Star Wars Question

I'm not sure if there are any reference books available for this, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I think simply watching the movies and freeze-framing on different ships might work, but keep in mind that while filming the original trilogy, the same model may have been used to represent many different craft. Also, there may be some goofs here and there if you're trying to follow a certain pilot's craft, i.e. in the assault on Hoth in Empire, Luke's snowspeeder is shown with the red/orange stripes on the back in some scenes, and with grey markings in others.

Another potential source would be the many comic books set in the SW universe. I know there were at least a couple story lines (possibly an ongoing series) under the "Rogue Squadron" title, focusing on Wedge and his crew, which would certainly have plenty of examples of different craft, although I don't know how creative the artists may have gotten with the paint schemes. It may be that the craft are all painted just like in the movies.

All this being said, one thing I've always liked about Star Wars, which can be expressed brilliantly through modelling, is the fact that the universe is so much more than what we've seen in the films. If a rag-tag group of rebels had to scrounge whatever gear and equipment they could, all while being somewhat secretive about it, it seems to me they wouldn't be as strict as far as uniformity goes.

My advice would be to check out some comics or trade paperback collections, and then just run wild. Brainstorm, maybe make some rough sketches, and let your imagination go. Also, one thing Lucas was inspired by for his dogfight scenes was footage of actual wartime aerial battles, so maybe you could take a cue from that and look at some of the brightly colored aircraft from the 30s and 40s.

Hope this helps some. I may not know much about model building, but I am an A-1 certified Star Wars geek, and it's nice to be able to post a reply rather than a question once and a while.

I hope some inspiration hits, and if so, let us see what it brings.

kyle

What kyle said. There was one point in Rogue Squadron's history where they went, well rogue, and all the squadron members painted their ships in whatever suited them. One member painted his ship in complex patttern ot UV paints that in visible light looked simply white. So use your imagination. Michael Stackpole wrote a series of books featuring the Rogues and I believe the abovementioned incident occurred in the book Bacta War. I'll double check that though.

The Rouge squadron series was great!!, Most of the X-wings in the movies had the red stripes on the sides and nose , mostly beat up and scared up due to lack of maintnance, most color difference is reflected in the pilots helmet colors ie: Luke and the rouges had Red helmet accents and the other squadrons had gold, green and etc.

In the rougue series Coran Horn who brought his " own X-wing" with him to the rebellion had Green accent's and stripes due to his job with the Corrilian security forces. that would be an option.

Also in the books were pirates who flew ships know to the squadron as "uglies". these were X-wing and Tie fighter hybrids pieced together out of parts from both these craft and anything the could bolt , weld or glue onto the ships.

have fun with it , it's your ship and you can paint it any way you want, just post pics when your done!

I have seen different variations... I think (now this is an opinion) that each squad has it's own color (i.e red for Red Squadron, yellowish for Gold Squadron). Also, the company that produces the X-Wing, Incom, might have sold it privately, if you had enough money.

There is a gallery on starshipmodeler.com that had a whole slew of X-Wings done up in different paint schemes...they looked really good too.

This is the link:

http://www.starshipmodeler.org/gallery10/aw_xwing.htm

This guy did some amazing paint jobs...not to mention there is one on there that has some funky engine "intakes."

Hope that helps!

 

-Carlos

You know what would be a neat group build for SW fans, is what is your interpretation of an "ugly" from the Rogue Squadron book series really looked like.  All the books say is that they were hybrids of TIE and X-WING fighters.  Think of all the strange and cool ideas.

JBOT makes markings in several different colors and pretty much every scale you can buy these in.
http://www.jbot.ca/sciencefiction/sw-x.shtml
He does good stuff (I have several of his sets) and provides great customer service.
You can let him know I refered you.