The Millennium Falcon

The first thing I did was look at some images from the star wars films, to remind myself what couples the top inside your f the Millenium Falcon really was. Memory alone can play tricks on you. I am going to use the to decide on the feel I want, not slavishly follow the colour scheme.

What I take away from the source photos is that the insides of The Falcon are dark and dirty – the cushioned areas area sort of buff colour, and there are indicator lights everywhere.

First I prime the insides of the ship black.

I like the sharp contrast between the black and the outside hull, so I’ll be keeping that at the edges. But black is too dark to easily see the walls and layout from a distance, so I drybush everything with a neutral grey. This also brings out the textures that I added earlier.

Now I take some artistic license and go away from the film’s colour scheme, as I need the wiring and pipes I created to stand out from the background so they can be seen from a distance. I used dark shades of primary colours, and later when I think they look too bright I dull the down with black shade (GW Nulin oil). This also helps the engineering and engine areas look dirty and oily.

Cushioning is painted chocolate brown, then Drybrushed with sucessively lighter colours until I work up to an edge highlight of bonewhite. Metal is Drybrushed with gun metal grey, and a few big bits of machinery painted cavalry Brown and weathered with rust effect paint and a bone drybrush. By no means finished, but now I can see what colours things are going to be and where I need t make changes.

Hopefully I have hit the right balance between capturing the mood of the film’s while having a piece of playable scenery that detail can be made out on from a distance – the true film colours would just be too dark and everything would merge into one dark mass.

I’ll add a few photos of the painting going thru the stages described above:

I am a bit concerned the the top Hull is looking too yellow from a distance. To fix this I use a very thin wash of 1 part sky grey paint To about 10 parts water, and apply this to some of the panels on the roof to town down any colours I think are too vivid and give them a cool grey cast. I also use this on some of the side details, just to pull everything together.

It may not show very well on the photos, but this pulls the ship into looking more grey from a distance.