1:35 Red Five X-wing

[Millennium Falsehood]

Yeah, yeah, I know: "Another freakin' Red Five?!"

;D

Anyway, I figured with my first post as a member of the nerd herd that I would start off with my latest completed project.

I believe Scott mentioned that he was doing a group build of the AMT Pro-Shop X-wing. Well, I am the guy who started that thing. I bought a Pro-Shop X-wing back in May, and have finally finished it. I tried out a lot of new techniques on it (mostly in regards to painting and weathering): superglue gap-filling, creating canopy frames with Bondo, pre-shading, weathering powders, and oil wash. Mostly it was a bunch of happy accidents.

I started it because I wanted to see how the Pro-Shop built up and as practice for the studio scale kit when I get one. I also thought it would make a good Christmas present for my niece, a huge Star Wars fan (of the *original* trilogy, no less! Quite remarkable for someone below the age of forty . . . ).

Originally I just wanted to build it out-of-box, but I ended up doing a lot of improvements, especially in the detail department.

I think it turned out great:







Here are some additional photos:

Underside beauty shot, wings closed.

Topside beauty shot

Left side beauty shot.

Rear 1/4 beauty shot

Rear 3/4 beauty shot

Front 3/4 beauty shot, wings open.

Left beauty shot

Rear 1/4 beauty shot

Rear 3/4 beauty shot

Console, unlit

Console, lit

Engines lit

Cockpit canopy opened

Laser cannon generator

Information pics

Propulsion systems

More informative pics

Ordinance loadouts

Cockpit closeup

Droid strip closeup

Final beauty shot

I also had some fun with Photoshop:

Here's a video of the finished product doing it's thing (with a wicked-awesome soundtrack that's sure to get silenced in a few days):

Pro-Shop X-wing

 

[fubar]

Awesome stuff mate, and thats a great video. All your missing is a few TiE's chasing after you. ;D

TTFN Matt

 

[Igard]

Not just another Red Five. This is very cool work. Love it!

 

[JohnSimmons]

Yeah this is just fantastic!! Well done mate, followed this over on starship modeler. Great to have you over here!

 

[ronrod62]

Great job ;D

 

[Chiefpettyofficer]

Yeah, I like that. Whats the base right there? A Doorbell? A Radio?

 

[Quaralane]

Turned out really good.

 

[Millennium Falsehood]

Whats the base right there? A Doorbell? A Radio?

Neither; that's the base it comes with. I just sanded off the "STAR WARS Incom T-65 X-wing" signage that was embossed on the surface and replaced it with a block of statistics for the X-wing.

 

[Junkie]

You did a fantastic job on this MF.

 

[Grendels]

She looks great! And the motorized parts worked very well.

 

[Chiefpettyofficer]

Neither; that's the base it comes with. I just sanded off the "STAR WARS Incom T-65 X-wing" signage that was embossed on the surface and replaced it with a block of statistics for the X-wing.

Great work. That would be a cool radio. Awake you with the sound of an X-Wing )

 

[The Nylon Gag]

Very nice work sir.

I would realy like to get my hands on a large scale X-wing one day, they always look sooooooo cool.

Mr Nylon

 

[schweinhund227]

Nice job! It turned out superb and the mechanism seems to work just fine!

Paint job and weathering is spot on!

Keep up the good work!

 

[smusno]

that's a beauty.

but to ask a REALLY super noob question. Did you do all the mechanics yourself?

 

[Millennium Falsehood]

No worries about the noob-i-ness of your question.

The Pro-Shop X-wing comes with the motors for the canopy and wings, as well as grain-o-wheat lightbulbs, so no, I didn't do the mechanisms myself (though I undoubtedly could; I'm a mechanical engineering major). I replaced the bulbs with warm white LEDs in the cockpit to give the impression they're lit with incandescent bulbs, because the cockpit set in the movie was lit with them, and bright red LEDs for the engines. In the Special Edition, they colored the engines pink for some reason, but I always prefered the deep red glow from the original release, so that's the color I went with.

Speaking of which, I think I failed to mention that this is practice for the big resin SS kit. I want to try and motorize that one with a similar setup, except the canopy will be opened and lowered with those cylinders as opposed to a huge solid bar that slides back and forth. I'm going to build a prototype before I do that, to see if I can get the mechanism to work.

 

[Solander]

Stunning job here!
The lighting, paintjob and all the other aspects are absolutely top-notch!
This is a real show-stopper You can be proud of, bravo!

 

[Millennium Falsehood]

Thank you.

Well I went to the family New Years party last week, which was when we did the gift exchange for the extended family, of which my niece is part of.

The model is a bit heavy, but when I put it in a box big enough to handle it, it seemed a lot lighter. That may have been why she tipped it and shook it around when she got it. It's a good thing I packed it well with bubble wrap, air bags, etc. I still had a heart attack, though. Luckily it is built tough, so it survived the slight shakeup.

You guys should have seen the look in her eyes when she flicked the "on" switch . . . I had to help her pick her jaw up off the floor after the wings split into attack position. She was very happy with it.

Unfortunately, we didn't plan on my little nephews being there, too, and I had no huge, motorized models to give them. They're great boys, don't get me wrong. It's just that they are recent additions to the family, so there's not as great a connection. Besides that, they're a little rowdy and I don't feel comfortable with the idea of giving them models like the X-wing with delicate parts that can be easily knocked off. A sandcrawler, maybe . . .

Anyway, I'm really glad she was happy with it. My parents thought I was nuts for doing this, because they don't see how a *girl* can be that much into Star Wars. But I knew she would love it when I showed her pics from Wonderfest '11 and she spent an entire hour poring over the photos, pointing out different ships and creatures she recognized from sci-fi and asking me about the ones she didn't. She even liked the severed head (you know the one I'm talking about, if you've seen it). One of these days I'll take her and her family with me to the 'Fest. They'd all enjoy it apart from her prissy step-mother (that woman gets on my nerves like white on rice, but I digress . . . ).

Once my sister emails me the pics she took, I'll post them here.

 

[Igard]

^ You can't trade moments like that for anything. Fantastic!

 

[JohnSimmons]

Ha ha great story, I winced when I read that she shook it!

 

[punkpigpen]

nice job! and that photoshop pic is tight!!! ive built 2 studio scale resin xwing kits but i m ging to do another because this one i have now has the aluminum machined moving armature. woot woot!