1/24 A-Wing build thread

[darth_daniel]

Next 1/24 Star Wars fighter. This is the kit sold by modelnutz. Ian did a great job in repairing the masters and Ed did a great job on the castings.

As always though, I found a few things that needed to be adressed...

This build will be slow as I´m building it when I need a break from the work-intensive B-Wing.

Things I´ve done so far:

I found the engines were incorrect as there were panel lines where there shouldn´t be any, and some raised stripes needed to be added.

There were details missing on the fuselage´s rear next to the canons, so I scratched them.

I cleaned many parts, the canopy is a bit of a nightmare though, it´s just so fragile, but fortunately the flash was easy to remove.

And I received new guns from Ed for free, now containing metal tubes which keep them perfectly straight. That´s great customer service!

[cayman shen]

Keep it coming!

[3d-builder]

Next 1/24 Star Wars fighter. This is the kit sold by modelnutz. Ian did a great job in repairing the masters and Ed did a great job on the castings.

As always though, I found a few things that needed to be adressed...

This build will be slow as I´m building it when I need a break from the work-intensive B-Wing.

Things I´ve done so far:

I found the engines were incorrect as there were panel lines where there shouldn´t be any, and some raised stripes needed to be added.

There were details missing on the fuselage´s rear next to the canons, so I scratched them.

I cleaned many parts, the canopy is a bit of a nightmare though, it´s just so fragile, but fortunately the flash was easy to remove.

And I received new guns from Ed for free, now containing metal tubes which keep them perfectly straight. That´s great customer service!

Fantastic your giving my favorite bird a sexy make over!

[3d-builder]

Keep it coming!

Hey I was in New Hampshire A couple of falls ago
beautiful!!!!

[darth_daniel]

Wow I cannot believe it´s been 3 years since I started this thread! Guess an update is long overdue...

I hollowed out the engines to accomodate lighting. I found one LED per engine as in my 1/24 B-Wing was not bright enough, so the A-Wing will get 7 LEDs per engine. And it could still be brighter... I also cut sections from the fuselage, also for lighting. Then I removed the detail above the butt plate because it was wrong and the area too shallow; I used the Dremel to make the hole deeper and covered the back wall and "floor" of the opening with styrene. I have yet to add the missing greeblies.
The structure behind the canopy should have a smooth transition into the fuselage, so I added putty there.

[darth_daniel]

Today I concentrated on the cockpit. I didn´t bother much to bring it closer to the filming miniatures, I just painted it a very dark (almost black) grey and put in the pilot. The kit offers translucent displays for lighting the instrument panel, so of course I added these. Nice touch, and a great addition to the kit.

I do know the pilot looks strange, that´s because a) the face sculpt is that way and b) my figure painting skills suck. But he´ll have to do. ILM´s A-Wing pilot is no beauty either...

[darth_daniel]

Whoops forgot to add the photos...

[darth_daniel]

Scratching various details to better imitate the studio model...

[darth_daniel]

I decided to toss the provided cockpit and scratchbuild a new, more accurate one. At least it´s as accurate as I can make it, skill-wise and also due to the limited reference I have, while trying to integrate the backlit displays and taking some freedom with all the buttons and switches. I also ordered a 1/24 WWII-pilot to convert into a proper A-Wing pilot, to replace the monkey that´s currently sitting in the old cockpit.

[cosmic_x]

good decision, new cockpit rocks!

[darth_daniel]

I made some progress on the new cockpit and also received the new pilot. Since taking the pictures I already painted the cockpit, glued it in place and joined the fuselage halves. I´m currently cleaning the remaining seams. Pictures of that will follow.

[darth_daniel]

When I wanted to scratch new "wings" and could not make them correctly proportioned to the engines, I discovered that the rear fuselage and engines were much too long. I had to shorten the rear fuselage by 15mm and the engines by 18mm. Then I glued the butt plate in place as the rear bulkhead was gone from shortening the fuselage.
Many panel lines are also wrong, so I´ll have to putty them and scribe new ones. To make sanding easier, I removed almost all surface detail as it is wrong anyway and a bit crude compared to the few details which I already replaced.
The further this build goes, the more and more I remove from the original kit and have to scratch.

[darth_daniel]

New wings with correct proportions are done and installed. Just the hinges are missing now. I also redid the T-profiles on the engines, now in their correct positions on the shorter engines. Next step will be identifying all wrong panel lines, filling them and scribe new ones. Maybe I´ll simply redo all of them, it´s not that much more work and I don´t need to find out which few ones are correct.