Avanaut
Sr Member
Been a while since my last post but I thought this one was worth a thread.
I think the N-1 is one of the coolest spaceship designs in Star Wars apart from the iconic OT classics. The stripped down souped up Mandalorian version in the tv-show blew my mind. I guess it did that to a lot of people. I bought the only available model kit of it at the time which was the 1/48 scale AMT kit. It's very small but I built it with some lights and customised it with white colour two years ago, soon after the episode aired. Replicating the Mandalorian version was not an option for me, so I made it my own, I called it "The Royal Guardsman". The droid, dashboard and engines are lit with leds. Photographed in a garage last year.
The AMT kit was VERY small, and when the Revell 1/24 scale Mandalorian N-1 Starfighter was up for grabs I bought one immediately. I wanted to make a better version of my white N-1.
But, alas, it wasn't that easy. I procrastinated for weeks, months really, trying to figure out how to omit the Mandalorian version's middle engine. I do not like it. The bottom spoon shape on a regular version is so clean, I couldn't think of a good way to do it well. I pondered whether to make a buck and make a replacement with heated styrene sheet, I also kept an eye open for possible upgrade kits but nothing turned up. It was until I saw how BoontaModellin's Barn Find astonishing build I found confidence (and a tip) to use Tamiya putty for the hole in the belly.
I closed some of the open panels on the body in December last year when the build finally got up and going.
These images were from a video but to save space I screencapped some frames. At this time I thought why not try to photograph the process as I go.
The idea of this build and paintjob was to not only replicate the white paint scheme but also try a paint chipping technique over metallic basecoat. I did it once before on a Bandai 1/72 scale A-wing and it was a partial success. Some of it went wrong, some areas look nice. I figured I got the hang of it though. This is the look I wanted for the big N-1.
The first thing was to use a gloss black undercoat for the metallic paint.
I thought it went on fairly well. On the right, if you look closely, you can make the barely visible curve of the third engine opening on the bottom spoon shape. the large hole was filled with Tamiya putty and new panel lines were scribed on. It's not perfect but close enough, especially thinking the gloss black is merciless in how it reveals any flaws.
I made minor custom touches to the cockpit by adding Mercedes seatbelts bought from a local hobby shop scrapbox and a few fiber optic lights to the dashboard. I chose to go for red and amber colours because the blue leds do not look good on digital camera. That is my observation (opinion, it's a matter of taste really) having used them in several models. So, red it is. I also inserted 0,25 millimetre fibres to the droid head. The R5 series droids do not have very prominent lights on their heads but they do have them. So I tried to play it very subtle. Also I changed the thick stubby antenna for smaller.
At this point the N-1 body was painted with AK Xtreme Metal Polished Aluminium and left to cure properly before the final white colour. Meanwhile I had painted the engines and engine cowls separately. I did not go for the fairly bright red on the engine, umm... turbine or whatchamacallit, and used more subdued brown. The engine cowl is not yet finished in this image but it's pretty close. AK Xtreme Aluminium, Polished Aluminium, Chrome and Burnt Metal. I customised it a bit by adding some metal mesh to the engine cowl found from scraps. Some minor add-ons to the engines as well. Nothing very noticeable but something to make them look a little bit busier.
The metal and white Vallejo acrylic overcoat over Vallejo chipping medium worked well on this.
After the engine cowls were done and the body gloss black basecoat cured for a few days I airbrushed the chipping medium and white on it – and it went to hell. I don't really even know what happened but it is a larger than usual clean surface, maybe the paints and materials just work better on smaller items. Maybe I airbrushed from too far thinking it's good since the larger surface area need to be painted more evenly. Whatever it was, the effect didn't look good and also the white came off too easily even after letting it cure for couple of days.
This is what the N-1 looks right now. On the left with the failed white and on the right polished aluminium after stripping the white off. Now, the bad news was that there are electronics inside the body, wires and leds, the engines will be lit with an array of leds on each, so stripping the paint off chemically was not an option, it'd kill the lights. The good news is that the white was indeed airbrushed on a chipping medium, it came off fairly well with just water. The leds can take water.
I'm not terribly worried about this. The model is supposed to look worn and beaten, so I think a new attempt for the white paint, even with the remains of the first attempt showing through, might work just fine.
Final paint and assembly soon.
I think the N-1 is one of the coolest spaceship designs in Star Wars apart from the iconic OT classics. The stripped down souped up Mandalorian version in the tv-show blew my mind. I guess it did that to a lot of people. I bought the only available model kit of it at the time which was the 1/48 scale AMT kit. It's very small but I built it with some lights and customised it with white colour two years ago, soon after the episode aired. Replicating the Mandalorian version was not an option for me, so I made it my own, I called it "The Royal Guardsman". The droid, dashboard and engines are lit with leds. Photographed in a garage last year.
The AMT kit was VERY small, and when the Revell 1/24 scale Mandalorian N-1 Starfighter was up for grabs I bought one immediately. I wanted to make a better version of my white N-1.
But, alas, it wasn't that easy. I procrastinated for weeks, months really, trying to figure out how to omit the Mandalorian version's middle engine. I do not like it. The bottom spoon shape on a regular version is so clean, I couldn't think of a good way to do it well. I pondered whether to make a buck and make a replacement with heated styrene sheet, I also kept an eye open for possible upgrade kits but nothing turned up. It was until I saw how BoontaModellin's Barn Find astonishing build I found confidence (and a tip) to use Tamiya putty for the hole in the belly.
I closed some of the open panels on the body in December last year when the build finally got up and going.
These images were from a video but to save space I screencapped some frames. At this time I thought why not try to photograph the process as I go.
The idea of this build and paintjob was to not only replicate the white paint scheme but also try a paint chipping technique over metallic basecoat. I did it once before on a Bandai 1/72 scale A-wing and it was a partial success. Some of it went wrong, some areas look nice. I figured I got the hang of it though. This is the look I wanted for the big N-1.
The first thing was to use a gloss black undercoat for the metallic paint.
I thought it went on fairly well. On the right, if you look closely, you can make the barely visible curve of the third engine opening on the bottom spoon shape. the large hole was filled with Tamiya putty and new panel lines were scribed on. It's not perfect but close enough, especially thinking the gloss black is merciless in how it reveals any flaws.
I made minor custom touches to the cockpit by adding Mercedes seatbelts bought from a local hobby shop scrapbox and a few fiber optic lights to the dashboard. I chose to go for red and amber colours because the blue leds do not look good on digital camera. That is my observation (opinion, it's a matter of taste really) having used them in several models. So, red it is. I also inserted 0,25 millimetre fibres to the droid head. The R5 series droids do not have very prominent lights on their heads but they do have them. So I tried to play it very subtle. Also I changed the thick stubby antenna for smaller.
At this point the N-1 body was painted with AK Xtreme Metal Polished Aluminium and left to cure properly before the final white colour. Meanwhile I had painted the engines and engine cowls separately. I did not go for the fairly bright red on the engine, umm... turbine or whatchamacallit, and used more subdued brown. The engine cowl is not yet finished in this image but it's pretty close. AK Xtreme Aluminium, Polished Aluminium, Chrome and Burnt Metal. I customised it a bit by adding some metal mesh to the engine cowl found from scraps. Some minor add-ons to the engines as well. Nothing very noticeable but something to make them look a little bit busier.
The metal and white Vallejo acrylic overcoat over Vallejo chipping medium worked well on this.
After the engine cowls were done and the body gloss black basecoat cured for a few days I airbrushed the chipping medium and white on it – and it went to hell. I don't really even know what happened but it is a larger than usual clean surface, maybe the paints and materials just work better on smaller items. Maybe I airbrushed from too far thinking it's good since the larger surface area need to be painted more evenly. Whatever it was, the effect didn't look good and also the white came off too easily even after letting it cure for couple of days.
This is what the N-1 looks right now. On the left with the failed white and on the right polished aluminium after stripping the white off. Now, the bad news was that there are electronics inside the body, wires and leds, the engines will be lit with an array of leds on each, so stripping the paint off chemically was not an option, it'd kill the lights. The good news is that the white was indeed airbrushed on a chipping medium, it came off fairly well with just water. The leds can take water.
I'm not terribly worried about this. The model is supposed to look worn and beaten, so I think a new attempt for the white paint, even with the remains of the first attempt showing through, might work just fine.
Final paint and assembly soon.
