This is basically a repost of my post on the Rebelscum.com (Star Wars toy collecting website) customising forum, so apologies to anyone here who also visits that website and therefore sees this twice!
Anyway - My X-Wing rebuild project is finally completed! This is the second ship in my large-scale "rebuilt toy" collection, the first being the Ep1 Droid Starfighter, and also features my first customised figure (the pilot)
It's based on the toy X-Wing (1995 POTF2 Hasbro re-issue of the vintage Kenner ship), which I bought second-hand for a couple of pounds, missing its cockpit canopy and wing guns! I dismantled the model completely, removed the stickers and electronics, and rebuilt it into the model you see here.
Unfortunately I couldn't get the wing "S-foil" system to work properly, something must have got broken during the process of disassembly and the wings just wouldn't stay open! So I resorted to removing the mechanism and gluing the wings in the open position. Not really accurate for a landed X-Wing (AFAIK) but it just doesn't look like an X-Wing with the wings closed IMHO!
The cockpit interior, canopy, and wing guns are completely scratchbuilt. Also added are a couple of details to the R2 unit, some pipework on the engine exhausts/boosters, and some "skids" to the rear undercarriage tabs.
It's a credit to the designers of the original, 25-year-old toy that I didn't need to add any more external details! Most of the X-Wing's panel lines and surface details are already present.
The cockpit interior (made from styrene card, plus assorted plastic washers and bits from my spares box) is based on the drawings in the Dorling Kindersley "Incredible Cross-Sections" book. It includes an accurately-shaped seat, a joystick, rudder pedals, and plenty of assorted dials, screens and panels!
It doesn't show up too well on the photographs, but with the canopy hinged up, almost all of the cockpit detail is clearly visible - it's certainly not "lost" like interior details on model aircraft/spacecraft often are.
I'd like to have added some removable panels to show interior details such as the engines, missile/torpedo racks, shield generator, life support system etc. However the plastic is so thick that cutting out the panels would be completely impossible (I don't have a Dremel-type power tool unfortunately).
The ship was painted with both Tamiya and Citadel/Games Workshop acrylics. The colour scheme represents a generic "Red Squadron" X-Wing, not based on any particular ship in the films. I weathered it heavily, with both scuffed paint and black scorch marks, to represent a battered, well-used ship which has seen plenty of combat service but not much in the way of repainting!
The pilot figure is an old Kenner Luke X-Wing pilot figure, completely repainted. No modifications other than cleaned up mould seams and plenty of putty to fill in the articulated joints!
Whilst less detailed, many of the old Kenner figures are actually more realistically proportioned than the newer figures, and many of the more common types are actually cheaper than new figures, when missing their packaging and accessories (and loose non-vintage SW figures seem to be rather hard to find, either on Ebay or at second-hand sales).
An alternative source for a pilot figure could have been a suitably modified modern jet pilot, but I'm not sure how many 1/24 modern pilot figures, if any, exist! (The only 1/24 post-war kit I can think of is the Airfix Harrier)
The pilot doesn't actually fit into the cockpit, unfortunately, as his legs are too long - or rather, the rudder pedals are too close to the seat (in any case, his legs are glued solid and filled in with putty!)
Like the ship, he isn't really meant to represent any particular character, just a generic Rebel pilot.
There are a number of aspects of the ship that I now think could have done with improving, such as: lengthening the cockpit interior so that the pilot's legs can actually fit in it; raising the R2 unit to the correct height (which would also allow for more detail to be added to it); proper rear undercarriage legs (which would also allow the ship to "sit" properly) a better-fitting cockpit canopy; a replacement for the solid moulded rear canopy; and so on.
However it was my first complete rebuild project (the Droid Fighter was basically just a repaint, as I didn't add any
extra details) and I hope to do even better with future projects such as the Y-Wing, Gunship and Jedi Starfighter.
Despite all the other things I'd like to have added, and the relatively inaccurate dimensions of the toy X-Wing (which I didn't correct), I'm really pleased with the X-Wing. It looks really impressive I think - the size, detail level and paintwork more than make up for its lack of scale accuracy.
It's certainly a lot more impressive than the rather mediocre snap-together AMT/ERTL kit, a lot cheaper than a limited-production studio-scale kit, and I had plenty of fun rebuilding and repainting it!