Repainting X-wing ships

Inspired by the fun tournament I played in and the fact that a lot of the players had either repainted or in some way touched up their ships, I decided to try my hand at painting some ships. Now, these are 1:270 scale, and I have painted tanks and infantry in 1:285 scale so how hard could it be?

The answer is pretty not hard at all, as long as you have a fine brush and a somewhat steady hand. For starters I decided to repaint one of my two HWK-290s.

Come on JJ, how do you like my lens flare?

For those of you who don't know the ship it's from the Dark Forces video games, so it was never featured in any of the movies. You can see it 7 minutes into this video of all the cutscenes from Dark Forces II (spoiler alert).

I don't have anything against the ship per se, I like the design and all, but I found it quite dull to play so I had only bought one. Usually I buy at least two of each small ship. Hearing that new pilot cards for the HWK would be included in the new faction Scum and Villainy I went out and bought another one in case they would be hard to get a hold of later.

The original to the left, my repainted to the right.

I didn't base my paint job on anything in particular, I just figured a lot of ships would be painted a neutral grey before being pimped by their owners. I used Coat d'Arms slate grey mixed with some white and carefully painted the panels of the ship. I tried to let power lines, windows and other details remain their original colours as much as I could.

The second and third finest hunks of junk in the galaxy.

I then added some more white to get a lighter tone and filled in some of the panels to indicate these being newly replaced. Last I filled in some markings and a few panels with green and then gave it a very diluted black wash to pick out the panel lines. I didn't do any engine glow though, I might go back and add that later.

The cloaking effect is better without harsh lighting, really.

Next I tried my hand at painting a "de-cloaking" Tie Phantom. This I saw on the internet so I can't take any credit for the idea, although I can't remember where I saw it. It essentially tries to match the card art for Whisper.

I just painted the rear of the ship flat black and then filled in the edge of the black with squiggly bright blue lines, after which I added pure white inside the blue.

I also sprayed the bases flat black, an idea I got from Andreas whom I met in the tournament. He had painted both his bases and pegs black, but I kept the pegs clear. The bases blend in better on a black playing field if they are black and I will do all my bases black when I get the time.

Ah... the flash really kills the effect. I should take photos in a pitch black room, that will do it.

Repainting the ships was really fun and I'm itching to do some more, but not sure where to start. Time will tell.

May the Force be with You