FineMolds X-Wing - Advice Sort (or How Grey!!)

Hope4Sun

Active Member
Now I've read and read and read and downloaded images of x-wing builds and I know that they are greyish and not white and also that lighting, differing cameras, screen etc will never quite reflect the same colours. But this is the first model I've done in over 25 years and I'm using it as practice before attacking the 1/48th Finemolds X-wing then the falcons I have ended up with.

Please forgive the paint job, first time with air brush and pre-shading, etc (a full build is being documented and I will share if I don't trash it lol), but got as far as the Grey Tamiya Fine Primer, pre shaded with Tamiya black X-1 then from the instructions 50:50 X-2 and XF-20 to show the pre-shade (may need one more coat), but the model really does look quite dull currently.

I've included some pictures below in sunlight and with and with out flash and with grey scale for reference (in case it helps anyone else in the future), just wondered is the sort of thing most have been seeing, personally I think I may lighten her up a little, but not a lot, just worried when I weather etc, it will end up a lot darker. I welcome any feedback :), maybe it's my pre-shading still too visible? Practicing on a scrap model to see what it looks like after weathering and a transparent dusting of white tinted clear coat just to see what that looks like and to practice weathering.

Sunlight:

direct sun light.JPG

Without Flash
blk no flash.JPG

Without Flash
no flash.JPG

With Flash
wht flash.JPG

Without Flash
wht no flash.JPG

With Flash
blk flash.JPG
 
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first off.....it looks awesome. You've done a lot of work with your air brush. I would say that your sunlight picture looks the best. But that is as dark as I would go. At this scale, things should be a little lighter than they are at full scale.

But you've done so much great work off the top that you could probably forgo any later oil wash.

But again...I'm also very new to this too
 
first off.....it looks awesome. You've done a lot of work with your air brush. I would say that your sunlight picture looks the best. But that is as dark as I would go. At this scale, things should be a little lighter than they are at full scale.

But you've done so much great work off the top that you could probably forgo any later oil wash.

But again...I'm also very new to this too

Thanks so much for your feedback :), I'm am pleased with how the air brushing turned out, still getting use to using it. Thanks for the reminder about the scale too, think I've forgotten how I use to have to work with different tones to make my 25mm miniatures pop years ago, so I may put another layer over but lighten it a few shades to cater for the minimal weathering. Fingers crossed it comes out as good as yours.
 
Tamiya Insignia White is my first choice. It has juuuuust enough grey in it to appear not so "pure white" and its an awesome smooth paint. Then just weather and apply some dirty washes to get the color you like. But in general, you cant go wrong starting with a basic white. JMO.
 
Thanks guys, think I'll mix up a lighter coat (maybe even a filter) and lighten it up, I guess as the end of the day it's what ever the builder is happy with, beauty in the eye of the beholder and all that ;)

Amazing work on that x-wing by the way!!
 
In my experience when I did a FM 1/72 X-Wing back in 2001 as Wedge's Red 2, the prevailing logic was the color seemed close to a gull gray shade, which is what FineMolds listed in their instructions. To me, it seemed dark, so I went with Camouflage gray instead and gave it a dark gray wash (spraying the base color over a pre-shade could probably do the same thing). The resulting color looked pretty close to my eye, yet the white drybrushing I did over the top and the interaction with the other colors I used helped it to pop more and not look too one dimensional.

The other tricky bit I've noticed about pre-shading is Rebel craft seem to have a warm tint to their grays while Imps use cool gray shades. Black as a pre-shade can potentially shift a gray shade to the blue side if one isn't careful, so it might take a bit of color adjustment the other way to bring it back to a warmer tone.

 
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