finemolds X-wing - all in japanese !

John P, awsome X-wing! I soooooo want one! I hope to build one soon.... and maybe i'll send it to you for your to paint it!

Speaking of which, man I just checked out your website and your models.... I think I wanna be your friend. I'm sure I can learn alot from you.

Thanks for your website!

I've used Camo Grey since I first started building them in the 70's and thinks it's a good compromise to the original paint scheme. Supposedly, the original models were sprayed black and topcoated with white giving them a camo grey apperance.

The X-Wing, built as the miniature, would be far too weathered to be visually appealing. If you look carefully at the shooting miniatures, some of the weathering is simple overspray and looks terrible in still shots. Weathering to this extreme is necesary as it won't show [on film] unless it is heavy.

Scottie

I would say white with a hint of grey, similar to gundam models.

If you want them to match the studio models and fighters in the film you will need to tint the windows too.

Yes, its just a matter of taste for the indervidual I guess!.. But as with many discussions we have about Star Trek, Star Wars models.. Do you paint them to match the studio model.. Or do you paint them to resemble how they look on screen.. I for one have always thought that the X-Wing's are supposed to be white!.. Anyways, thats just my opinion...

Chris in Japan

Alot of other forums say that the fuselage color is camoflage grey. I was playing with one of the snap-tite X-Wings and camo grey actually looks really good.

If it helps there is a translation web site called Babblefish.com

I went with mat white.. I was going for a cleaned up, put on display in a museum look to my X-Wing... I like to think that when they rolled off the production line, they were bright white with red stripes, and lots of chrome stuff!... Some people have said, yeah, but I have the paint chipped decals on it.. Well yes.. I decided to go with those decals because I wanted it to be known that those x-wings had seen action, but had been completely washed and polished. Not repainted!

Chris in Japan

what color is "fuselage color" ? i cant seem to figure it out. some kind of very light grey, but what did you use ?

Yes, very nice X-Wing John!

Chris in Japan

Nice X-Wings, gentlemen!

And a great presentation, John!

Here's mine! :)
http://www.inpayne.com/models/xwing1.html

Ok, I have to show mine off!.. I am so proud of them... Actually my Red 4 is a custom job done by me.. After talking with many Star Wars heads, and looking over countless screen shots of Red 4.. Nobody could actually find a clear shot of that X-Wing.. Problem is.. You never see it, as they use Red 2 for of the model shots in the movie.. So what colors does Red 4 have, what droid.. No one could work it out or agree.. So I decided to just do it the way I thought would look good.. You will notice the changes I have made, and I decided to give mine a blue stripe down the top of the nose.. Let me know what you think.. They are here in my Rebel Ships folder... These 2 X-wings are the pride of my entire modelling collection!.. I love these kits..

p.s. The only dislike I have of the Fine Molds X-Wing, is that they dont give you an option to display your X-Wing without the droid on top.. I had to do some custom carpentry on that part of the model to make it look vacant.. As for my Red 4, you will notice I am yet to re-do that part and it is still white with no droid.. All that droid body will have to be cut away like on my Red 5
http://groups.msn.com/ChrisinJapan2004/shoebox.msnw

Chris in Japan

Getting hold of the colour info from japanese kits is very simple, anything besides Tamiya usually refers to Gunzes 2 colour ranges:

They are usually marked as follows "H-8,8 Silber" where "H-8" is the colour in the Hobby Colour range(Aqueous Colours), and the "8" is the same colour in the Mr. Colour Range.

Another example:
H-90, 47 Clear Red.

Downloading one of the many Gunze colour charts available online also help as you can match the kana.

Here is a link to an english chart of the gunze aqueous colors:
http://www.plastikmodell.de/html/gunze_color_chart.html

Another useful link:
http://www.hlj.com/~tanoue/HLJ/colorname.html

[edit]
Found the ling for the japanese charts too:
Mr Color:
http://www.rainbowten.co.jp/english/emcolors.jpg
Mr Hobby Color
http://www.rainbowten.co.jp/english/emcolor1.jpg
Mr Spray:
http://www.rainbowten.co.jp/english/emcolor2.jpg
[/edit]

HTH.

i am forever in your debt everyone, thank you all very much

I just look at the pretty pictures and the nubers are in Arabic so everyone can read them.

Yes.. I have 2 of those kits, and plan to get another.. That FM X-Wing is in my opinion the best sci-fi model ever produced.. It was a dream to build, both of them!... Its a shame, I hated doing the Starfighter, although it turned out alright!..

Yes, I got my instructions at HLJ also...

Chris in Japan

The good folks at HobbyLink Japan (www.hlj.com) have provided a translation of the Japanese instructions. They're available on the web at:

http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?FNMSW-01

Scroll down and you'll find them toward the bottom of the page.

I hope this helps, and good luck with your X-wing!

Matt Usher @ FSM

I think there is a site somewhere that has 'em in English. Someone should be around soon with that info!

As a veteran of building kits from all Japanese instructions, I suggest you:

A - Find some one who can interpret for you

or

B - Take you best guess

or

C - Do what you think looks best.

You may find some one here who will accept a scan image of the instruction's painting guide but if it was me, I'd take a look at images of the effects models and use what I think looks best. It's a fictional vehicle anyway so its not like you'd be violating Federal Standard color practices.