Rebel ships from wave 3 got their new paint jobs, and re-mounting too for the B-Wings.

With short shipments of the initial production run of the HWK-290, only 2 of my 4 pre-orders have arrived so far.  For small games of 100–150 point squads, I think 1 Hawk is plenty.  But I’m looking forward to getting all 4 to use for scenario games as light freighters or small boarding craft.  Shown here are the first two repaints.

One is just accentuated painting on the factory finish of the Moldy Crow.  The hull was given an overlay of Model Master’s Afrika Grunbraun, then highlighting with Flat Light Earth, and some final highlights with Afika Braun 42.  Red stripes darkened with British Crimson and Insignia Red.

The second was overpainted with French Chestnut, then given stripes of Italian Olive Green.

The engines were lit up by first painting the grilles French Light Grey, then outlined with Neon Blue, and then retouching the edges and ridges of the grille with the hull colour.

All 4 pre-ordered B-Wings arrived.  Will likely eventually bring this up to a half squadron of 6.  

The B-Wings got re-mounted as well as re-painted.  The original mounting of these ships is with an elbow joint coming up and into the back of the ship between the 4 engine nozzles.  This positions the ship entirely over the front half of the base and with weapons extending well beyond the front edge.  I moved the mounting underneath the wing, near the leading edge, in order to center the ships over the base with minimal overspill.

Prying the elbow joint out of the back of the ship is easy.  Slide an XActo knife under the edge and work it around, prying away.  The elbow is press-fit in, and tacked with the black wash from the factory finish, so it pops out fairly easily.

For the new mounting, I simply drilled a hole through the bottom of the wing and up into the side of the fuselage.  To help the peg sit all the way into the hole, I also shaved down the side of the peg where it presses against the side of the fuselage, and also cut a little angle into the broad edge of the peg on the outer side to fit against the angle of the wing as it slopes away.

The ship sits pretty securely on top of the peg.  But too make it an even better hold, I filled in the front edge of the hole with a bit of Testors’ Contour Putty to match the flat surface of the peg top.  Once I made sure that fit snugly, then hardened up the putty with a drop of Zap-A-Gap.

Since the ships are re-mounted at an off-set angle, the cockpits needed to be cut off and re-glued.  Apparently, pilots in the Star Wars universe are incredibly OCD about all maintaining the same ‘up’ direction while flying in space.  This cultural neurosis carried through into the design of the B-Wing.  The cockpit always maintains a constant ‘up’ direction, and the rest of the ship rotates around it!

The cockpit on the model is a separate piece from the fuselage.  It’s a snug press-fit, and also tacked with black wash that seeped into the crack between the pieces.  Slide an XActo knife down the crack and cut the inner peg.  I prefer a #16 blade for this kind of heavy cutting.  Once it’s cut away, file down the surfaces for a smooth flat fit to re-glue them.  Glue the cockpit back on while the ship is mounted on it’s peg to get the proper ‘up’ orientation.  You don’t want your little 1/270 pilots to freak out if they’re not properly upright ~,~

The re-painting was a straight-forward affair.  Painted over the factory squadron markings and also various hull panels with assorted shades of white and light grey.  Added new black and yellow squadron markings.  Laser barrel tips and inner engine nozzels painted White, and then Flourescent Red.