Star Wars B-Wing: Lighting

Another Star Wars model: B-Wing

It's from a MPC/ERTL triple kit released in 1992 and including also a TIE Interceptor (already done) and an X-Wing. It's a "snap" kit, quite well detailed taking into account how small is it, but with a poor quality of molds. All pieces need to be sanded and adjusted. First I started painting the tiny pilot and cockpit.

I used acrylic paints (from Acrilicos Vallejo). Interior parts have been airbrushed with dark gray and dry-brushed with Metallic Steal.

This model is so small that regular leds don't fit inside. But I bought a 300 leds set of different colours in eBay and flexible circuit board strips to mount them that are small enough to fit anywhere. Those led encapsulation is 0603, that means they are only 1,6 x 0,9 x 0,4 mm, but soldering is easier that expected.

But light is really awesome. I still don't understand how something so small can make so strong light. I put a sunny light led facing to the pilot to illuminate all the cockpit.

In the engines air intake I installed a super-warm white led.

Here you can see how versatile are the circuit board strips. You can bend them keeping the form, and it's easy to solder led, smd resistor and wires to it.

Here you can appreciate how tiny is the led used in the cockpit:

Some final lighting tests before masking and start painting:

Star Wars Y-Wing: Painting

After testing lights and make sure they have the desired effect, I masked the windows with white glue (as I did with the TIE Interceptor) and filled the inside of motors with cotton to protect the red led.

As I want to do some chipping effects, the first coat of paint will be metallic iron. When paint is dry, I applied also a coat of varnish for protection:

The base color is made with white, 1/4 light gray and a bit of sand. When it's dry, you can scratch it softly with a thin blade and the metallic color will appear where you want to show some chipping. That's why I varnished the first coat, or the scratch would show the directly the plastic instead of the metallic paint.

I had a problem with decals. I broke them trying to put them in place, so I masked the area and airbrushed. Finally, it was a good decision because the effect is much better than with decals:

Again, after the base color is applied, I airbrushed a coat of gloss varnish. This has a double advantage, first one is that it can be used as a "restore point" if the weathering effects are wrong, and second it helps to flow the paint to do the paneling and shadows. For this paneling, and weathering effects in general, I use oil colors diluted in turpentine. It's not aggressive with the base of acrylic varnish and it has a long drying time which allows to work with the paint in a comfortable way. 

Paneling is done mixing a bit of oil dark grey color with turpentine and with a very thin brush trying to deposit the paint in all slots and edges. Thanks to the glossy surface of the varnish it flows along the lines giving depth to the model.

Another good effect of dust can be accomplished putting a dot of oil color and slip it with a brush damped in turpentine until it has the aspect you want.

But my big (and common) mistake this time was again the IMPATIENCE!!! You cannot paint completely a kit in one afternoon. You have to leave it after each coat, and see later if it needs more effects or corrections, and work always with completely dried coats. So the final effect was simply a global dirty. If I had stopped at half of the work, the final model would have been really good.

Here I put some final photos of the model, although I'm not proud of it.....  :(

Star Wars Y-Wing - Lighting

I started a new Star Wars model: Y-Wing

It's from a bunch of Star Wars plastic kits I found on Ebay at a very good price. I like to practice painting and led installing with that little kits, that's why I'm posting more about Star Wars plastic kits than trains. But I promise I'll be back to trains soon.

I've installed a red led in each motor. I cut a piece of from the plastic frame that supports pieces and used it to glue the led exactly in the middle of the motor, facing to the outside.

Resistors were bought also on eBay. I found a Chinese "Sample Book" with thousands of SMD resistors. That's the test of the motors:

And the white led installed in the cockpit:

And this is the final montage of wires. I drilled a hole next where the stand will be fixed for the supply wires and centralized all cables there. Is needed just to sand a little bit the borders of the frame to pass the wires and the hull closes perfectly: 

Now it's ready to paint!!!