Some V3 modifications, pics...

[Colin Droidmilk]

Okay, I put the fuse together finally and did the nose modification. Putting the fuse halves together with the wing blocks loose meant I had to rope the girlfriend in to clamp the fuse while I held the wings up. A nervewracking moment (GF: what do I hold? What do I hold? Droidmilk: That!! That!! Quick, we've got 7 seconds!!!) and one that I'd been rehearsing in my head for nearly two years, lol. but it came out OK.

THE NOSE

I put a 1mm styrene shim between the fuse halves at the nose end, to shallow out the slope of the upper fuse a bit. I shallowed out that upper fuse slope even more by building the surface up by a further 1mm with putty. I also thickened it slightly in the plan view to get a more 'square' front to the upper fuse. Then with the nosepiece I decided not to p*ss about and really WENT for it, placing it a full 5mm beyond the fuse and filling the gap with styrene, epoxy and putty. The rear upper of the nosepiece is also built up by 1mm of putty. I'm still working on smoothing all the contours, but I think they'll pass, though raking light is never gonna be too kind to them. I can live with that though; I have the more assertive X nose I was after.

First pic shows my blu tac tack-together, the rest show the actual job. Cheers for looking.

 

[jedimaster]

Looking good man , what bird you doin?

 

[Colin Droidmilk]

Well, I dunno. It's a Red 5 kit, so to be accurate I should do Red 5, but what I'd rather do is Red 2 or 1. I love all the dots on those. I'd do Red 3 cos I love the close, faded-looking tones but it's got no dots at all, and has too much green on it for my taste. Red 1's nose burn is sort of over-strong for my ideal X. Red 2 is perhaps my pref, but I'm tempted to do it in the early Blue 1 version but keep the red livery... so, for purists, this build is gonna be a disappointment! The other option that does tempt me greatly, apart from doing a pyro, is to do a kind of improvisation session in the ILM style and call it hero Red 4 or something. Another thing that appeals with this is that when you're slavishly copying marks verbatim, you can never do it perfectly because you're not working with the freedom the original artist had (though Guy's Red 3 is remarkably good, esp. the wings), so in a way your marks may wind up more convincing if they're applied with that same freedom but in a fresh scheme - so long as you're truly able to capture the style or the 'hand' of the artist you're imitating. Now, as a painter I can ape Rubens pretty good, but my Joe Johnston, Steve Gawley impersonations are somewhat untried...especially with the airbrush, so I dunno...

It's still all up in the air. Red 2, 1, a pyro, a made-up version... still don't know! Maybe I'll even swing back to Red 5!

 

[jedimaster]

I know what you mean , though Jasons Blue leader is looking a dead ringer for the studio model. I started striping off the chips and applying the correct ones on my v3 to replicate hero red 3. also started modding the nose a little. With the Pyro's its Pyro red 1,2 and 4 for me. red 12 also has some interesting colors but i've run out of x wings for now.

I like what you've done with the wings. I may have to give that a go.

 

[Colin Droidmilk]

Yeah, Red 12 has a fantastic underside. I'd even thought of doing a jam session, a collage of different x's, lol. All my favourite bits: Red 12 underside, Red 2 fuse, Red 3 wings, Red 1 engines and guns, ha ha....

'Run out of X-wings...' - lol, that's funny, man!