Blue Squadron X-wing

Did someone say bandwagon? Because im jumping on it. Despite not having seen a star wars film sice the early 2000's I do love the ship designs.

Its been a few months since ive been able to really sit down and work on a kit and having set up a brand new work space I set myself a challenge: Do something completely new, here it is.

BANDAI's 1/72 X-wing

This kit actually comes with 2 whole X-wings, a 1/72 And a 1/144 scale. A really great value for ~30 dollars.

My color palette in order of appearance.

The kit is standard bandai abs plastic so bondene is the gold standard for seam welding it.

Its primed with Alclad grey and then the panel lines are sprayed with tamiya smoke to pre shade.

The base color is Tamiya XF-80 Royal Light Grey, Contrast panels are Tamiya XF-54 Dark Sea Grey, XF-59 Desert Yellow, and Tamiya X-4 Blue.

All metallics are based in Alclad gloss black base, The engines are buffed with UvR Steel, And the turbines are Model Master Anthracite and Stainless Steel respectively.

Quite a bit of masking was required but it wasnt very difficult to do.

The blue and yellow wing details were masked with stickers that come with the kit. The stickers are very low tack and easy to remove which leads me to believe bandai intended them for that purpose.

Gotta love that metallic effect. Buffing powder is the way to go for mechanical details.

Some additional details hand painted on. Im a bit sad that you cant see the engines very well after assembly.

Rear hatch detailed with a dry brush of acrylic silver.

With that done I move on to a pin wash and weathing.

Im using MiG blue/black pin wash and various streaking grimes. For discoloration im using 502 Abteilung star ship filth and dark rust as well as some generic brand oil paints from michaels.

The difference is astounding, it really blew me away how easy it is to convey a sense of weight through grime and dirt.

At this point I also detailed the pilot. He is painted completely with Citadel paints,.

He even came with tiny little water slides for those rebel scum insignias.

The last bit of work was the base, it was completely smooth so I added some panel lines and styrene details. Im definitely still learning when it comes to scribing but im decently happy with the result.

And thats about it for building the kit. Enjoy the photo gallery!