FineMolds X-Wing Construction
Engines were painted with Humbrol Metalcote Steel which is superb stuff. It goes on as a very flat dark grey but when polished up it takes on a very convincing metal look. The engine nozzles were done in two different shades of Testors Metalizer. Basic airframe (or is that spaceframe??) colour is Gunze H338 Light Gray FS36495 because, as everyone knows, US Federal Standard colours are used throughout the known - and unknown - universe. I used the kit decals for most of the markings though did elect to paint on some of the brown areas.
Oooh... a shiny new penny! These are my first attempts at painting figures since I were a wee nipper. The dark grey I used as a wash shows up black here for some reason, perhaps I should have gone with a slightly lighter grey but what the hell, it still looks okay I think. R2 is done with decals of course, as much as I'd like to take credit for that paint job. Note that despite FineMolds' supposedly meticulous research they managed to mould the pilot figures in mirror image; the flare(?!) belt around the lower leg should be on the right leg, not the left. Yeah, that's a bit pedantic of me I know....
Hmmmm.... is it me, or does that look suspiciously like the lower half of a Tamiya logo, albeit with reversed colours?! FineMolds did an exceptional job of recreating the studio models, right down to the bits cannibalised from kits such as the rear deck from a German tank (left side of pic) that the original model makers used. Also note how well the decals on the R2 unit fit.
	Intakes were painted black, I then punched holes in pieces of tape and cut these in half to produce masks. Normally I would paint lighter colours first but in this case I found it much easier to mask this way and then spray the light grey over the black. Only minor touch ups were needed afterwards as you can see in the right hand picture.
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