This is one of my favorite models. I don't remember just how many of these things I've put together in the past but I know it had to be alot. Because when I started on this one I knew exactly what I wanted to do to get this sucker looking exactly like the movie.

This guide is a painting guide due to the fact that I could find hardly any resources at all for this little beauty except what I could see in the videos or on my old Star Wars Movie Cards.

My first bit of advice has to be never follow the painting instructions given in the instructions of the model. Most of the time they suck and aren't very realistic. First off, begin painting the pieces while they are on the sprue when possible. If there are to be two pieces to be joined like the engines, put them together first, fill in the cracks with the putty, and then paint them. Don't glue your model together until you're satisfied with the overall look of the painting job.

My second piece of advice is when you cut your pieces off the sprue and you cut too much or break off the sprue and you get an irregular indentation, use the contour putty to fill it in immediately and let it dry, then sand it smooth.

A general tip is to use your Dirty Thinner to paint on surfaces where there is various detail, then when it's dry, using a paper towel, dipping it into clean thinner, wipe off the excess paint to lighten it up a bit but yet leave enough to show off the natural details of the model. Now, let's begin:

Using the Light Gray, paint the panels that are pictured in the following pictures.

You'll notice the irregular shaped panel on the top of the nose piece. Also the L-Shaped panels along the sides. I did alot of studying of movie pics to find all these little details.

The next image gives you an idea of more of the detail along the top. Using your Flat Red, I painted a stripe along the front of the cockpit window, and then with a shape tip hobby knife scraped away stripes to give the impression of "Safety Area". You'll also notice this on the back of the cockpit window and just above it (reference Empire Strikes Back during the scene when Luke first gets out of the cockpit and the window opens above him).

The next image shows the engines. You're probably wondering how I got all the lines to become so vivid. Easy, using dirty thinner, I dabbed a spot of it in the lines and the thinner did the rest. You'd be surprised what a little dirty thinner can do to make a model look realistic. Most of the darkened areas behind Artoo are just dirty thinner, with a bit of dry brushing with Silver to bring out the edge highlights. Notice the Yellow-Tan stripe along the side behind the cockpit. I began the model by putting together the engines and filling in the cracks and sanding them smooth. Then painting them with the Thinner and using the Silver dry-brush technique. The inner piece (Part #35) I left completely alone... wanted it to remain white!

Next I moved on to the gun port bases. Again, I put them together first, filled in the cracks and painted them using the same technique. Notice the darker gray stripe and how Part #26 is painted with our Yellow-Tan mixture. Notice the stripes along each of the gun shafts. I counted 8 of them in the movie, but they weren't on every ship, just a few of them, but then again it also makes your ship look more realistic. After more studying, these aren't separate stripes but one single stripe that spirials around the shaft of the cannon.

The panels of the wing were simply outlined with the thinner Also note that the smaller section of Part #25 and all of Part #24 were left a darker gray. One side note that I discovered in my intensive research of watching the movies frame by frame was that the little round section just behind the big round section of the gun shaft is also Yellow-Tan.

The bottom wasn't too difficult. I did notice several of the little panels were painted but I didn't go too overboard. You'll note that in this model I decided to choose the landing gear in the up position so I didn't even use them at all! One thing that I did do that you will notice too is that on the landing gear panels, on the closed side, you will notice two circular rises in the plastic. Remove them with your hobby knife and sand them out until the back part looks like the front part... nice and smooth.