Thoughts about the rust weathering on X-wings

I had asked this before, but it was buried deep in someone else's post so I'm not sure how many people may have actually seen it.

One thing that maybe someone can set me straight on when it comes to rust weathering is how most, if not all, examples of X-wings (especially Red 5) seem to have rust weathering added to the droid strip/rear plate areas of the ship. BUT, looking at the hi-res reference pics of Red 3, the droid strip looks far more monotone in color and does not seem to show any real obvious areas with rust. Example:



Could it possibly be a result of color fading where tones like rust may have just simply faded over the years? Or did not all of the hero birds have rust in those areas? Who knows, maybe I am just blind. I used the Red 3 images quite a bit when working to get the base tone/weathering look that I wanted and I am close to where I should be adding the rust. But before I did anything, I was curious as to why Red 3 appears different in that regard.

I apologize if somewhere in the vast RPF X-wing info exchange this has been explained before and have somehow overlooked it.

Thanks in advance for anyone's thoughts or insight on this.

Well, if you're going for screen accuracy, or studio scale accuracy, then you would just have to leave out the rust on Red 3. I'm going to say that maybe Red 3's crew took better care of the ship with regards to rust... I would say that's a reasonable explanation. Other than that, it's more up to interpretation of the artist to represent rust how you would want it to look. My goal when building star wars models is to make them look as real as possible. Sometimes that means deviating from what the screen models look like. If we take TFA and look at the digital models used in that movie, we can see that they look more real than what the SS models did in the OT. (Sure, they may look more like CGI models, but the weathering on the digital models is made to look more 'real'.) Of course, what is more real is left to what the viewer believes, but overall I stand by my view that the new, CGI models look more real than the SS models used in the OT. An example is the First Order Special Forces Tie Fighters. If you look at the screen caps of the ship in TFA, they do tend to look like they are not a SS model. Again, these are just my opinions and relate only to the Star Wars franchise.

There are many modelers who go for the pure, SS look. My models are more of a combination of using the SS ones for inspiration, but adding my own touches to make them look the way I want. No approach is wrong. It just depends on what you want to represent in the work you are doing.

-Kris

korben44 said:

Well, if you're going for screen accuracy, or studio scale accuracy, then you would just have to leave out the rust on Red 3. I'm going to say that maybe Red 3's crew took better care of the ship with regards to rust... I would say that's a reasonable explanation. Other than that, it's more up to interpretation of the artist to represent rust how you would want it to look. My goal when building star wars models is to make them look as real as possible. Sometimes that means deviating from what the screen models look like. If we take TFA and look at the digital models used in that movie, we can see that they look more real than what the SS models did in the OT. (Sure, they may look more like CGI models, but the weathering on the digital models is made to look more 'real'.) Of course, what is more real is left to what the viewer believes, but overall I stand by my view that the new, CGI models look more real than the SS models used in the OT. An example is the First Order Special Forces Tie Fighters. If you look at the screen caps of the ship in TFA, they do tend to look like they are not a SS model. Again, these are just my opinions and relate only to the Star Wars franchise.

There are many modelers who go for the pure, SS look. My models are more of a combination of using the SS ones for inspiration, but adding my own touches to make them look the way I want. No approach is wrong. It just depends on what you want to represent in the work you are doing.

-Kris

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Yeah those are pretty much my sentiments as well on how one finishes up the build. You can look to duplicate a particular paint style, or even a specific ship, replicating each detail for screen accuracy. Or you can use any one of those elements as a base and build upon that by adding (or omitting) details more specific to your liking. I suppose that's the beauty in all of this, so much perspective from the builder on these things.

I also agree that sometimes giving things a more "realistic" touch ends up actually looking better than the real thing. For instance, I've seen several droid strips done by RPF members that look absolutely spectacular. Much better than that vanilla looking droid strip on Red 3!

In my case, perhaps the decision on how to proceed would be easier if I were actually attempting to replicate Red 3, but I'm not. It's actually Red 4, what is seemingly a much less documented bird I assume because it was a pyro and it's fate was sealed from the start. Luckily I've been able to use Julien's stunning Red 4 build for reference as well, and his has the rust weathering. I love the way his turned out, the paint work and weathering are perfectly balanced. Simply beautiful.

Personally, I feel like rust is just part of the Star Wars universe and prefer the look of X-wings with it vs. without it. That said, I was planning on adding it to mine regardless. I was more or less just curious as to if anyone had any insight on why there doesn't seem to be any rust on ILM's Red 3. Heck, who knows Kris, maybe you were on to something when you said that Biggs' crew might have taken better care of his X-wing that the others.....

I try to paint up my Star Wars fighters to please myself instead of exact matching a studio model reference. IMO those had a paint/weathering job specifically designed to look good through the camera and composited into the film, taking into account all the issues with film grain, lighting saturation and loss when compositing the layers together. What looks good in the movie theater may not look as good in person. When ILM went to digital cameras they had to rework their painting/detailing techniques to compensate for the higher resolution, loss-less editing medium.

Matching colored panels and blast marks is one thing, but I think when weathering a model for display in your home you need to follow more 'real world' weathering examples. You need to make it look as real as possible for your eye in your lighting conditions and treat the source references as inspiration instead of a blueprint to follow.

Great points from both of you! Like Richard said, using real world weathering techniques is more suitable for home display purposes. To be honest, modeling is all an interpretation of what the actual studio models look like anyway. That's especially true when talking about the OT studio models. Unless you have the actual film used model in front of you, you are just making an educated guess to their general likeness. Since the OT models are now 30+ years old, nobody has the actual models available. Of course we have reference shots from archives and shows displaying the real SS models. But they have all been fading and deteriorating over the years. What you and I see as far as coloring and weathering is concerned could very well be different then what someone else sees.

That's one reason I am not a big fan of exact studio scale replications, whether done by an amateur or master builder. It's all interpretation. I'm a fan of the skill people have in building and painting.

Richard Baker said:

Matching colored panels and blast marks is one thing, but I think when weathering a model for display in your home you need to follow more 'real world' weathering examples. You need to make it look as real as possible for your eye in your lighting conditions and treat the source references as inspiration instead of a blueprint to follow.

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Yeah I'm with you there. So much of how well something displays is dictated by aspect, angles and of course lighting conditions. Knock down the accent/insignia colors too much and the thing will wash out with a decent amount of light. Go too dark on the base color or too heavy with the weathering (which is easy to do), then you end up with an over saturated dark example with little contrast that only looks good in the sun.

I go through phases where sometimes I am obsessed with trying to replicate specific ILM looks/techniques and then other times where I look forward to doing a build where I'm completely using my imagination and have the freedom to do anything I want. I guess the point for me is finding a happy medium where I know what I am capable of and can consistently reproduce various looks and techniques. That way I can use any combination necessary to maximize the build. I'm still very new to this. Not new to the hobby, I've sat and watched my dad build models for 40 years, but new to actually building them myself. I'm just going slow and having fun with it, what sounds like pretty sound advice from my dad.

Thanks for your perspectives.

I've been trying to tone down a lot of the colors on my X-wings going more for the on screen look than matching the studio models as they look in person.

I find most of the studio X-wings look a bit overdone when people try to copy them. The various colored panels wind up too saturated and contrasted instead. On screen it was often really hard to notice that there might have been green, yellow and tan panels. Instead they changed tone enough to make it look more interesting than on flat tone, but they were much more subtle.

I remember seeing the models in person when they were making the rounds in the museum tours and thinking that some of those paint jobs looked kind of crappy and sloppy. But on screen after compositing, it looked awesome.

blakeh1 said:

I've been trying to tone down a lot of the colors on my X-wings going more for the on screen look than matching the studio models as they look in person.

I find most of the studio X-wings look a bit overdone when people try to copy them. The various colored panels wind up too saturated and contrasted instead. On screen it was often really hard to notice that there might have been green, yellow and tan panels. Instead they changed tone enough to make it look more interesting than on flat tone, but they were much more subtle.

I remember seeing the models in person when they were making the rounds in the museum tours and thinking that some of those paint jobs looked kind of crappy and sloppy. But on screen after compositing, it looked awesome.

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This is true. And especially important when you are making your model at a smaller scale than the SS. That's why I personally chose not to work in panel lines on a star wars model.

I'd really like to know the history of Red 3.
There's no rust, and I can't find a single decal on it.
It's very different than the other X wings.