I managed to play in a Sullust event and when it came down to selecting prizes, I wanted to get the Rogue Pack because I was interested in getting a head start on painting up the ships.

Unfortunately, a great guy that I met there and a local veteran Kristjan, also wanted the pack. I felt bad for taking the Rogues ahead of him so I vowed to do something special by painting all the ships and sharing them so others get an insight into painting them before release.Here is my first in a series of articles about those Rogues and Villains. I start with how I painted the infamous Aggressor piloted by IG-88.

Personally I’m not a fan of the ship’s design, as it looks more like an Insecticon from the 1980s than a concept in line with Ralph McQuarrie’s vision.

Anyway, I wanted to copy the paint scheme found in FFG’s X-Wing release. Their gif was an invaluable reference I used while painting the model.

I primed in black using Army Painter’s excellent black primer. It will need a few coats. Better six thin coats than three thick ones. Have patience.

After the model was primed, I lightly drybrushed in Deck Tan (Vallejo) to see the details better.

I then applied a base coat of Fortress Grey (GW) and avoided the crevasses and windows.

I then highlighted that base coat with thinned Silver Grey (Vallejo). This brightens the model’s grey more in line with the FFG colour.

For the cockpit windows I used thinned Scarlett Red (Vallejo) 3/4 of the way up the windows.

Then I highlighted the front half edge in Blood Red (GW).

Lastly I gave a thin wash of Orange Fire (Vallejo) to highlight the very bottom edge of the windows so that they stand out more. I also did the same for the little front ones.

To paint the blue stripes I used Blue Ink (GW) to paint outlines as its a very thinned paint and easy to work with.

I painted the lines from the front of the ship to the back. Once I had the outline of the blue stripes I filled in the rest with Imperial Blue (Vallejo) mixed with a little white to give a nice tone to the blue. The paint to fill the stripes was thinned down so it was easier to work with.

That was the model. A simple yet effective paint scheme. Megatron would be proud.