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The X-Wing is probably the most well-known StarWars space ship ever. Ask anyone (StarWars fan or not) to name a space ship that flew on StarWars and 9 out of 10 will reply with "X-Wing".
I plan to build this kit by Fine Molds and adding engine lights and a small light in the droids head. |  | |
| Kit details... |
| Manufacturer: | Fine Molds | | Scale: | 1/72 | | Parts: | 138 | | Built: | November 2007 - December 2007 | | Aftermarket kits: | None | | Add-ons: | Lighted cockpit, engines and droid head (once sealed the LED lighting the cockpit and droid head failed) | | | |
| Building the base stand... |
| For this model, I used another set of Death Star Tiles. I spray painted them a light shade of grey. |  |
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| Building the kit... |
| I added 3mm red LEDs to the four engine tubes. I had to cut a hole in the back of the tubes to make room for the wires. These holes need to be filled after I put the engines on the wings. |  | | Another thing I did was drilling very small holes in the cockpit sides to allow for five fibre optic cables to shine some light into the cockpit. These five fibre optic cables will pretend to be lit up buttons in the spacecraft. |  | A little test-run with the LEDs connected to a power supply show the droids head and the cockpit buttons lit up.
The photo shows two colours of LEDs, but I will be using just the red, since this kit does not allow for more than one LED to be built inside the body halves. |  | I have been wondering for a day or two how to let the electricity cabling run from the engines to the main body tube. Eventually, I had to assemble the wings in order to visualize the correct way to do this.
I had to drill holes in the wing halves to let the wiring go through. | |    | | I assembled the kit, put together the two body halves and attached the S-foils to the back of the ship.
The whole lot needed some sanding here and there and is now up for a quick respray paint job. After that, the guns will be added. |  | | The guns were added and an attempt was made to use the decals. This failed. I decided to paint the decals by hand. |  |
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| Painting the model... |
The colour I used for painting the main hulls, wings and engines, is a mixture of the following two paints:
Polly Scale US Gull Gray Light (colour number F505380)
Polly Scale Reefer White (colour number F414113)
The cockpit hatch is painted using Vallejo Pastel Blue (colour number 70901)
The red used on the wings and body halves is a mix of Vallejo Flat Red (colour number 70957) and Vallejo Light Grey (colour number 70990) | |
| Overall experience... |
This kit was one I had looked forward to starting but while building I most certainly disliked. A lot.
This has nothing to do with the fine work done by Fine Molds, but mainly with my own idea of adding cockpit and engine lights. There simply is not enough room in this kit to run all the wires through and that was a real pain in the ass.
The decals were quite another story. The very first one I tried on, tore. I then decided to hand paint the decals.
After all, this turned out quite nice. | |
| More photos... |
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