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So I just picked up my starter set from my FLGS and am pretty geeked about how good the capital ships looked.

I'm very interested to see who is planning on painting their fighter models and if so, exactly how do you plan to do it (or if magically somehow you already have, please post some pics!)?

Here were my initial thoughts on the matter:

I don't want to try to spray primer them off their base, as they're already a pretty tight fit going in, so I'm thinking about trying to figure out a way to paint them on their base. I was going to try to maybe tape up the flying base really good with the fighters on it and then hand primer/paint them? Or does someone have a better method they've thought of?

Also, the 'inside' of the tie fighter wings by the movies should be the same as the outside, but they didn't put the little lines on the inner wing dividing the different panels. Are other people still going to try to paint the inside with panels? Or are you just going to paint it all black (like one big panel)? Or are you not going to paint the inside wings at all (just the outside)?

I'll let you know how I do once I get my box. 1st starter should be here today with a second starter coming in this week sometime

Wrap the peg on the bottom with some tape and use an alligator clip to hold the fighter. If you don't have any alligator clips, you can buy a pack of 50 of them on Amazon for for about $15 or so.

I'm not worried about the interior of the TIE wings though as they aren't that noticeable.

I don't have my set yet (shipping to Japan via military post, so its going to be a little while), but I will definetly paint my fighters.

1. Rebels will probably get a light hand painted base coat in grey. Then dry brush it white, then pick out details.
2. Tie fighter will get a hand painted base coat in black. Then I'll dry brush the gray onto the raised surfaces, and pick out the rest of the details by hand.

The cap ships will get touched up and given washes where appropriate. I'll dig out my old dvds that have the least of George's post production screw ups and watch them for inspiration.

All the bases are going to get painted black. I never cared for transparent bases.

I really wish someone would release a theatrical Blu-ray, but oh well.

 argonak wrote:
I don't have my set yet (shipping to Japan via military post, so its going to be a little while), but I will definetly paint my fighters.

1. Rebels will probably get a light hand painted base coat in grey. Then dry brush it white, then pick out details.
2. Tie fighter will get a hand painted base coat in black. Then I'll dry brush the gray onto the raised surfaces, and pick out the rest of the details by hand.

The cap ships will get touched up and given washes where appropriate. I'll dig out my old dvds that have the least of George's post production screw ups and watch them for inspiration.

All the bases are going to get painted black. I never cared for transparent bases.

I really wish someone would release a theatrical Blu-ray, but oh well.

Can't say for certain yet, but I don't know how well drybrushing is going to work on these models. They're actually quite flat in some places. I'm not sure whether leaning more on washes or dry brushing will be the better way to go at this point. I'll probably try doing one of each and see how it turns out. I definitely am going to pain a little red on the X-Wings for sure though.

How big are the individual ships on each fighter stand? Are we talking EPIC 40K infantry sized?

As an avid (but admittedly failing a bit recently) x-wing collector/player, the fact that the fighters aren't painted is one of several reasons that I'm specifically not picking up this game and voted as such FWIW. One of the biggest draws for x-wing was that the stuff was 99% playable right away (the 1% being popping out the counters) and didn't contribute to my hobby pile of shame at all.

To be fair the Tie Fighters are pretty playable out of the box. Maybe wash them and you're done. The x-wings need a bit more work but I gotta say. I'm in love with the models for this game. Super pumped to get a game in this weekend hopefully

I thought the unpainted fighters would bother me ... but they don't at all. I think it is because the fighter stands are complete abstractions rather than miniatures.

honestly the tie foghters dont need to be touched at all. im not sure they were washed or not but out of the box they look appropriately colored and shaded for their size, etc. the x-wings do however suffer from plain plastic syndrome, the easy solution would be to add red stripe detailing and possibly wash them for some shading.

chaos0xomega wrote:
honestly the tie foghters dont need to be touched at all. im not sure they were washed or not but out of the box they look appropriately colored and shaded for their size, etc. the x-wings do however suffer from plain plastic syndrome, the easy solution would be to add red stripe detailing and possibly wash them for some shading.

Pretty much this. I'm going to paint the "cockpit" and put a stripe on my x-wings and then just wash all the fighters and be happy.

I don't really know if I will paint them, likely only the X-Wings if I do, as the Ties look pretty good unpainted.

Also, for those wanting to see examples of painted fighters there are already a number of people posting them on FFG's forum:
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/forum/443-star-wars-armada-painting-and-conversions/

I probably will in time. But I don't understand why there's an option for "not an armada player" on the poll. That's like going to vote for president "party a, part b, or option c (I'm not even voting, I'm just here to avoid working)".

Let's you see the results without skewing the poll?

Debating how the Tie Fighters might look if I prime them black and dry brush grey on the body. A couple pinpricks of blue on the black cockpit windows and carefully outline the panels (to keep the appropriate sections black) and I think they would turn out well. Still debating how to do the X-Wings.

This will be especially cool once the expansions come out. I plan on painting bloodstripes on 1 set of interceptors to signify Soontir Fel's Squadron when/if you play that upgrade card; something else to signify Howlrunners TIE upgrade.
The same with the X-Wing...one set in the traditional red stripes for the Luke Skywalker upgrade; another color for other upgrade pilots. Probably go with blue detailing for all of my generics.

Now, the big ships....The rebels are small enough (so far) that minor hits of greys and lighter blues with a quick wash should do the trick. But the Star Destroyers are large enough that (IMHO) less would definitely be more on those guys. A simple chevron color stripe across the tops, a single stripe down the center along the length of the hull, or paint the sides of the bridge wings to give them a unifying scheme.

I saw this on the FFG forums and they look pretty awesome IMO (sorry about the DropBox link, but they're not mine nor do I want to re-host and muddle ownership):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n2leyrpztju0eyi/20150329_100047.jpg?dl=0 and the original thread for more: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/139209-ties-painted/

To save the click for the lazy, the poster's method:

Spray black primer
London Grey (Vallejo Color)
Nuln Oil Wash

I'm sorely tempted to do that, but as ridiculously huge as my painting queue is already, I'm probably not going to bother.

Painting the tree stands and bases flat black really makes the ships stand out.

KellyJ wrote:
Painting the tree stands and bases flat black really makes the ships stand out.

It certainly does in pictures, but I'm wondering how it looks in real life.

I'm also still torn on what to do with the inside of the tie-fighter wings. I don't think I want to freehand the panel lines on the inside of the wings (I don't think it looks good for the people who did that unless you're *extremely* good with freehand). So I'm not sure whether painting the inside all black or just leaving it grey and washing it would be less noticeable.

It looks the same in person as it does in pictures. The only reason why I haven't painted all my bases and stands black is that I'm lazy.

The problem with clear stuff is that it only sounds good in theory because, "Hey, it's see through right?" But in reality, clear plastic is all sorts of shiny, and warps the view of anything underneath. The shine, and the warping destroys any notion of it being invisible.

Well, I might try spraying the clear bases with matte varnish first, but I doubt that will help.

I won't be painting the fighters save for splashes of extra color on character squadrons. to help them stick out.

 Vertrucio wrote:
It looks the same in person as it does in pictures. The only reason why I haven't painted all my bases and stands black is that I'm lazy.

The problem with clear stuff is that it only sounds good in theory because, "Hey, it's see through right?" But in reality, clear plastic is all sorts of shiny, and warps the view of anything underneath. The shine, and the warping destroys any notion of it being invisible.

Well, I might try spraying the clear bases with matte varnish first, but I doubt that will help.

I won't be painting the fighters save for splashes of extra color on character squadrons. to help them stick out.

Well, I think clear stands work when they're a single clear beam underneath a larger model. In the case of these fighter stands, the clear part obviously breaks up into a tree and the fighters are so small that they don't obscure it at all.

So it does kind of make sense to me that, in this particular case (fighter stands), painting the stands black might be the best option…especially since everyone is usually going to be playing on a black space mat most of the time.

I might do a simple paint job, considering the level of detail.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/forum/443-star-wars-armada-painting-and-conversions/

Saw a few repaints in here. Check them out they are pretty good.

I have ordered the starter set but it doesn't arrive until next week.

I will probably paint them with a representational scheme of some dabs of colour in the right places but it will depend on how the models will take it.

This is how the blogger Lord Ashram painted his: