TIE Striker and friends

[Will Vale]

Thanks Nick

 

The ripples have dried up quite nicely:

 

 

but I think that on reflection the underpainting is really too strong, and I'm tempted to peel it off and redo, keeping everything on the top of the plastic sheet as-is. It does look better from a low angle where there's more reflected white light:

 

 

but I think the sand colour really needs to extend out (much) further from the dry land and the blue needs to be less intense. I'll ponder for a bit longer and hopefully make the decision. If I do peel it off I have a nice idea for something to add to the Club Tropicana effect - painting some caustics below the waves

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[Will Vale]

So I opted to scrape the paint off the back, hopefully I haven't scratched it too much! I'll paint a new under-layer and see how that comes out.

 

FWIW I thought what I had already was really pretty, but it looked much too deep - like the bottom of the cliffs in a Mediterranean fishing village rather than a gently shelving atoll. So I'll try and use paler colours and see how that goes.

 

Cheers,

 

W

[Will Vale]

I did the rework, this time with a painting on typing paper glued to the bottom with matt medium. I think it's probably more realistic, but also less pretty...

 

 

The problem now is that the tint in the gel ripples on the top surface is too strong. I'm going to see if the next step (foam and stuff) makes it all come out right or if it's back to the drawing board for round 2. Which wouldn't be a bad thing entirely as all the rework and messing around has left things looking a little tired.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

And a little bit more while I'm waiting for some work stuff to download - I added more green and blue in a gradient from shallow to deep, mixed with matt medium to diffuse the underwater stuff a little.

 

 

Then started building up the bigger waves by unifying some of the ripples. The white is just the wet gloss gel but it gives an idea of what it might look with some foam and I think it's probably going to work

 

Now need to wait for things to dry a bit, and I can do some stuff on the beach.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

While I was waiting for the gel to dry clear, I cleaned up the edges of the base and brush-painted them with Abaddon Black. This gives a neater finish and helps hide the light leaks at the exposed water edges. With that done I thought I might as well mount it so bent some acrylic rod, picked a spot, and drilled the plastic and wooden parts to suit. The last step was to put it together with 5 minute epoxy, and here we are:

 

 

The rod is a push fit in both the base and the TIE, but it's a very tight fit in the base so I'll probably leave it there! I need to finish the foam on the water surface and add some plants, and then I think I'll be done.

 

 

So while it's not perfect (so melty!) it's not a bad result for a quick build. Top marks to Bandai!

 

I learned quite a lot on the water base - like I should've made the underwater sand darker to match the "wet" send I added around the edges, and I ought to have used less tint in the gel and relied on the painting to provide most of the water colour - but it was fun to do. I'll probably not set the U-Wing on Scarif though, that would look cool nestled in the rocks somewhere, or in a base scene.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[Hunter Rose]

Cool! I really like the two little ray creatures in the water, thats a nice touch Will

[Andy Moore]

10 minutes ago, Hunter Rose said:

Cool! I really like the two little ray creatures in the water, thats a nice touch Will

Me too, my favourite bit actually.

I've got to say, when you said you were going to strip and refinish the underside, I was a little disappointed as I really liked the way it looked before, although I could understand your reasons for doing it. The new version, especially with the gel waves, really has made a difference though. Definitely captures that coral atoll/Scarif look.

 

Andy

[Will Vale]

I'm glad the space-fish are popular, I was thinking of the rays we see basking on the waterfront here, but I did the Star Wars thing and doubled-up the fins to make them more spacey There are a handful of starfish in the right back as well, which are under the water sheet so unlike the rays they don't cast shadows.

 

2 hours ago, AndyRM101 said:

I've got to say, when you said you were going to strip and refinish the underside, I was a little disappointed as I really liked the way it looked before, although I could understand your reasons for doing it.

 

It was done with something of a heavy heart, and I still don't think it looks as slick as that version in some ways but I think it was the right call. At least in terms of making it look like Scarif! And the lighter background means that you can see real caustics from the gel ripples, which is pretty cool.

 

I've just stuck some greenery in the corner and spent quite a long time painting all the foam onto the waves. It's a bit hard to say if it's done yet as that means painting white mixed with with matt medium which is white until it dries. So it might need more white or it might be OK already I'll see in the morning, but it looks pretty promising.

 

Night all!

 

W

 

[Will Vale]

OK, I think the base is done! I added some neat white to the foam this morning and stuck another plant on the sandbar. The scale is a little bit questionable (size of waves vs. size of tidemarks, etc.) but I think it'll do.

 

 

The next job is to take some proper pictures, I've put the camera battery on to charge.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Took the pictures and it's now in RFI!

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

[Nigel Heath]

Terrific work on the base.

[Will Vale]

Thanks Nigel!

 

After a short break to build this (which I have yet to get muddy, but soon!)

 

 

I've put some paint on the tanks. I found a different picture which makes me think that I should've used a warm dark grey whereas these are a bit more imperial. I don't think I'll change it now though, but I can see how I can shift things with the weathering and maybe a filter or two.

 

 

Interestingly I was expecting the pin wash to be quite quick to do because they're so small - instead it took ages as there's just so much detail to pick up

 

I've also given the ISD a coat of paint - this is Tamiya Royal Light Grey with some highlights from a lightened version of same:

 

 

I'm a bit unsure how to proceed with this - I was going for a more cloudy paint job, but the finish had a salt-and-pepper feel to it even though my paint was very thin so I ended up adding more coats to even things out and losing quite a bit of the variation. There's a bit more left on the underside, maybe:

 

 

Currently thinking about darkening it a bit, maybe with Andy's crazy masking technique, maybe with pencilled panel lines? I'll ponder for a bit, it's not as obvious as the tanks.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[Will Vale]

I added some filters to the tanks - Tamiya Smoke sprayed from below along the sides and around the base, plus some heavily thinned Clear Orange from above along each side, I think those have helped warm things up a bit:

 

 

Still probably not what you'd call canon, and I'm sure it will lighten a bit with the flat coat, but I think it helps a bit.

 

I also painted the containers orange with Tamiya Orange. Which is gloss and I don't like gloss acrylics, but it was handy and is a good bright safety orange. Five or six coats later, I added some highlights by adding white to what was left in the airbrush cup. I've picked out one container in each set in the paler tone for variety. I assume that if the containers are apparently separate like that, then at some point they'll actually be separated and so might wear at different rates.

 

 

NB: The fiction for the Occupier tank suggests that it's a hovertank, but the prop vehicles were built on Alvis Stormer flatbeds and you can definitely see their tracks in the movie. I think they made a production time decision to use them as tracked vehicles (for the feel? to avoid post production work?) which is why all the toy names are wrong. FWIW I think it's s terrible decision - the tiny tracks sit maybe a metre inside the enormous over-riders at each end - so I'm going to say they hover when I come to base them

 

[edit: Not Stalwart, Stormer. But Alvis Stalwarts would make for some awesome spacey conversions :)]

 

Cheers,

 

Will 

[monsterpartyhat]

Solid choice. Star Wars ground vehicles should hover. End of story

[Will Vale]

10 minutes ago, monsterpartyhat said:

Solid choice. Star Wars ground vehicles should hover. End of story

Toronto-GOSH! What about the mighty AT-AT then?

[monsterpartyhat]

I realized I should have written hover _or walk_ as soon as I got up from the computer

[Will Vale]

3 hours ago, monsterpartyhat said:

hover _or walk_

Aww, I was hoping you were going to run with it and come up with a complex and convincing in-universe discussion of why the AT-ATs would've been way better as hover vehicles!

 

I realised I hadn't posted the next step yet - after the filters I drybrushed the tanks with Screaming Skull (a cream colour to support the new tint) and then chipped with the always-popular German Camo Black Brown from Vallejo.

 

 

Some of the chips are a bit splattery, I think the paint was a touch wet, but it'll all get blended in with following layers.

 

On top of that I blended AK Africa Dust Effects and a bit of standard Dust Effects on the flat surfaces, and streaked more of it down the sides. The movie tanks have quite a lot of "bird dropping" white stains and the dust gives a hint of this.

 

 

A bit more of that plus some rust and they'll nearly be ready to varnish.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[The Chief Smeg]

Blindly Will, you make your work sound so easy and natural, takes me hours (and a lot of swearing) to achieve even a tenth of what you are accomplishing here. Love the chipping, did you sponge or hand paint it?

[Will Vale]

3 hours ago, The Chief Smeg said:

you make your work sound so easy and natural, takes me hours (and a lot of swearing) 

Thanks, but did you read about the bit where I melted the TIE above? That wasn't very natural and there may have been swearing...

 

If I'm brutally honest I reckon the only trick to any of it is magnification - if I can see it then it's a lot easier! The steady hand comes with practice. And the enamel weathering things I've been using are so nice because you can mess around happily and mostly wipe it off if it goes wrong. Plus they have fine pigments so you can get nice streaks and other thin/small features which make it all look in-scale - e.g. despite being mostly manipulated with a 3mm flat brush the streaks are *well* under 1mm across.

 

It's a bit different for me if I'm trying to copy something exactly, but for the sci-fi stuff I tend to not worry about that and all the work reduces to "follow some of these steps" - turn the handle and models come out of the end, eventually.

 

3 hours ago, The Chief Smeg said:

did you sponge or hand paint it?

The chipping is all sponged on, using a "sharp" corner of a torn sponge for a bit more control. It's honestly not that great in terms of shape of chips, but I've added quite a bit of dust and it all sort of blends in and hopefully adds to the effect. I did think about touching it up with a brush but didn't bother in the end as it's such a tiny model.

 

Talking of tiny, I've just painted the tank driver and blimey that was fiddly! Difficult combination of very small, hard edges, and black/white contrast giving nowhere to hide. I'll take a pic in the morning but I'm kinda dreading what he'll look like close-up :/

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Thud4444]

It's almost comical how bad Rogue One messed up the cannon on its new vehicles.  

 

Still, nice work on the tanks.

[Will Vale]

I think the tanks are pretty cool-looking and they're used quite well in the movie, but they're seriously impractical both as a tank design and as a lorry!

 

I added more layers of weathering using mostly the same things as above, plus some MIG Rust Effects and Citadel paints for a few details. I also went back with the MIG Dark Wash and re-instated some panel lines that were full of dust.

 

 

The container ends I blacked in with the Tamiya panel liner (the mesh should really be painted black but I didn't fancy that) and the seams with Dark Wash, maybe I should've got the Brown to reduce the impact of the seams a little? I also did some drybrushing with pale orange (Lugganuth Orange) and pale yellow (Dorn Yellow) from Citadel, I wanted these to look plasticky rather than metal.

 

 

Lastly I touched in the guns with black and painted the commander and his hatch. That was a bit fiddly - there's not really enough detail to delineate the armour plates with a straight wash and I ended up using cream, then a sepia wash for a dirty base and painted in the lines and undersuit with dark grey and black, then finally went over the armour panels with white and at the same time thinned the lines a bit.

 

 

I sort of think he needs some weathering (in the movie his suit is absolutely knackered) but I think it might just look messy if I add chips?

 

NB: The containers and the cupola aren't pressed home yet, the hatch in particular seats much better when properly in place.

 

Cheers,

 

Will 

 

 

[Andy Moore]

Knowing how small these 1/144 figures are from the AT-AT, I think you've done an amazing job with the commander. I'd leave him as he is. Like you say, I think chipping could look over done in this scale.

Are the tanks heading for a scenic base, like the Striker?

 

Andy

[Will Vale]

15 minutes ago, AndyRM101 said:

Are the tanks heading for a scenic base, like the Striker?

Cheers Andy I'd like to base them but I've run out of the little square wooden coasters I was using, I've got other things but I've rather fallen for the look of the coasters. They've been put on clearance by a big chain and almost dried up - there's a shop an hour away that seems to have some but I haven't had time to get out there yet.

 

The most appropriate setting would be Jedha and I'd quite like to do the buildings but not really all the people! I watched the movie again and there's a scout walker in the Jedha battle scene as well which would be fun. Maybe I can do a bit of street and put some Aurebesh up that says "curfew" as a cheat...

 

Will

[Andy Moore]

5 minutes ago, Will Vale said:

Maybe I can do a bit of street and put some Aurebesh up that says "curfew" as a cheat...

That would certainly be a way around it 

 

The AT-ST would make a great accompaniment for the tanks, or the partisan black/white X-Wing

 

Andy

[monsterpartyhat]

The amount of detail you got into the tank weathering and the commander is mind boggling to me.

 

Here's some inspiration on that diorama front:

 

 

I know I've seen at least one more Jedha diorama in 1:144th scale with the tanks and walker, but haven't been able to find it again...