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All
of our 1/24 Star Wars ships started out as a group project. Rob L. and I were bouncing ideas
around about the re-release of the Special Edition movies and, as
Rob knew the manager of a local theater, we thought it would be cool to have our group build enough ships to create a battle
overhead in the theater lobby. After determining the approximate scale (by identifying model parts used on the film miniatures and comparing the size of the ships next to the
ILM model builders — lucky guys/girls !! :-) — we then got the rest of the
MSFM group involved.
For my X-Wing, drawing plans took about 3 months, checking and rechecking
sources, details and countless viewings of the movie.
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The fuselage was built on a crutch,
i.e. the widest outline of the body was cut out. Formers were
cut and positioned, and sheet plastic was put on over it to form the skin.
The X-wing basecoat is Polly-S railroad White (and I found I really didn't like the way it worked) with
Testors Yellow and Tamiya Red for the markings. The engines are
painted with Testors grays. Believe it or not, all I had as an airbrush for this model was an old
$15 dollar single action blue plastic thing!
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The detail on the back of the fuselage was all scratch built as I
couldn't find the upper tank body used by the ILM. modelers. The aft engines are three piece fiberglass
casts— the variable exhaust nozzles are casts taken off the 1/32 scale F-4
Phantom.
The forward part of the engines are pill bottles cut in half and detailed. The intakes have castings inside to match the "intake ramps" found on jet fighters that was used to detail the
ILM models.
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The tech panel behind the cockpit used 1/24 scale parts from
Airfix's Spitfire and Bf-109 kits as well as a fiberglass cast of
an R2-D2 key ring found in a toy store...which just happened to be the right scale!!
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The pilot was a modified race car driver. I used as many references as I could to reproduce the gadgets and
the "look" of the cockpit, but ran out of time...Lucasfilm moved the release date up from
May '97 to January '97!!!!...so I'm not really happy with the lack of detail but,
maybe next time.
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The wings are built up, the 'tween wing engines are
a one piece casting. The mount box is detailed with tank equipment and gun barrels.
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This
is what made the half-year long project worth it!!! I never thought I'd meet him, much
less have him sign the model!!!
David Prowse was a guest at a science fiction convention in
Metro Halifax shortly after our theatre display.
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Photos
by Stephen L.
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