a new x-wing but what color

Hi new_kid,  Welcome to the boards...

So you are starting out with your first X-Wing hey!... What kit are you going to build?

Anyways, Here is the X-Wing that I recently completed a few weeks ago.. The colour I used was a home brew that I made up using Tamiya acrilics from the bottle, and then airbrushed..

 

The mix I came up with was flat white, with flat sky grey, just mix to get a very light grey colour, and then just a pinch of flat yellow for taste..  Just a few drops with the yellow, and no more.. Same with the grey, start off with a few drops into the white and add as you go.. You will work it out... 

And post pics of your progress..

Chris 

it's an AMT / ERTL x-wing fighter not complicated, (skill 2) but just a start. the wight/grey/tuch of yellow sounds good. how did you create the dents and scraches? I have read very little on the subject myself, any ways to hone the skill?

For a base coat I used Model Masters camoflauge gray out of a rattle can

after that I used acrylics so if I screwed anything up I could strip it off without messing up the base coat.

I'm right in the middle of building an X-Wing myself; I grew up with Star Wars ("A New Hope" was one of the first "real" movies I saw in a theater), and my kids are all big SW fans (even the 4-year old!); they were all Clone Troopers for Halloween this year.

I built an X-Wing back in '80 (it was packaged in the "Empire Strikes Back" box) and I just painted it straight-up flat white, as I did with this one. I'll post some pictures of it when I'm all done (maybe), but I'm glad to see spagetti painted his more or less the same way I painted mine. The main difference is I plan on displaying mine in a "landed" configuration, so I'll have the landing gear out & the canopy up (no Luke Skywalker in the cockpit; I'm terrible at painting figures!). I'm sorta kit-bashing it a little bit (I'm adding minor "extra" parts here & there). My reference material was "Star Wars: Behind The Magic", a two CD-ROM program that came out in, like, '95; it has some pretty good "behind-the-scenes" photos of the X-Wings they used in "A New Hope", both under construction and finished units. Lemme know if you'd like me to send you any photos (or maybe I can post them here). Good luck!

 Hey, spagetti! Photo shoot advice: take the picture from the same direction the light is coming from, not the other way around! Other than that, the X-Wing looks pretty good; looks like you skipped the kit decals & painted the red stripe on. Correct?

yea the photos would be great!

Here's an Estes X-Wing done in WWII German splinter camo. This one was fun to do.

 

yeah I was just taking a picture to show someone real quick, not so much to impress anyone.

that looks so Cool !!!!! not to the move but who cares. that is such a cool model. but that is soooo cool, just thought I'd put in my 2cents.

There is a discription in the x-wing book series for Coran Horns x-wing that he took with him from the correlian security forces, it sounds like the basic x-wing with off white or lt grey paint for the main body with green accent striping on the fusilage and wing edges,  also from the book series the squadron painted each of thier ships in any manner they wished to simulate a bunch of space pirates.

also isn't the different squadrons different from each other only by the color of thier helmets?  that could be a whole new direction to go in. 

Yeah, I have seen a few people build that version with the green markings..

I guess I am a bit of traditionalist and like the red markings..

 

Chris 

  X wings are a blast to build...since the Rebels were scrounging parts, almost any combination of colours and fiddly bits were o.k. to use. I even built one to the original plans, which had them with wheels instead of just skids:

 

   The canards were added on for ground effect use, the steering in atmosphere would have been miserable with that huge honking nose.

I have also grown to love the "good" star wars moves

Oh, you mean all of them?

no, but that dicusion is for another forum... unless you realy wont to, but I like the origonals, no CGI (jar-jar), no pod racing and no really bad lines.

I don't think it was the lines that were bad but the actors saying them were. I really miss the old studio ships and what not and hate all this cg crap, it doesn't look real, for example the enterprise a looked beautiful and huge and totally real in every aspect, then in star trek nemesis when they used cgi for the enterprise e, it looked so fake, kinda like die cast toy of it.

but I like the origonals, no CGI (jar-jar), no pod racing and no really bad lines.

Well, all of the movies were filled with "bad" lines, and I wouldn't consider anyone other than Harrison Ford or Billy Dee Williams to be particularly great actors from the originals.  Well, I guess I'd have to also include Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing

I thought that Ewan McGregor was perfectly cast as the younger Obi-Wan, and despite what many might say, I'd say the same about all of the actors portraying the younger Anakin Skywalker.  Like father, like son, as they say - Luke was a whiny kid just like his dad.

Jar Jar was a bit annoying but in the end he played an incredibly pivotal role in the series.  Without Jar-Jar, Obi-Wan doesn't meet Anakin ... without Jar-Jar, Chancellor Palpatine is not nominated for the unfettered power he was given in Episode II.

Episode III was easily the best of the newer movies.  It most closely resembled the tone of the originals, particularly Episodes V and VI, and there were many things that happened in VI that were explained through what happens in III.

The CGI has its positive aspects as well as its negative aspects.  Yeah, there is a fake look to these kind of effects, but really take a look at the effects in all of the originals.  On video at least, you can see the mattes used around each miniature shot.  Each of these shots were comprised of differing levels of exposure, one negative, one positive, and then you add in all the surrounding elements, or something like that.  Any way, when you see a snowspeeder speeding over the frozen landscape of Hoth, you can see the underlying images of rocks and other things over which the snowspeeder is superimposed.  Part of the charm of those effects, but certainly not nearly as technically advanced as the later movies.

Any way, I think each of these movies is fantastic.  There is a great story told and that story is backed up by great visuals, decent acting, and a great musical score.  I'd rank them from best to worst as III, V (tie), IV, VI, II, & I.

yes I must agree it is because of the worst charactor in all of the movies (jar-jar) that is the down fall of all th galxy (sp. sorry). I cant talk anymore about him with out an abuse. but I agree over all with the order of the movie, except I would push back 3 one. but the old ones were classics and the where develiping new tecks. but the new one did not develep anthing and I think you can kinda see it. the actors where prety good exspecaly for the times, in the old one. exspecaly if you look at other sci-fi from the era, ex: star treck and captain kerk. I agree about the casting of Ewan McGregor and some others but the one who played anican could not deliver a line. overall I don't them, but I think there is a quality diferance.

You people are forgetting one thing.. If you are around my age 32, then you would have only been just a little fella when the original came out.. I was 4.. So in saying that, the movie was marketed as a space adventure movie, if it was meant to be any more than that, it would have been darker, grittier and alot more realistic, plus been rated R and not PG13.

So in saying that. As much as I hate Jar Jar and Ewoks, the fact remains that you are all talking like these movies where made for you as adults?.. They simply were not!.. You are just the people who became old and watched the new movies because it brought back some of your childhood.. Jar Jar was not there for us to like him. He was there to sell with a happy meal when kids went out with their parents..  

If you just put that fact into the back of your mind, and just enjoy the movies for what they are, then you will find them to be enjoyable.. I also hate the way people talk about the SW time line, like they do the ST time line and history.. (Its not real) so dont stress!.. I think thats why I was able to watch shows like Enterprise and enjoy it.. I simply refused to let a petty bias get in the way of watching a good yarn and an hour of simple entertainment..

Chris 

Chris_in_Japan wrote:

You people are forgetting one thing.. If you are around my age 32, then you would have only been just a little fella when the original came out.. I was 4.. So in saying that, the movie was marketed as a space adventure movie, if it was meant to be any more than that, it would have been darker, grittier and alot more realistic, plus been rated R and not PG13. So in saying that. As much as I hate Jar Jar and Ewoks, the fact remains that you are all talking like these movies where made for you as adults?.. They simply were not!.. You are just the people who became old and watched the new movies because it brought back some of your childhood.. Jar Jar was not there for us to like him. He was there to sell with a happy meal when kids went out with their parents..   If you just put that fact into the back of your mind, and just enjoy the movies for what they are, then you will find them to be enjoyable.. I also hate the way people talk about the SW time line, like they do the ST time line and history.. (Its not real) so dont stress!.. I think thats why I was able to watch shows like Enterprise and enjoy it.. I simply refused to let a petty bias get in the way of watching a good yarn and an hour of simple entertainment.. Chris

I have to semi-disagree with you here, Chris. 

Initially yes, Jar Jar was cast to please today's youngesters, but after feedback from Episode I where he learned that he was alienating a large portion of his original crowd (you and I as youngsters), Lucas intentionally limited SEVERELY the Jar Jar on-screen role on Episode II.  

I don't know if it's the first time this has ever happened in silver screen history, but with such distance between the trilogies, Lucas had to deal with "today's youngsters" and "yesteryears youngsters" at the same time.

Overall, I have to say Lucas did a fantastic job keeping something of interest for all crowds over a 30 year span. That's quite an accomplishment in itself.

It's kind of fun to wacth the episodes now with my children and hear their comments.