Brand: Bandai 0191406
Media: Injection Plastic
Markings: Custom
The Subject
The X-wing is a starfighter used by the Rebel Alliance during the Galactic Civil War. It is so-named due to how it resembles an X when its S-foils are locked in attack position. It is armed with a laser cannon on each S-foil and proton torpedoes. X-wings are designed for dogfighting and long range missions and is capable of unassisted hyperspace jumps. Like most of the Rebel Alliance starships, the X-wing has deflector shields that greatly enhance its survivability in combat.
The X-wing starfighter is the backbone of the Rebel Alliance Starfighter Corps and was prominently featured in the Battle of Scarif, Battle of Yavin and Battle of Endor.
Info from Wookieepedia
The Kit
Bandai’s X-wing starfighter is fully snap fit and features:
- Deployable S-foils
- A choice of a removable R2 or R5 astromech
- A standing and sitting pilot figure
- A choice between a fully enclosed clear canopy or (like the studio models) just the canopy frame
- Both stickers and decals for markings
- 2 connecting base plates with 1 being a generic Death Star surface and the other the exhaust port where Luke Skywalker shot into with proton torpedoes
- Proton torpedoes vectoring into the exhaust port in the red clear plastic
Out of the box, the markings only builds into Luke Skywalker’s Red Five from the Battle of Yavin.
The Build
Well, it’s a Bandai kit, so it snaps together perfectly with only a few seamlines. The only part that doesn’t fit perfectly is the clear canopy: I had to trim a bit on both parts before they snapped together.
Colors & Markings
At first, I was going to model this as Red Five. Then I watched Rogue One and thought I’d do this up as one of the Blue Squadron X-wings. But in the end, I went with modeling this X-wing as Wedge Antilles’ Red Two instead. Wedge is a fascinating character:
- He saved Luke during the Battle of Yavin
- He survived the Battle of Yavin
- He brought down an AT-AT during the Battle of Hoth (as Rogue Three)
- He survived the Battle of Hoth
- He destroyed the 2nd Death Star during the Battle of Endor (as Red Leader)
- He also survived the Battle of Endor
And yet, he barely had 10 lines of dialogue in the whole trilogy. Before Walt Disney bought the Star Wars license, Wedge’s story was expanded greatly. Since the take over, he has been retconned as a young Imperial defector in the early days of the Rebellion.
So decided, I went ahead to research the markings for his X-wing during the Battle of Yavin. The 2 sources that I relied heavily on were:
I also came across some interesting facts about Red Two and the X-wings in general while researching.
Armed with the reference photos, I went ahead and masked and sprayed all the markings. I also handpainted Wedge’s helmet and his R2-A3 astromech based on the references.
For the base, I only used the Death Star surface plate and this was quickly painted over a black base, washed and drybrushed.
Finishing
Since trying to replicate all the chips and streaks is an exercise in futility, I decided to go my own way with weathering. I did follow 1 prominent detail of Red Two which is a clean panel on the port upper nacelle. Weathering was handpainted chipping followed by panel wash and streaking with oil paint. I tried to go easier on the chipping and it seems to work out better than my Snowspeeder build.
In actual time spent, this kit didn’t take long to finish, but it was and on and off build between other builds so time-wise, it took a while. As usual with Star Wars kits, this was an immensely fun build with minimal fuss. Highly recommended for any Star Wars or sci-fi fan.
Project Log
> Part 1 : Construction
> Part 2 : Painting and Finishing
Number 6 of 2017
Nice build! I’m doing one myself at the moment.