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted July 5, 2017 Author Share Posted July 5, 2017 And here's a few nearly-finished shots. First Blue Leader: P7053803 P7053787 And Red Five-ish: P7053798 P7053794 P7053809 While I didn't use the stickers for anything else, I did use them for the barber pole markings on the laser cannons. You can't really tell its a sticker versus a decal, because the edges of the sticker line up with the edges of the part, so they don't leave a distinct raised edge. One interesting observation about the ANH-era markings and the Rogue One markings - the OT X-wings all have the body panels immediately surrounding the cockpit canopy painted to match the canopy. The Rogue One x-wings don't. I find it makes a surprisingly large difference in the overall feel of the proportions of the bird. It wasn't until I finished the Red Five that I felt like "Ah, that's what I remember from 1978". I wasn't planning on building the entire ANH Red Squadron, but now I'm starting to think about it.... 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted July 6, 2017 Author Share Posted July 6, 2017 And then I spent an hour this morning painting and weathering U-Wing cockpit details that no-one will ever see, because Bandai molded them. Sigh. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Vale Posted July 7, 2017 Share Posted July 7, 2017 Love what you're doing with these - all the picked-out details look great and they totally belie the small scale. You should do some group shots with Death Star surface or other scenery, I think they'd look amazing I have just acquired the U-Wing, it's rather nice isn't it? Cheers, Will 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted July 7, 2017 Author Share Posted July 7, 2017 (edited) I actually took some group shots just this morning - I'll probably post an RFI gallery for the fleet of fighters soon. I'm ready to take a break from building fighters to work on the U-wing and some small dioramas (and eventually the other larger 1:144th ships. I keep looking at that Millenium Falcon box.....). And yes, I love the U-Wing. I love the design of it - I feel like they really, really nailed the difficult problem of designing a new ship into an existing universe and making it fit. It really feels like it rolled out of the same ship yard during the same era as a T-65 X-Wing. And the kit is surprisingly simple to build - Bandai's molding capabilities are really bonkers. Here's the cockpit details. There's more detail on the upper fuselage as well - there's one bit in there with some small detail on the ceiling that will never, ever be seen once the kit is assembled, but I had to paint anyway I painted the tabs on the back of Cassian & K2SO red to represent the safety netting in the main body of the U-wing, which is red. There's none of that in this model, and there was none on the back of the pilot's chairs, but it's a nice splash of color and a stand-in for part of the interior they didn't include. I gave Cassian a green jacket because I don't yet have any dark-enough brown, and was feeling too lazy to mix some up in a palette for such a tiny area. Although I think I'll go back and try adding the stripes on the sleeves. I picked up some proper 20/0 fine detailing brushes, and they make the tiny figures much easier to deal with. Edited July 7, 2017 by monsterpartyhat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted July 7, 2017 Author Share Posted July 7, 2017 Some group shots. First up, my representatives of the four canonical T-65 designs (the original Red Squadron from the OT, and the slightly different Red Squadron from Rogue One, along with Blue Squadron and the Partisan paint schema from R1). All the X-Wings: All the F-Toys A-Wings: Size comparison of the Bandai X-Wing and F-Toys A-Wing. I'm looking forward to re-doing this with the Bandai A-Wing when it's released next month. X-Wing, Y-Wing, and Snowspeeder for size comparison: Starship knolling! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Moore Posted July 7, 2017 Share Posted July 7, 2017 Amazing collection Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted July 7, 2017 Author Share Posted July 7, 2017 I may have gone a bit nuts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted July 10, 2017 Author Share Posted July 10, 2017 U-Wing Preview Not going with Blue Squadron for the U-Wing this time. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BubbaFett Posted August 10, 2017 Share Posted August 10, 2017 As much as I'd like to eventually have a same-scale Star Wars fleet of my own, the 1/144 is so intimidating to me. I feel like my eyesight may not be good enough for the 1/72 scale, and these are so much smaller! That said, yours look great! Looking forward to seeing the U-wing completed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted August 10, 2017 Author Share Posted August 10, 2017 ooh, I should update this thread. I have so many more now I actually posted a finished gallery of the U-wing: As for the scale -- I do use a magnifier with swappable lenses that gives up to 3X magnification. That's *incredibly* helpful. I also recently discovered Aizu Micron masking tape, which comes in 0.4mm and 0.7mm widths, which is incredibly helpful for things like wing squadron markings. I feel like I want to re-do a couple of the older builds now, as each one is a little cleaner than the last... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gimme Shelter Posted August 11, 2017 Share Posted August 11, 2017 these Bandai kits really are quite smashing and were definitely overdue onto the market place given the model demand for accurate Star Wars kits your collection is quite fantastic so will you be investing in their new B I G millennium falcon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted August 11, 2017 Author Share Posted August 11, 2017 I'm not (currently) planning to get the 1:72 Falcon, despite how amazing it is. It's expensive, and much bigger than I have any room to display. I've got the 1:144 Falcon to finish first, anyway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted August 24, 2017 Author Share Posted August 24, 2017 (edited) I started a companion for my Blue Leader yesterday - Blue Two. This time, instead of masking and painting absolutely everything, I'm using Nicholas Sagan's excellent Blue Squadron decal set for most of it. There's very little solid reference for the members of Blue Squadron* aside from Blue Leader, so it's a bit improvisatory. As with most of my X-Wings, I'm detailing the engines as much as I can. No just-weather-the-base-coat detailing for me. I got new magnifying lenses and good 20/0 brushes which help with this immensely. * - by my count, Blue Two died twice in the space battle *AND* once down on Scarif at the end of Rogue One. I think the editing process made the final battle very inconsistent as to what ship was where, and as it's all digital, no reference models exist for us to use. Oh well. Edited August 24, 2017 by monsterpartyhat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted October 28, 2017 Author Share Posted October 28, 2017 I've really neglected this thread - the fleet is a bit nuts now. I re-arranged the storage/display cabinet today: The loose ships shelf (including my lone 1:72 model): And the micro-dioramas shelf: It will all have to be re-arranged again when I finish the 1:144 Falcon, of course... 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted January 18, 2018 Author Share Posted January 18, 2018 I started a project to make a poster of all my completed models against a black background. The "cattle call" of models waiting to be photographed was amusing to me. And the pileup on the other side of the booth once I was done, as I moved them from one side to the other to keep track of which was done. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterpartyhat Posted January 21, 2018 Author Share Posted January 21, 2018 (edited) And here's the result, inspired by the model size comparison composites that Andy Moore made. What I lack in measuring up to the quality of those models, I make up in quantity, heh. :). This is most of the standalone models I built in 2017, along with a couple of unmodified F-Toys 1:144 ships that fit in nicely. Everything here is Bandai, F-Toys, or scratch built. Edited January 21, 2018 by monsterpartyhat 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Chief Smeg Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 That looks awesome. My favourite is still your scratchbuilt t-16 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockpopandchips Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 Now that is genius! Fantastic work displayed in a fantafantastic way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Moore Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 Fantastic collection and the presentation is first class. I love that black/red stripe TIE x1 Andy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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