My first Studio Scale Build! Green Leader Y-wing.

Nice fade on the blue!


Thank you! Although, I feel like I went a bit heavy on the blue. I actually have repainted the cockpit since that picture.

...and started to weather her.

IMG_0928.jpg
 
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Do you have a shopping list for all the lighting parts you bought?

Sure!

It is pretty bare bones. The numbers in the parenthesis is how many of each I used.

Power source
(2) https://www.allelectronics.com/item...MIlsLsuubN2AIVgiSBCh3zOgoREAQYAiABEgIP4PD_BwE

Switch
(2) 2 position micro switch I picked up at Frys. no link

LEDs
(1) https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...ed-30-degree-viewing-angle-5000-mcd/287/1214/
(2) https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...-viewing-angle-flat-tipped-1200-mcd/279/1206/
(1) https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...ed-32-degree-viewing-angle-7500-mcd/272/1199/
(1) https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...hole-led-w-15-degree-viewing-angle/4044/8764/
(2) https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...-carbon-film-resistors-through-hole/901/2222/

Fiber Optic Filament (for the cockpit gauges) I used 3mm on the larger gauges and I think 1mm on the smaller ones.
https://thefiberopticstore.com/product-category/end-glow-single-strand-filament/


24 gauge wire for the circuit in the cockpit, but the wires I ran along the outside of the hull are like 16 or 18 I think.

I built two circuits, each Saturn V can has a 9v battery in it, and each circuit is running 3 LEDs with a 560ohm resistor, I hid a 2 position switch in the nurnies on the bottom side of each can. The left circuit is a red, green, and aqua LED, and the right circuit is a red, yellow, and red LED.

I am no electrical wizard and I am still learning the best/easiest ways to light my models to get the effect that I want. So, this may not have been the best way to do this. I also decided to light it AFTER I had built it, so I had to get creative about running the wiring. One thing that I am still struggling with is scaling my lighting to the size of the model. It's very easy for LEDs to be way too bright in most cases. So, still working on that.
 
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So. I'm pretty much done...are they every really finished? I am still working on the base and mount, but I wanted to get pictures up. Also, I've got a few missing nurnies that I still want to get on her...maybe. I based my paint scheme off of the earlier "cleaner" version of Gold Leader before the heavier weathering and blast marks were added.

Painted using Archive-X

Thank you Dave G for making this project possible for us! It was such a great learning experience. Unfortunately, I am completely addicted to Studio Scale models now...I've had to start thinking about renovations to the house.

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Gorgeous. Seriously, stunning. I knew from your Millennium Falcon paint job that you'd blow this out of the water, but this is REALLY nice.

Love the proportions and the proportionality of parts to the whole.
Love the custom-build - just accurate enough and just off enough in the nurnies department to make the viewer do a double-take, and say, "Hmm, that looks good" and sometimes, "Hmm, that looks even better than the original."
Love the paint job: the weathering, the fading, the chipping, the scorch and blast marks, love all of it. Looks amazing. Man, that is a serious skill set with the airbrush you have. It's also got a really nice balanced aesthetic look between "screen-used-in-motion-model-at-24-fps" and "static model that I have to look at all day." To my eye it comes off visually in slight favor of the ILM side of things and not as much the Static Model side of things, which is to my eye a perfect "imbalance" and one I hope to get close to myself.

Inspiring work. Now build the rest of them!

Also, if you don't mind, show us more: Would love to see some detailed underside pics. More detailed bulkhead pics. Detailed backplate deck pics. Vectral thruster fins, and Interior Cockpit pics -- love the multicolored dashboard lightshow.
 
Carnet, I think this is the best Gold Leader paint job I have seen. Outstanding! Wanna paint mine? Lol

Wow! Thank you! While the idea of painting someone else's kit is an honor...the pressure of having someone else's baby in my care...just gives me the willies.

Wow. Gorgeous work. And I would use the stand and base as they are.

That is definitely something that has crossed my mind. The base is kind of it's own work of art, shows some of the history of the project. I really like the mirror bases...but long term I am going to be doing a big wall display for all of my models, so it will be mounted directly to the wall using a grip head for articulation.

Gorgeous. Seriously, stunning. I knew from your Millennium Falcon paint job that you'd blow this out of the water, but this is REALLY nice.

Love the proportions and the proportionality of parts to the whole.
Love the custom-build - just accurate enough and just off enough in the nurnies department to make the viewer do a double-take, and say, "Hmm, that looks good" and sometimes, "Hmm, that looks even better than the original."
Love the paint job: the weathering, the fading, the chipping, the scorch and blast marks, love all of it. Looks amazing. Man, that is a serious skill set with the airbrush you have. It's also got a really nice balanced aesthetic look between "screen-used-in-motion-model-at-24-fps" and "static model that I have to look at all day." To my eye it comes off visually in slight favor of the ILM side of things and not as much the Static Model side of things, which is to my eye a perfect "imbalance" and one I hope to get close to myself.

Inspiring work. Now build the rest of them!

Also, if you don't mind, show us more: Would love to see some detailed underside pics. More detailed bulkhead pics. Detailed backplate deck pics. Vectral thruster fins, and Interior Cockpit pics -- love the multicolored dashboard lightshow.

Thank you, really. Your t-plate combined with Dave's kit really works well together, it's such a subtle thing, but it makes a difference.

I'd be happy to snap some more shots! Also, If you check out my build log links in my first post, I have hundreds of pictures there too showing some of the areas you talk about.
 
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I am still tinkering and futzing and obsessing over exact wing measurements, but here is one way of getting proportionality "right" to the eye:

fullsizeoutput_ec79.jpeg fullsizeoutput_ec97.jpeg fullsizeoutput_ec94.jpeg
(Blow these photos up: the red lines are not visible on the thumbnails.)

On an overhead shot, draw lines from the upper outer corner through the lower outer corner of the fuselage head, and extend those lines all the way down to see where they intersect the wings on left and right side: Carnet's build, using a 34.0 cm Tee-Plate, "hits" the mark in the middle of the Kettenkrad track link greeblie as well as any of the actual studio scale models, as far as I can tell (having compared it to multiple overhead photographs with the ruler lines added on them).

So even if DaveG's head may be "slightly too wide at the base" and my wings may be "slightly too wide" at 34.0, it still hits the eye as proportional because of this relationship. I suspect this is between one and three mm off the exact measurements of any original, and am hoping to get it down to within 1-2mm of perfectly accurate. My current best guess is somewhere between 33.7cm and 33.9cm for the Tee Plate, but to have it "look just right" you'd also need to modify DaveG's fuselage head down by 1-2mm at the base, and this would of course mess up your bulkhead build and the usability of Gus's excellent and perfectly fitting cockpit tub. So I'm leaving well enough alone, but still trying to achieve an overall effect that looks as close to the proportionality of the originals even while we use a mix of good guesstimates and original-vs-interpretive nurnies to dress these out. My only consolation is that in the Y-Wing fictional universe, no two were identical with their "guts on the outside" design principle, so you can't really go wrong by too much.

Another way of rough-measuring the wing widths is to use the outer diameter (at base) of the L'eggs Egg pantyhose container as a width marker for the negative space between the wing and the body. When built, you should be able to fit an Egg in the space between the Saturn V engine can and the fuselage body (in front of the wing) without having it compress to squeeze in.

But these are just the tricks/techniques I've conceived along the way, and someone with more of an engineering background may have a better design concept for hitting proper proportionality and getting the ratios just right, so I'm all ears if you've found a better/more accurate method. The difficulty with photogrammetry is the distortion of the camera, and getting the "exact" right overhead angle for your shot, which only exists in the Platonic realm of the ideal universe. So perhaps 1-2mm accuracy range is as close as one can get without access to a digital scan of a film-used original.
 
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Here is Proportionality Trick #3 in case you've become as obsessed with proper proportionality...

SKMBT_C652-17091808310.jpg

This should be useful in helping you figure out a.) how long to extend your neck and b.) how long to make your T-struts.
 
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