Shenzhen D6

Scotty's 1/72 Hero X-Wing fighter from fine molds

So here's something I've been working on for the last week. It's not Games Workshop but I thought a few of you might like it. I'm calling it finished for now but I may very well be adding a bit more weathering.

Here's a few shot's of the painting process. For more finished pictures please scroll down.

So first off was painting and detailing the cockpit. I actually did this about a year or two ago and then put the kit back in it's box for another day. I'm glad I did.

After constructing the fighter into a few main parts I re-scribed most of the main panel lines using an old exacto blade and a needle in a pin vise. This should make the end paint job look better and the panel lines will take a pin wash way way easier.

This is going to be an airbrush intensive paint job so first I prep all of the parts onto sticks so I can move them about without touching them. I also decided to mask and paint the canopy instead of using the frame decals supplied by fine molds

First things first I primed the model with vallejo primer and pre-shaded some areas with tamiya flat black acrylic. Tamiya acrylics are alcohol based and absolutely suck it for brush painting but they can be thinned right down and airbrush very smoothly. Great for detailing and weathering.

Next up I misted over the model with vallejo model colour white grey and then highlighted panels with white. Yes it does look very light coloured but the weathering will tone it down a bit later. I'm painting red 5 from the death star trench run on the first Star Wars movie. The origional screen models were painted black and then progressively airbrushed with white.

After leaving the paint to fully cure I started adding the red markings. As you can see I opted not to use the provided decals as I felt they are a bit too colourful. Instead I masked them off and airbrushed them which allowed me to add a bit of fading. For the red colour I used vallejo model colour Carmine red. The chipping was done using a wet toothpick before the paint had a chance to fully dry.

I then continued to mask off and paint the other main markings and some metal for the engines. All of these colours were mixed using various vallejo acrylics. Then I sealed in the paint with 2 airbrushed coats of acrylic floor polish.

I then added the detail decals using micro set and micro sol. Most of these were tiny little dots. Then I gave it another thin coat of acrylic floor polish and did a dark grey pin wash in the recessed panel lines using windsor and newton oils.

Ok so I forgot to take photos as I was going along because the painting was going so well. But here's what I did. After the pin wash had been left for 24 hours to dry I did a gunk wash using artists pastels, tap water and dish soap. After that was fully set I sealed it in with a matt varnish from vallejo and did some streaking using various oil paints. After that I airbrushed some tamiya acrylic browns and black to add some weathering on the nose, torpedo holes and engines. I then airbrushed a little clear blue badger ghost tint on the engine nozzles to get a bit of a heated feel, a bit like on a motorbike exhaust. Like I said I may well do a bit more weathering but for now I'm happy with it. I have to say that these kits are amazing.They're very detailed, well molded and go together like a dream. Only minor filling needed to be done. One thing I really like with this kit is once finished you can change between wings open or closed and swap the landing gear from closed to open. I would love to get my hands on the 1/48 X Wing and do a full LED lit model.

Airbrushes used were a badger 105 patriot for the most part and a badger renegade krome for the weathering and pre-shading. I hope you guys like it.

P.S. I have something install for this model in the future which should be cool if I can pull it off, so watch this         space.

Thanks

Scotty