Slave 1 - Bandai 1/144 *Complete*

JNordgren42

Sr Member
In honor of Star Wars Day, my latest WIP.

Slave 1 is probably my second favorite ship after the Falcon and I managed to find one at normal price at Newtype.com (Woot!). I've got the priming, shading, and base coat on everything at this point, and I've been experimenting with chipping methods since they feature so prevalently in the paint job. I've been happiest with AK Interactive Worn Effects chipping fluid. I have found that if I spray it in just the areas I want, I can control the effect much more tightly. There will always be a healthy dose of randomness, but I can contain that to the areas where I want it.

May the Fourth be with you.

I scribed some panel lines on one of the extra base curbs to practice chipping with the AK Interactive chipping fluid. On the left side, I carefully sprayed the fluid on just the panel lines, on the right side, I sprayed it over the entire face. Based on this, I'm confident that I can get the chipping where I want it. I do need to be careful on any raised edges, If you look closely you can see some raw plastic where I got a little too aggressive and rubbed down to the raw plastic. I'm hoping this won't be an issue with the actual parts since my test was not primed.
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Base coat on the engine shroud. I preshaded and left the base intentionally a little light since there will be a lot of layers on top of it. The shading comes through much more clearly in person as opposed to in the picture.
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Nose base coated, the shading shows up much more clearly in this pic for some reason, even though the coverage is about the same as for the shroud.
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All of the bits, everything with the off white base color is done at this point.
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Underside bits done with the light olive and medium grey. The dark bits on the base will get a go with burnt iron pigment powder to give it some metallic sheen and darken it up a bit. The stabilizer pivot machinery will get a darker grey coat that will have a fair amount of random chipping all over.
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Slave-1 i one of the most rewarding paint jobs when done

The chipping effect looks great!
Thanks! I did some more testing tonight. I added a second layer to my test piece, I'm pretty happy with how it came out, but it tends to wipe out any of the small random chips.
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I also tried another chipping method, applying thinned Microscale Micro Mask with a very small bit of sponge. It's actually a lot harder harder to control, but I love the small scale chips and there's no chance of blasting through the base coat like it did with the first layer and the chipping fluid. I'll have to mull it over and decide how to proceed tomorrow.

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Both look great. The flaking back to two separate base colours makes it though! It has stories to tell.

Cheers,
Josh
I like them both and I'd be happy with either, but I think I'm leaning towards using the Micro Mask. The small scale chips really sell it in my opinion and I think it will look amazing when I get multiple layers on it. I'm just going to have to be very careful when applying it.
 
I also tried another chipping method, applying thinned Microscale Micro Mask with a very small bit of sponge. It's actually a lot harder harder to control, but I love the small scale chips and there's no chance of blasting through the base coat like it did with the first layer and the chipping fluid. I'll have to mull it over and decide how to proceed tomorrow.

I used that method for my 1/72 one

I also went back in with an old brush and dabbed some paint in areas as a touch-up where needed, the stiffer and more frayed the tip is the better
 
I got the rest of the base colors on the main hull parts tonight and did a little test fit. I think there's a little too much saturation and contrast in the colors I mixed, but I should be able to knock it down with weathering and perhaps a light grey mist coat. The gaps in the burgundy chipping on the engine skirt are also a bit too aggressive, but I think I'll leave it alone. This is never a paint job that's going to be 100% perfect compared to the studio model because of the random nature of the chipping. I'm happy with it at this stage and I think that's what counts.

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While I think it looks great as is, if your not totally happy with chipping on the skirt and it nags at you, what you might try is use a sponge to apply some of the darker red in the areas to create more of a gradual transition. Also do the same with the grey base color for the skirt along some of the panel lines or even use the edge of an xacto along the edge of some of the panel lines.

I did that with mine when the chipping didn't quite come out as I had hoped

Also the thing I had to refrain myself from doing was a panel line wash. I don't know if you were planning on it, but It looks off on Star Wars kits and you'll wind up with a road map type look

I did use some oil washes to help define some of the greeblies. but tried to avoid heavy dark panel lines
 
While I think it looks great as is, if your not totally happy with chipping on the skirt and it nags at you, what you might try is use a sponge to apply some of the darker red in the areas to create more of a gradual transition. Also do the same with the grey base color for the skirt along some of the panel lines or even use the edge of an xacto along the edge of some of the panel lines.

I did that with mine when the chipping didn't quite come out as I had hoped

Also the thing I had to refrain myself from doing was a panel line wash. I don't know if you were planning on it, but It looks off on Star Wars kits and you'll wind up with a road map type look

I did use some oil washes to help define some of the greeblies. but tried to avoid heavy dark panel lines
Thanks, I'm not unhappy with it at all, I just have an unfailing critical eye from 4 years of art school critiques, so I'm always honest with myself with my work. I tried sponging some touch up with a sponge and I didn't like the texture that resulted so I'm mostly leaving it. I did re-mask the burgundy on the skirt with some thicker Micro Mask and a reshaped sponge and resprayed just that layer. It's a subtle difference but I'm much happier with it now, especially since I got the base colors on the shoulders.
 
I think you nailed it, especially at this scale. As you said it was great as it was, but the touch-ups only made it better and now you won't have that nagging "I should have feeling" :lol:

I had gone through tons of critics at art school as well so I am always my own worst critic. As a result and I am never quite satisfied in my own work as seem to always find something I want to do over
 
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