X-Wing question for Star Wars Gurus

For info, google wookiepedia. I believe the ships were painted, but was patched over many times. X-wing series describes the mechanics repainting the craft so they were painted.

The X-Wing series of books has at one time Rogue Squadron painting their ships in a variety of markings to reflect the background of each of the pilots. This is in the 4th book of the series. If I recall correctly, Coran Horn's X-Wing was always painted in the Green scheme of CorSec. This would suggest that they were painted to the color we see.

Steve

In the X-wing series (been meaning to read those), were they talking about painting the whole ship or just the markings? 

 

markings fo sure, but the "rogue" Rogue Squadron had full repaintings. I don't know if that was standard but it would make sense for the craft to get an occasional touch-up. Also depands on what era. Rebellian era would be in a very dilapitated state, while New Republic would be a little more pristine.

Boba Fett wrote:

Rebellian era would be in a very dilapitated state, while New Republic would be a little more pristine.

I'm going to be modeling the rebellion era, so I'm going for lots of wear, paint chipping and general weathering.

 The problem I have is if the light gray paint is chipped, what color is the bare skin underneath?

 I'm leaning towards a composite material skin, and maybe it is different materials for different areas areas of the skin, depending on the heat and stresses that area might be expected to experience in flight.

 So that it mind, and looking at the pics of the various studio models I can find, I think I'm going to go with various shades of gray, and maybe tan underneath the paint.

 Unless anyone has a persuasive argument against that...

 

I'm going to have to dig up some photos of modern jet fighter aircraft under construction in the factory for ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

With sci-fi, even Star Wars, there is room for liberties. I like the silver undercoat but you could also try different colors, for example, on the red stripes, you could paint another color (blue or the like0 to reflect a possible former squadron for that craft. Do what looks right, to you.

Boba Fett wrote:

With sci-fi, even Star Wars, there is room for liberties. I like the silver undercoat but you could also try different colors, for example, on the red stripes, you could paint another color (blue or the like0 to reflect a possible former squadron for that craft. Do what looks right, to you.

 I'm actually planning to do blue stripes instead of red. I may do some light blue or blue/gray markings on there too.  I figure the Empire was huge and was putting major resources to finding the rebels. Being a guerilla war, there must have been small rebel cells hiding in jungles and caves all over the galaxy trying to hit where they could to kill the beast with a million cuts as the saying goes. So I'm building an X-wing from some backwater cell that didn't get the limelight from the books and movies. My thinking is, they got no help from anyone, so they had to make due with whatever they could scrounge and therefore had older, beat up X-wings relying on little more than luck, the force, crafty mechanics and brave pilots to keep them flying.

 I thought about silver undercoat, but then that implies an aluminum skin and that seems too terrestrial to me. 

 

 I like what you are saying about remnents of other craft's markings though. I really like that idea. Like maybe, what if an X-wing had one of it's wings(S-foils) replaced from another that was canibalized for parts and it's markings had to be painted over?  Hmm... That could be interesting.

I've debated whether to go with painted or metal as well.  What drove me nuts is Lucas didn't seem able to make up his mind.  The full-size ships in Ep4 and the minis were gray, but if you look at the full-size prop for Ep5 ( Luke getting into the ship on Hoth and when Yoda pulled it out of the swamp ) it has a dull metallic look.  I finally decided on metallic for the one I finished, but will definitely have a gray one done up someday.

Kugai wrote:

I've debated whether to go with painted or metal as well.  What drove me nuts is Lucas didn't seem able to make up his mind.  The full-size ships in Ep4 and the minis were gray, but if you look at the full-size prop for Ep5 ( Luke getting into the ship on Hoth and when Yoda pulled it out of the swamp ) it has a dull metallic look.  I finally decided on metallic for the one I finished, but will definitely have a gray one done up someday.

  I'd imagine you could justify a metallic sheen added to the paint for a lot of reasons.  It could be a stealthy coating like the metallic anti-radar coating they put on F-16s and F-22s these days. It could be to provide additional resistance to blaster hits.  I suppose the spacecraft could have been repainted with a newer coating at some point.

 Like Graham said, this is fiction, there's a lot of leeway for artist liberty.