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We've all seen some beautiful repaints done by such fine fellows as MajorTom, but does anybody employ any basic touches to mark out their ships?

I'm thinking along the line of repainting, or more accurately dabbing some paint, the laser banks of the TIE fighters green. Perhaps also highlighting the barrels of the TIE Interceptor/Defender in a steel/metallic finish.

Considering stripes like those seen on the Interceptor ace thing, but I have a feeling I'd be liable to feth that up.

So what do you guys do, if anything, to make your ships stand out?

Well for my X-Wings I repainted all the red striping blue on one. For the other 2 I repainted some intakes & panels dark grey oit yellow to add that haggard look common to combat craft constantly on the fight with little time to repaint after replacing worn out or damaged components. I also repainted the astromechs so they aren't all just silver & every rebel ship got an OSL touch to the engines.

That sounds sweet. Share some pictures if you have any!

Currently going through my TIEs and repainting the laser banks green and adding some metallic touches to other parts. Sadly don't have any blues that would look right as the Ion cannons on the Defender but I might just paint them all green as presumably the Ion Cannon is an upgrade and doesn't come as standard?

I really want to do a few Firespray repaints...one for each pilot card, but I'm so scared to ruin them. I mean painting 40k minis is one thing, because they start out gray plastic. But the X-wing minis are serviceable as they are!

 Red_Starrise wrote:
Well for my X-Wings I repainted all the red striping blue on one. For the other 2 I repainted some intakes & panels dark grey oit yellow to add that haggard look common to combat craft constantly on the fight with little time to repaint after replacing worn out or damaged components. I also repainted the astromechs so they aren't all just silver & every rebel ship got an OSL touch to the engines.

Sure. I'll try & snap some tomorrow. For some reason dakka's compression algorithm makes my pics look like crap when I upload them though.

 Red_Starrise wrote:

 Red_Starrise wrote:
Well for my X-Wings I repainted all the red striping blue on one. For the other 2 I repainted some intakes & panels dark grey oit yellow to add that haggard look common to combat craft constantly on the fight with little time to repaint after replacing worn out or damaged components. I also repainted the astromechs so they aren't all just silver & every rebel ship got an OSL touch to the engines.

Sure. I'll try & snap some tomorrow. For some reason dakka's compression algorithm makes my pics look like crap when I upload them though.

Isn't that frustrating? It really blurs up detail.

 wikkedj wrote:

 Red_Starrise wrote:

 Red_Starrise wrote:
Well for my X-Wings I repainted all the red striping blue on one. For the other 2 I repainted some intakes & panels dark grey oit yellow to add that haggard look common to combat craft constantly on the fight with little time to repaint after replacing worn out or damaged components. I also repainted the astromechs so they aren't all just silver & every rebel ship got an OSL touch to the engines.

Sure. I'll try & snap some tomorrow. For some reason dakka's compression algorithm makes my pics look like crap when I upload them though.

Isn't that frustrating? It really blurs up detail.

It is usually just the resizing that blurs stuff, and the resizing is needed alas. The actual compression algorithm is pretty low so only really affects star fields and star type texture in a noticeable way.

See this thread for some ways to mitigate it.

 wikkedj wrote:
I really want to do a few Firespray repaints...one for each pilot card, but I'm so scared to ruin them. I mean painting 40k minis is one thing, because they start out gray plastic. But the X-wing minis are serviceable as they are!

I've done one so far...which I thought was for Krassis, but now I have no idea where I got the scheme from. I think it might have been intended to be his Firespray disguised as the Salvation?
It was pretty easy and fun actually. Just keep your paints nice and thin if you're not going to strip the original scheme. Work with washes etc.

I'm planning a small conversion to put a heavy laser cannon on another Firespray.

Generally I'm not super inspired to re-paint. I think I'll only be doing it on my Scum and Villainy ships.

Do you guys sit your ships at different stand Hhights or have them at one level? I've just got the starter set today and not had a chance to browse through the rules but I quite like having the ships at different heights to get that "in space" feel. Is stand height a consideration? I didn't imagine it would be.

 plastictrees wrote:

 wikkedj wrote:
I really want to do a few Firespray repaints...one for each pilot card, but I'm so scared to ruin them. I mean painting 40k minis is one thing, because they start out gray plastic. But the X-wing minis are serviceable as they are!

I've done one so far...which I thought was for Krassis, but now I have no idea where I got the scheme from. I think it might have been intended to be his Firespray disguised as the Salvation?
It was pretty easy and fun actually. Just keep your paints nice and thin if you're not going to strip the original scheme. Work with washes etc.

I'm planning a small conversion to put a heavy laser cannon on another Firespray.

Generally I'm not super inspired to re-paint. I think I'll only be doing it on my Scum and Villainy ships.

Done 3, they aren't as bad as you think... one jango, one slave 1 touch up, and one boba armor themed one... have one more on the way which will be a kath scarlett one. They really aren't that bad, very big model, everything is fairly accessible with a brush, lots of seams and plates for quick techniques like washing to leverage... give it a go!

All my rebels are rocking a blue and gold scheme now.

No idea why I chose those colors as I normally don't like those colors, but they definitely help my ships stand out.

Trying to think of something for my Imperials, might do some sort of squadron emblem if I can get better at freehanding.

I haven't modified any of my TIEs yet, since I like them mostly uniform, and the Imperial Aces look fine as is. I did repaint one of my Firesprays to be a sort of military green.

With my Rebels, I leave one of each ship in the default paint scheme, and then get creative with the rest. No matter what color schemes I choose, what really makes them stand out is the weathering. I "chip" the paint by dabbing on tiny amounts of camouflage gray (which is a pretty close match to the base gray color) and add some slight "rust" here and there.

This thread dearly needs images.

It's not custom marking but I converted a micro machine action fleet blockade runner to look like the original preproduction movie model for the falcon that I use as a second millenium falcon: