The last time I built any kind of model I was 13 years old. I used to build all sorts of models- cars, planes, ships, and spacecraft. Then I discovered girls and video games. Model making was suddenly less important to me.

I am now one month from my 33rd birthday. This will be my first model build in nearly 20 years, and I am extremely excited. I am very much looking forward to trying out some more advanced painting techniques, like dry brushing, using an airbrush, and weathering, that I never bothered with when I was younger.

When I used to build models as a kid I purchased all my supplies from a nearby department store. In the back of the store they had a selection of model kits, some paints, brushes, thinner, and glue. It seems that department stores no longer carry modeling supplies, so I will likely be buying paints online.

I was wondering if anyone here has any recommendations for me as far as what paint, primer, and thinner I should be considering?

Thank you so much for the warm welcome everyone!

I went ahead and ordered some Vallejo primer this morning. Besides priming the parts, my intent is to wait until I have all the hull parts before I do any other exterior painting or weathering.



I'm still trying to figure out how accurate I want the paint job to be. It is my understanding that movie miniatures were usually painted with higher contrast colors, under the bright movie lights the high contrast paint job would appear more muted.

So I am trying to decide if I want to aim for replicating the shooting model itself, or try to make it more closely match what we saw on screen, compensating for the movie lighting. At this point I am leaning more towards trying to make it look more like we saw on screen, and less a replication of the shooting model. My indecisiveness on this issue is one of the reasons I am just going to prime the exterior right now, doing the other painting later.

I finally found some time to sit down and start putting everything together. Once my paints arrive I will be painting the cockpit interior and priming the exterior panels.

I've been watching lots of video tutorials on painting and weathering, many specifically related to the falcon, but I still welcome any advice or wisdom that anyone would care to share with me.