"Painting a realistic Imperial Star Destroyer" Topic

I have an old Imperial Star Destroyer model that I put together as a kid. It came in a light gray color and is hard plastic. My son has a Star Wars Birthday party coming up and I would like to dress it up a bit, but have limited modeling skills.

Any tips on making it look more real would be appreciated.

I imagine some sort of wash would help?

Do I needs to prime it first?

Any specific colors suggested?

Thank you in advance.

Prime flat grey (cheap auto paint is best, be mindful of not overspraying and muddying the details with too much paint).

Drybrush with a light grey (square headed brush to highlight details).

Paint in any details that require colour (optional)

Wash with either home-made magic dip or a commercial equivalent (e.g., army painter) to add in some shadow.

Will perk up the model for relatively little effort.

You'll need some way to "hold" the model why you do the painting and washing.

Paint the whole thing. Applying a wash over plastic will not look good.

Is it dusty? IF so, be sure to wash it first, rinsing with water might be enough.

I agree with Bob: the easiest way to make this look pretty decent is to spray-paint a medium gray color, then drybrush light gray over that.

You may not need to wash, and in fact, a star destroyer probably has a lot of flat surfaces, which a wash wouldn't look very good on. I would just spray paint, then dry brush a light gray, and then drybrush an even lighter gray over that, taking care to use less paint.

Search for posts and tutorials on drybrushing, if you are unfamiliar with that.

link

Good tutorial here on doing a panel wash. Makes aircraft and spaceship detail really pop.

Thanks for the tutorial.