Estes Maxi Brute X-Wing Fighter

[James Duffy]

Supremely impressed with your detailing here! Mine will most definitely be more "launch pad distance" viewable.

You're far too kind, sir! Seriously, anyone can do this stuff. There's no magic here, just a lot of time.

Do you know where the Cg is supposed to be on a stock build? I'm pondering a rear eject with E18 or E20 boost and am concerned about shifting the Cg too far back.

No idea, frankly. If I decide to fly this thing someday I'll be sure to share that info.

I noted that we're doing a replica of the Red 1 filming miniature. This has a unique variation in the fin flash markings in that the lower wings are marked as Red 3, not Red 1. Why is this? We can only speculate, but a good guess is that this hero model either appeared on-screen as Red 3 at some point, or a shot was planned and not completed. This is supported by the fact that two of the three stripes on the lower wings are a slightly different shade of red, indicating that they were masked and painted at a different time. So, that's what we are going to do. Here's a shot of the filming miniature from the Heritage Auctions website. Note the variation in color between the fin flash stripes.



First step is to mask the lower wings. Recently I found a six-pack of graduated masking tape on Amazon ranging from 2mm through 6mm widths, and the stuff has been great for tasks such as this.



The paint is a mixture of our X-Wing red, mixed 50/50 with some Tamiya X-6 Orange acrylic, applied with our trusty airbrush.



The variation in tone is just subtle enough to make for an interesting conversation!

The lower right wing also has a panel that is similar to a zinc chromate green, perhaps to represent a repair to the craft. This is easily masked and painted using some Tamiya XF-4 Yellow Green acrylic, cut 60/40 with X-2 White to modulate the tone a bit.



More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

The underside of the fuselage on our X-Wing has a number of panels that are a slightly darker grey than the base color, again perhaps representative of an in-universe repair. We'll replicate that with some XF-80 Royal Light Gray acrylic. We start with the masking, because one cannot finish with the masking. (That would be bad.) Note that some liquid mask has been randomly applied to distress the panels.



The paint is applied, and the masking removed.



More later,
James

 

[neil_w]

We start with the masking, because one cannot finish with the masking.

Words to live by!

 

[Azamiryou]

You're far too kind, sir! Seriously, anyone can do this stuff. There's no magic here, just a lot of time.

Once when I had made something as a gift for my brother and he praised it, I demurred that it was simple, anyone could do it. His response: "Maybe anyone could, but you did."

Regardless of the magic or lack thereof, I want to thank you for this thread. I am really enjoying seeing it step by step and look forward to the final result. Not only are you spending "just a lot of time" on this build, you are also taking the time to take pictures and write up your process to share.

I have no doubt your efforts are appreciated by far more of us than have commented or clicked "like" on these posts.

 

[James Duffy]

More progress! There is a painted and distressed area at the base of each of the laser cannons that we can paint with the same XF-23 Light Blue acrylic that we used on the turbines and canopy frame. Liquid masking material is used for the distressed effect.



The masking is removed, et voila!



As a reminder, the liquid masking technique being used here is shown at the 41:10 point of this video, originally presented during the 2021 vNARCON event:

Our next task is to paint the interior forward void/face of the turbines with a dark "go away" color, in this case XF-69 NATO Black acrylic. The exterior of each turbine is masked, along with the leading edge of the T-shaped bit.



The paint is applied, allowed to settle a few minutes, and the masking can then be removed.



More later,
James

 

[cwbullet]

Subscribed. I loved this kit.

 

[James Duffy]

The upper nose of Red 1 has a very distinctive combination of squeaky clean panels right next to a section filthy with smoke damage. We might intuit that an explosion took place deep in the nose, blowing the panels off. During repair, the missing panels were replaced with fresh, new sheet metal. (At least that's the head canon I've developed.) Here's a view of this detail from the filming miniature as shown on the Heritage Auctions website.



Since our model is already squeaky clean and yet to be adequately befouled, we can mask off the clean section and spray some dark paint to represent the smoke damage.



Next, we can shoot some NATO black to represent the smoke damage. I used my Tamiya airbrush for this, as it has a much narrower spray pattern than the medium to wide patterns of the two Paasche SI brushes on hand.



Here's how this looks with the masking removed.



Not bad! The true test will be when we integrate this with the remaining weathering. The little tiny square dark bits shown on the filming miniature will be replicated with decals, not paint.

More later,
James

 

[novahobbies]

This.......is outstanding.

 

[James Duffy]

The early stages of weathering have started, and we'll cover that in a later post (probably multiple posts, actually). As that process began it dawned on me that the side of the fuselage between the wing roots was crying out for some additional detail.

The hero models that appeared on camera used card stock bent into a simple accordion shape in order to accommodate the wing actuation, and the pyro models seemed to have skipped any detail in the wing root area entirely. To accurately reproduce the accordion shapes would require cutting into the fuselage, which would be a Bad Thing on a model for which we wish to retain a flight capability. Instead, I imagined a sawtooth patterned cover arrangement that might have been used on a factory fresh X-Wing to cover the accordion bits. Hey, it works in my head canon...

The first step was to measure the area and create a pattern in Illustrator for the part. The original plan was to scribe this, but it occurred to me that a thin styrene part would not only be easier, but would add some dimensionality to the area. The pattern is attached below.

Our next step was to scribe the forward and aft boundaries of the interwing area, This was done using the same scribing process described earlier in this thread, using Dymo tape to guide our scribing tools.



Our pattern is taped to a scrap of .010" thick styrene sheet and cut out. A score line is lightly scribed on the chine line and gently bent to gently match the contour of the fuselage.



The part can then be attached to the interwing area with thin Tamiya cement between the scribe lines.



This has been masked and sprayed with AS-20 Insignia White lacquer off-camera to match the rest of the fuselage.

More later,
James

EDIT: Here's a shot of one of the installed and painted details ready to be made grungy.

 

[Art Upton]

More progress! There is a painted and distressed area at the base of each of the laser cannons that we can paint with the same XF-23 Light Blue acrylic that we used on the turbines and canopy frame. Liquid masking material is used for the distressed effect.

View attachment 607873 View attachment 607874

The masking is removed, et voila!

View attachment 607875

As a reminder, the liquid masking technique being used here is shown at the 41:10 point of this video, originally presented during the 2021 vNARCON event:

Our next task is to paint the interior forward void/face of the turbines with a dark "go away" color, in this case XF-69 NATO Black acrylic. The exterior of each turbine is masked, along with the leading edge of the T-shaped bit.

View attachment 607879

The paint is applied, allowed to settle a few minutes, and the masking can then be removed.

View attachment 607881 View attachment 607882

More later,
James

I have always wondered how an X-wing Space Fighter could use Turbines

Nice thread and work James, now what about the Galactica Fighters, how did they work in space?

 

[James Duffy]

A number of individual panels on the model have been masked and painted with a slightly different grey (Tamiya XF-80 Royal Light Gray) in an effort to make things a bit less monolithic.

This is on the interior surface of the lower left wing. Note that a bit of liquid mask dabbed randomly with a scrap of sponge has been applied to each of these locations for a weathered appearance.



A pair on panels on either side of the aft fuselage:



A pair of spots on either side of the droid strip:



This is a pair of diagonal stripes just aft of the cockpit:



A random simulated repair on the belly near the underside hatch:



More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

The droid strip is perhaps the weakest part of the Estes kit. This stands in stark contrast to the droid strip supplied with the NCR X-Wing kit, which is an exceptionally well-detailed injection molded part. If cost and complexity were no obstacle the ideal approach would be to cut the droid strip away from the blow-molded late '70s Estes airframe, and replace it with the injection molded bit from the NCR kit. We're not going to do that.

Instead, we're going to paint the Estes droid strip several layers deep. The first step is to mask off the strip and paint it with Tamiys XF-53 Neutral grey. Next, the paint was cut 50/50 with XF-2 Flat White, and the high points were picked out to create some contrast and deep shadows. Finally, selected shadows were picked out with XF-64 Red Brown to match the rusty bits found on the filming miniature.



Here's the current state of the strip, which will get hit with a dirty wash later. The R2 unit will be one of the last things we paint, and I have no idea how to do that yet.



More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

The interwing area is the next to be painted. This mechanism strikes me as being subject to a great deal of in-universe wear, maintenance, and general filth. It will also be largely hidden from view after the wings are installed.

After masking our first step is to paint some simulated rust in vertical stripes, as I imagine the wing open-close cycle would produce wear in that direction. The fine-point Tamiya single action airbrush is being used here. Masking the sawtooth part we installed a few steps back was probably unnecessary.



Next, we can layer in some XF-53 Neutral Grey in vertical stripes.



Additional vertical stripes are added to simulate wear and lubrication, and the masking is removed. I may add some dirty black wash in a later step.



More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

All through this project I have dreaded the task of masking and painting the tiny little R2 unit. There's a combination of curves, circles, gaps, undulations, speed bumps, and whoohoos that's taunted me throughout the three years since we started, but today was the day we attacked this particular challenge. Guess what? It was a breeze!

The key, it seems was using an old draftsman's circle template. According to my calipers the diameter of our R2 unit is 25/32", just a whisper more than 3/4", so we used that circle on the template to cut out a circle of masking tape (sorry, no photo).



The cut mask was sliced in half to mask the forward and aft end of the R2, and additional tape was placed over the shoulders of the astromech unit. Overspray masks were taped around that, and the droid was painted with a couple coats of Tamiya TS-17 Gloss Aluminum spray lacquer.



After a few minutes the masking materials were removed, and the results were perfect! The R2 will eventually be completed by applying detail decals.



More later,
James

 

[Mugs914]

The interwing area is the next to be painted. This mechanism strikes me as being subject to a great deal of in-universe wear, maintenance, and general filth. It will also be largely hidden from view after the wings are installed.

After masking our first step is to paint some simulated rust in vertical stripes, as I imagine the wing open-close cycle would produce wear in that direction. The fine-point Tamiya single action airbrush is being used here. Masking the sawtooth part we installed a few steps back was probably unnecessary.

View attachment 608964

Next, we can layer in some XF-53 Neutral Grey in vertical stripes.

View attachment 608962

Additional vertical stripes are added to simulate wear and lubrication, and the masking is removed. I may add some dirty black wash in a later step.

View attachment 608963

More later,
James

Hi James, brilliant work as always!

For what it is worth, a graphite pencil makes very convincing scuffs/scratches when weathering panels that have a tendency to rub against each other. Different grades can be used, but I find HB to be about right. Softer can be a bit messy and harder is a bit too light. Goes best over a matte or satin finish obviously.

Might look pretty cool on the interwing surfaces...

(HB used on the tail of this A-4M Skyhawk to simulate scuffing due to stab trim.)

 

[neil_w]

(HB used on the tail of this A-4M Skyhawk to simulate scuffing due to stab trim.)

View attachment 609019

That… is incredible.

As is James’s build. Normally I advocate that all rockets be flown at least once, but I think I might be willing to make an exception here. I cannot imagine the pucker factor of sending this one up.

That said, if it does fly, then that’ll just take it all to the next level… if there even is a next level from here.

 

[James Duffy]

Viewers may have noticed hints of this work in recent posts, but the weathering process is well underway. A range of various dirty colors have been strategically applied to the model parts with an airbrush, using our photos of the Red Leader hero model from the auction site. Dark grey, red-brown, and buff (a light tan) have all been used.

Here are the outer and inner wing surfaces:



Multiple views of the fuselage:




The turbine assemblies:



...and the turbine extensions:



All of these components will now be sprayed with Tamiya TS-13 Gloss Clear lacquer, which will provide a slippery transparent base onto which various washes can be applied. The hard gloss surface will also give us a good surface for applying decals.

More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

Much progress on weathering has taken place over the past few days using an assortment of panel line accent colors. These are essentially very thin enamel paints that are selectively applied to details on the model. After the accent dries, most of it is removed using q-tips dampened in enamel paint thinner.



I won't dig into the specifics of the process as there are plenty of great tutorial videos available on YouTube. The important thing is that you want to use dissimilar paints for the base colors from the accent colors that you use on top, as you would not want the thinners used for removing and modifying the accent layer to damage the underlying layers. In our case, we covered the acrylic layers with a clear gloss lacquer topcoat. Used sparingly the enamel thinner will not damage the lacquer coat.

Here's a view of one of the wings just after the panel line accent was applied. Note that this is not perfect, and there are many spots where the accent leaked out of the panel lines.



A moistened q-tip is used to clean up the excess. Here's a view of the wings after the cleanup process.



Here are the turbine assemblies. In general, black panel line accent was used one and near the turbines, while brown accent was used everywhere else. A mix of both black and brown was used on the aft bulkhead, droid strip, and selected areas of the turbines.



Here are the four sides of the fuselage.





The aft bulkhead turned out well. This is probably the best single molded component in our 45-year-old Estes kit. The Sherman tank genesis of the assembly is clearly visible.



Our next step will be to apply a great deal of chipping to the model, adding damage to the nose, leading edges, canopy, and high wear areas. We also need to do some detail painting on the laser cannons and turbine extensions, and weather those components. Decal work also remains to be done.

The end is in sight!

More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

The laser cannon bodies are relatively clean up to this point. There is one bit of detail painting that we need to complete before weathering the components, and that is to airbrush the cooling vanes at the forward end of the component with XF-69 NATO Black acrylic. This was a bitch of a mask job, and I regret not taking a photo of the installed tape. Sorry about that.



Fun fact: the vane parts are actual electronic heat sink parts on the filming miniatures, and are apparently still available if you know what to look for.

More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

Decal application has started on the fuselage. This is a really fun process, largely because there is no one standard decal pattern, much like no two hero or pyro models had identical paint schemes, kit bash parts, or panel lines. Apparently the managers at ILM handed out unpainted castings and some sweet c. sativa, pointed to the pile of donor kits and decals, and said "go."

Fortunately, I was able to locate a great set of studio scale X-Wing decals on Etsy, offered by a very gifted artist who researched the markings used for the digital models used in "Rogue One." Some of these markings go all the way back to the original trilogy, and more were added during the production of the Special Edition films in the late '90s. The text markings are an unusual mix of English and the in-universe Aurebesh alphabet. At only $18 these decals are a tremendous value.



Regrettably, the Etsy-sourced set did not come with any placement guide, meaning that photo references become very valuable at this point. Fortunately, the marking guide from the Bandai kit is a great help.



A close examination of the Red 1 photos shows that the most numerous markings are simple, tiny, black squares and rectangles. The Etsy set has a number of these, but not nearly enough. To provide an ample supply of these little boogers a sheet of these shapes was whipped up in Illustrator and printed on the inkjet. Some simple R2 dome artwork (courtesy of Kevin Johnson) was added to this sheet.



Again, these markings are everywhere on the Red 1 model, easily in excess of a hundred. We'll start installation of these on the fuselage.



A number of the Etsy decals have also been added to the laser cannon bodies, guided by the Bandai marking instructions.



This is going to take a while.

More later,
James

 

[cls]

Nice work. You'll be a multi millionaire soon. The missing X Wing prop just sold at auction for $3.1million

 

[James Duffy]

Decal application has consumed much of my hobby attention this past week, along with some unusually dramatic Championship Series action, in both leagues. By a rough estimation there are north of 250 individual decal elements on the model at this point. (Am I done with the decal process? I think so, yes.)

Here are some views of the fuselage. Note that all of the data plates use the in-universe Aurebesh alphabet, rather than the English aircraft data plates used for the Original Trilogy. This places our model in the Rogue One/Battle of Scarif era. The torpedo tubes turned out particularly well, no? The tape covering the cockpit windows will stay in place until after the final matte finish is applied.



The laser cannon barrels have also been weathered with a grungy Cobainesge patina, and decals added.



There aren't many non-paint markings on the wings, but here is a view of the upper surface of the upper wings.



The turbine extensions have also been thoroughly assaulted with both black and brown panel line color.



The R2 unit has been started. The auction images show either an empty R2 socket, or a simple silver unit without the iconic six-segment pattern. I tried to use a decal here using KJ's art, but the surface is just too round to apply a credible marking in that manner. Instead, I've decided to try painting this detail in a neutral dark color. Here's the first step, a simple dot representing the central element. This was cut from Tamiya tape using a drafting circle template as a guide.



More later,
James

 

[mjennings]

Absolutely fantastic work!

 

[rcktnut]

Outstanding!! If it were my build it would have had the brand new fresh off the assembly line look!

 

[James Duffy]

Managed to get a bit more progress done on the R2 unit. The process was pretty simple, just mask off the six segments with 2mm wide tape, then cap off the top with a circle of tape slightly larger than the dot we've already painted. With that in place a larger circle mask is used to define the bottom of each of the six segments. Easy, no?



This is then sprayed with XF-69 NATO Black. We want our R2 unit to be as generic as possible. This was sprayed with a very fine pattern, and straight down over the dome, as we wanted to minimize the possibility of paint seeping under the masking material.



After allowing the paint to settle for a few moments the masking is removed.



More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

After gazing at the R2 unit overnight I've decided that the painted markings are simply too large, and the whole thing needs to be repainted. Fortunately, it is easy to remove Tamiya acrylics with a Q-tip moistened with a bit of Windex. The technique used proved to be sound, so the approach for the repaint will be the same, albeit a bit tinier.

The central dot of the marking is a 1/4" circle, again cut using a drafting circle template.



The radial strips were cut from a strip of Tamiya tape, and are about a millimeter wide. The central overmask is 9/32", and the outer mask is 17/32".



The final result here is much more appropriately sized than the original effort. I'll add some decal markings to the R2 dome from the Etsy set to finish out the look.



More later,
James

 

[James Duffy]

Time to apply some chipping to our model. This is a very simple technique, as long as one has the restraint to avoid overdoing it. A small scrap of irregularly torn foam rubber is dipped into a small puddle of paint (Tamiya XF-82 Ocean Gray 2 (RAF), in this case). Most of the paint is then blotted off onto a piece of paper, leaving just a tiny bit of paint on the corners of the torn foam rubber. That is then lightly tapped onto the corners of the model, leaving behind very realistic looking chips of paint.



Some logic needs to be exercised when using this technique, applying more chips to high wear areas such as the nose and the canopy.



Some areas on the canopy were lightly hit with a brown shade to simulate rust, or whatever the equivalent of rust is in the Star Wars universe. (Note the little eye decal on the R2 unit, which is new!) We are rapidly speeding toward the completion of this project, and should be done within a week.

I was chatting with a guy at a model show a couple of weeks ago, and we noted that the key to building Star Wars models is to paint them like aircraft, but to weather them like tanks.

More later,
James

 

[kjohnson]

After gazing at the R2 unit overnight I've decided that the painted markings are simply too large, and the whole thing needs to be repainted. Fortunately, it is easy to remove Tamiya acrylics with a Q-tip moistened with a bit of Windex. The technique used proved to be sound, so the approach for the repaint will be the same, albeit a bit tinier.

The central dot of the marking is a 1/4" circle, again cut using a drafting circle template.

View attachment 611069 View attachment 611070

The radial strips were cut from a strip of Tamiya tape, and are about a millimeter wide. The central overmask is 9/32", and the outer mask is 17/32".

View attachment 611071 View attachment 611072

The final result here is much more appropriately sized than the original effort. I'll add some decal markings to the R2 dome from the Etsy set to finish out the look.

View attachment 611073

More later,
James

James,
Your paint marking for the R2 unit ended up looking great. FWIW, I would have cut the decals into individual segments and placed them one at a time instead of a single unit. Maybe that would have been too much faffery?

kj

 

[techrat]

The attention to detail here is beyond outstanding. You're really planning on flying this thing? I've never put this much work into a plastic display model. Although, I have watched some youtube videos where people spend what look like weeks overdetailing a Space 1999 Eagle so that it looks like the real studio model, and I have been tempted. Maybe one day....

 

[James Duffy]

James,
Your paint marking for the R2 unit ended up looking great. FWIW, I would have cut the decals into individual segments and placed them one at a time instead of a single unit. Maybe that would have been too much faffery?

I tried exactly that approach. Unfortunately, the curvature of the dome was still too tight for the decals to conform, even after using every decal softening solution I had at my disposal, including MicroSol, Solvaset, and Tamiya Mark Fit Strong, the name of which amuses me greatly. If the decals had been silkscreened I suspect this approach would have worked, as screen decals tend to be thinner than the inkjet markings I'm using.

The "eye" on the front of the dome worked because the decals from the Etsy vendor are much thinner (laser printed, perhaps?), and the curve eases out at that point.