Star Wars Republic Gunship – LAAT

Another big project – a monster! I hesitated to print such a big thing with resin, but realized that my son is using the Star Wars Legion: Self-Made Panzers as „platforms“ when playing Painting Star Wars Rebellion: Rebels part 2. This big LAAT from Darkfire Designs (<<<- Link to the STL) is a perfect fit for this – so I give it a try.

The model is split up in multiple pieces (and comes with an assembly guide), so that I had about a dozen print jobs from 4 to 12 hours. After about a week the print started to get complete.

Assembly

A lot of parts just fit perfectly. Some need some sanding and some I have to use a cutter. This is especially the case when the contact area has print supports on it.

To fill gaps with material and also have the super glue dry faster, I often use PVA glue on one side and then super glue on the other. The PVA often fills the gaps nicely. At one part it was not enough and I added Putty into the cracks.

Unfortunately the body assembly was not as precise as intended, as the doors in the end did not fit very well. Lot’s of sanding and cutting helped.

And then I discovered that using heat (put the piece for half a minute into hot water) helps that one can bend the resin. This is extremely helpful for the door hinges.

Priming and Base Color

The overall look should be whiteish. So I prime from below with a dark grey. Then from the sides with Vallejo Grey and then I thin Vallejo White primer and spray it from above. On the last step I take care to concentrate some spray on some corners on the top and on the wings to make the „light“ irregular. Funny enough, when I later do corrections with pure white: the white areas are actually still a bit grey.

Then I do some masking and airbrush with PA Burnt Red and then highlighting with PA Bold Pyrrole Red that I lighten more with a yellow – so that the highlighted base colors are a red-orange type.

To continue with warm colors but sticking to the greys, I use a brush and color some panels on the top and the sides with PA Light Warm Grey and some with PA Olive Flesh.

Some lower panels of the doors, and on the missile barrels are PA Dark Warm Grey.

With the base colors done, I mix an oil wash with ABT Smoke and realize in the end that this is not really black but also a bit brown…

Assembly is done

Panels are colors – note that the wings are not glued to the body

Nevertheless I use this to put it into the recesses of all the panels. I also use this to paint the clone troopers (pilots and gunners). Where the oil wash is not strong enough, I add after some drying more wash. The hole process is pretty messy and spills also onto the panels: *but* I take advantage of it and declare that as dirt.

Nevertheless, after one night of drying I use white sprit and sponges and paper towels and start removing excesses.

Paneling done with oil wash and after removing excesses (with pilot fitting test)

Highlights and Smoothing

First I came back with the brush for edge highlighting. I restrict this to real edges – not panel edges – and this is pretty quickly done. Some of the red edges are not only pure red but also with white (resulting in pink).

Then I take the air brush and start with (thinned down) white and put them on some panels on the top. I could then also spray some panels on the side and spray there and reduce the dirtiness.

A final step with the airbrush is actually weathering in such, that I spray dirt. I take a dark brown ink and spray this into corners under the wings. Also I do this from below to get some darkness to the lower parts of the sides. And then, I reduce the air brush air pressure to sth like 15psi and start a quick trigger pull-release action to get color spots on the vehicle.

Decals and final details

One of the things that I also wanted to try, is to print my own decals. I ordered some water transfersheets (transparents!) for Ink Jet Printers. I collected several pictures, icons and nose art (that is how the paintings on the gunship and warplanes are called) and put them into a document – doing some experimental mesurements and prints on plain paper until I had it right.

Then I print it with High Quality. After drying I use gloss varnish and spray it over the printed side. With this the color is fixated and will not blur when watered.

Astonishingly, searching the decals, preparing the print took me one full Saturday morning. And then applying the decals took me another 2-3 hours. Uff.

Then comes the final weathering: first I though about painting scratches and rust, but looking at air plane pictures and weathering I realize, that flying vehicles are very well maintained. They have some streaks and oily grease, but no real rust.

So I restrict myself to paint some white around all the edges of red areas to mimick color coming off. Then I use Weathering pencils and paint some dirt streaks – even on the wings of dirty water being blown back.