Geek level 10 has been acheived! haha

I use to paint a little back in the day and this X-Wing game has re-awakened the old hobby juices. Sadly more than HALF of my GW paints have dried out though! !  :(

I was inspired by this guy's great repaint of Red 5 found here:

http://buckaroo13.blogspot.ca/2012/09/x-wing-painting-red-5.html
 

And so I said to myself, I could do that, and it would look so cool on the table. I gave it a shot, let me know what you think. I painted Luke, Biggs and Wedge. I researched how each fighter actually looked using google image search and, learned quite a lot about the X-wings used in Star Wars IV (like the difference between Piro Models and Hero Models).

Another thing that really bugged me was the lack of Ion cannons on the Y-Wings. So I came up with a good solution. I took some Epic Eldar Guardians and chopped off their guns. I then used Epoxy Glue and tweezers to glue them onto the Y-Wings. After a night of drying I painted them up. They looked great, so I was really happy with that.

I touched up the yellow and grey on the Y-Wings in places and gave some extra damage in spots. I also painted the brass piping as seen in the Y-Wing models. Generally I'm happy with the paint jobs and might go back and add some details, especially on the Y-Wings, but I thought I'd share these guys with you all as they are now. Hope you enjoy the pics.

For those interested, here are the paints I used:

Ship Colour - Komando Khaki and a little bit of Rotting Flesh
 

Cockpits - Elf Grey
 

Red on X-Wing - Blood Red
 

Replacement Panels on X-Wings - Golden Yellow
 

Used Black Ink to edge parts of panels, cockpits
 

Y-Wing Piping - Dwarf Bronze
 

Y-Wing Yellows - used Golden Yellow to darken areas, sunburst to highlight
 

Y-Wing Turrets - Painted them with Komando Khaki and Rotting flesh mix. The applied a light wash of black ink. Then highlighted again the edges with the Komando Khaki and Rotting flesh mix.
 

Wedge Red 2, Biggs Red 3 and Luke Red 5

Luke Skywalker close up. I even painted R2-D2. Love that little guy :)

I dabbed a little bit of purple/pink in the engines. You can't really see it well here though.

Red 5 top view

Biggs Red 3 and his little R2 buddy. Notice the black outlines on some of the panels help bring them out.

Wedge, Red 2, the best Rebel fighter pilot in the game

Y-Wings Gold 1 and Gold 2

I added 3 "eyes" to this R5 astromech.

I touched up some of the yellow and added damage paint chips.

A Group shot. I feel like I can take on the whole Empire myself with these little guys!

 Nice job! It must take a really steady hand, or the Force perhaps to paint that. 

These look excellent.

Wow absolutely stunning, what did you use for the turrets?

 I am in awe.

I think I just had an eye-gasm…..

I am off to my paint desk   thanks

 Fantastic work.  Thank you for showing us those turds can be polished up quite well!

Nicely done!  Thanks for sharing the pics.

 Those are great, I think you exceeded my humble efforts!

Buckaroo

really good thanks for showing

Love your work mate! I've just started on doing custom paint jobs for my models too (I come from a 40k background), and your improvements are most inspiring!

Thanks for sharing.

 Superb job! Just one question: do those yellow colors show up on the movie? I know they are in many of the references, but I haven't been able to pick out any of the yellow when the ships are on screen. Am I the only one with this problem?

Ming31 said:

I concur! Great paint and very inspiring! I'd been talking myself out of re-painting, but seeing these pics is just too much. The Necrons are gonna have to take a backseat for a few weeks. :) 

Also, I've had decent results thinning old, dried-out pots of paint with Tamiya Acrylic Thinner (X-20 or something experimental sounding like that). I originally bought it to thin the GW paint I was shooting through my airbrush, but turns out it's good for resurrecting old paint as well. Put in a few drops, mix it up, shake it, check consistency, repeat as necessary. I also add some kind of small hard media (tiny rocks, BBs, very small coins, etc.) if the paint's REALLY old. Works a treat.