Hedonist Farmer
New Member
Just finished what is arguably on of my favourite spaceships ever on the star wars universe. The kit is from Bandai and it's been in my stash for a while now, but i really wanted to light this model, at least partially, and having no experience with LEDs whatsoever i was too afraid to screw it up. Now thanks to some youtube videos and some trial and error i was able to work on this beautiful kit and present to you the final result.
Here are the glamour shots:
Here some more in depht pictures of the process of painting. I used all Tamiya acrylics with an airbrush, trying to match as close as possible the reference pictures of the original model i had. No exact mix ratios, i just eyeballed the thing until i was satisfied, i wasn't going fot the 100% screen accurate look anyway.
The main colors are XF-82 Ocean Grey - XF-50 Field Blue - XF- 23 Light Blue and a mix of XF-19 Sky Grey and flat white for the base.
For the engines i decided due to my limitations in space and skills, to use the lighting module that is already meant to be used on this kit. It's a teeny tiny button battery led unit Bandai sells for their Gundams models and such. It's not super powerful, but it snaps right on the kit and using a clear plastic diffuser, lights ups all 4 engines. To help light diffusion i painted the inner "bells" of the engines with Molotow liquid crome, wich is consistent with the look i've seen on the screen used models, and also really helps to spread the light. Might not be the brightest to the naked eye, but still looks amazing on camera.
As for the cockpit all the lighting is done with a singular white led glued inside the main body that lights a bundle of fiber optics. I kept things simple since this was my first attempt at lighting a kit.
Then for the fun part, i applied decals and proceeded to weathering. I'm a big proponent of oil paints when it comes to weathering, you can do pretty much everything with them and have an incredible amount of control, but i know from experience that the plastic Bandai uses for their kits can react pretty badly with oil solvents, even when sealed properly, causing to become brittle and potentially break away, so i didn't want to risk it and went the old fashioned way using only my airbrush, sponge chipping and acrylic washes. I particularly loved using the bright orange wash you can see in many star wars models, that really gives that old ILM model shop look to spaceships.
And that's pretty much it. I had a lot of fun and as always Bandai kits never ceaze to amaze for the level of detail and accuracy. For any questions feel free to ask, thanks!
Here are the glamour shots:
Here some more in depht pictures of the process of painting. I used all Tamiya acrylics with an airbrush, trying to match as close as possible the reference pictures of the original model i had. No exact mix ratios, i just eyeballed the thing until i was satisfied, i wasn't going fot the 100% screen accurate look anyway.
The main colors are XF-82 Ocean Grey - XF-50 Field Blue - XF- 23 Light Blue and a mix of XF-19 Sky Grey and flat white for the base.
For the engines i decided due to my limitations in space and skills, to use the lighting module that is already meant to be used on this kit. It's a teeny tiny button battery led unit Bandai sells for their Gundams models and such. It's not super powerful, but it snaps right on the kit and using a clear plastic diffuser, lights ups all 4 engines. To help light diffusion i painted the inner "bells" of the engines with Molotow liquid crome, wich is consistent with the look i've seen on the screen used models, and also really helps to spread the light. Might not be the brightest to the naked eye, but still looks amazing on camera.
As for the cockpit all the lighting is done with a singular white led glued inside the main body that lights a bundle of fiber optics. I kept things simple since this was my first attempt at lighting a kit.
Then for the fun part, i applied decals and proceeded to weathering. I'm a big proponent of oil paints when it comes to weathering, you can do pretty much everything with them and have an incredible amount of control, but i know from experience that the plastic Bandai uses for their kits can react pretty badly with oil solvents, even when sealed properly, causing to become brittle and potentially break away, so i didn't want to risk it and went the old fashioned way using only my airbrush, sponge chipping and acrylic washes. I particularly loved using the bright orange wash you can see in many star wars models, that really gives that old ILM model shop look to spaceships.
And that's pretty much it. I had a lot of fun and as always Bandai kits never ceaze to amaze for the level of detail and accuracy. For any questions feel free to ask, thanks!
