Rebel Blockade Runner
The Rebel Blockade Runner seen in the opening scene of Star Wars is a pretty recognizable ship in the Star Wars universe. It was there in the beginning, and it can be seen in several other movies and shows. It's one of my favorite ships in the movies, and it's one of the designs that has a very 'Star Wars' look to it, with all sorts of lumps and bumps. The 'guts on the outside' look.
This model is from Bandai, and it's from their line of small scale ships. It's in 1/1000 scale, and it fits in the palm of your hand when it's done. They are a fun little line of models, with all sorts you can get. I have a few, and they sit nicely on the shelf in a little collection of small ships. I had hoped they would make some other ships in 1/1000 scale that you can make a little fleet out of, but I don't think that'll ever happen. There are several models you can 3D print that'll fill out a collection of Rebel ships, but nothing you can by from a major commercial manufacturer.
Guts on the Outside
This models went together in about 10 minutes. It is an easy build, but that's not the hard part. The painting it is the key to it's looks. There are actually several different colored panels along the ship, and the obvious red markings. I air brushed the base color on and then brush painted the different panels to match the source pictures I found online. The red is just a basic red with a small drop of black to make it a touch darker than normal. Again, this was brush painted, since the areas are tiny and masking it off with tape would be near impossible.
Final Touches
The finishing touch was adding the weathering. None of the Rebel ships look new. They all have dirt, scorch marks, oil stains, and old damage that hadn't been fixed. The Blockade Runner is no exception. Also, any paint is generally scraped up and faded. To get the look of an old weathered ship, I first dry brushed the base color over the red areas to make it look like the paint was worn through in several places. Then, I gave it a clear coat and did a dark wash using thinned out black paint, and then using thinner to clean off any areas that were too dark. That gave it the look I was looking for.
Yes, when you get up really close in some of these pictures, you can see spots that aren't quite right. But I never hold the model as close to my face as these pics make it seem. If you have it at arms length or further, all you see is a banged up Rebel ship fleeing from an Imperial Star Destroyer. And it looks great on the shelf.