Blue Leader X-Wing

Started with the Wing assemblies. Mix of kit parts and upgrades. 

Filled the holes in the fuselage for the stand as I won't be using the wobbly stand that comes with the kit but something else that I've yet to make up 😄 

One-Shot Grey Primer on the cockpit, pilot and droid. 

One-Shot Grey Primer on the wings. 

Pilot and Droid painted up as General Antoc Merrick and R2-SHW  

On to the cockpit. Gets a coat of Light Grey 

Detail Painting and drybrushed with Metallic Steel. 

Made some custom decals for General Merrick and clear coated everything with Satin varnish. 

Added the pilot to the cockpit. 

Sprayed the wings with White-Grey then hand painted the engine exhausts with Anthracite Grey and in the intakes Black. Engine detail under the wings has a really thin coat of Metallic Jet Exhaust. Panel is yellow and the square is Panzer Dark Grey. I took off the laser cannons as they made it really difficult to handle (and fit in the spray booth) I'll fit them back on later. 

Another view of the wings so you can see the intakes. 

Aftermarket decals from OWModels ( etsy.com/uk/listing/..er-star-wars-x?sca=1 ) added to one wing. They're 1/48 scale but are close to scale, I did need to trim and adjust some of them. Here's the view from the bottom. 

and from the top. 

Second wing decals have been completed and the sub-assembly made up and glossed. Ready to fit. 

Fusealge halves were primed with One-Shot Grey and then base coated White-Grey.  

Canopy was masked off 

Canopy had chipping added using liquid mask on a sponge 

Sprayed Dark Blue-Grey and then the liquid mask removed with a pencil eraser. Masking all removed so that's done.  

Had to have a think about how I was going to fix the Cockpit assembly in place as that's Resin and the glueing point is just at the front so mixed up a lump of Milliput and used that. Spacing at the back is with a 2x2 Lego brick 😄. Need to leave it overnight to cure and hope it holds it. 

Moved on to the Droid strip and the rear mechanicals and primed those with One-Shot Black then base coated with a nice dark Metallic - Jet Exhaust.  

Coated both parts in Starship filth oil paint. 

Cleaned up with an old T-Shirt and have left them for a week to dry. 

Well.... that didn't work! The MIlliput stayed soft and flaky so I've scraped it all off and will try again with a fresh box of Milliput. Guessing it goes "off" after 4 years so ordered another one. Hopefully that will be more successful. 

Second time did the charm 😄 Fresh Milliput and it worked this time. 

Cockpit fitted and the pilot is in the right place, so...... 

Time for the fuselage assembly with tape to hold things while it glued. 

Ended up with some gaps but a bit of sanding on the nose and that's worked out fine. 

Same on the sides, I needed to re-glue each side in turn with some sqeezing and a bit of filling ans sanding to get rid of the join ,but.... 

The rear has two big gaps either side as the mechanical resin part must be slightly bigger than the kit part so I'll get the Milliput out again for these. 

Gaps at the rear filled with Milliput and smoothed with water. I'll never make a sculptor 😄 

Covered the wings and gave the sanded/filled sections a quick coat of primer 

All back to the base coat so ready for gloss and decals. 

Decals are all applied 🙂, Here's the left hand side.... 

And the right hand side.... 

And the bottom. 

Knocked up a stand with a 15cm wooden base drilled then painted with Black Primer and glued in a 3mm brass rod 

Matching hole cut in the X-Wing 

And fitted to the base 🙂 That's better than the wobbly clear one that comes with the kit. 

After the Gloss coat over the decals had dried, coated the whole model in Starship Filth oil paint.  

Cleaned it all back with an old T-Shirt and have panel lined, streaked and filtered al in one go 😄 

Close up of the wing so you can see the effect. Need to leave this for a week for the oil piant to dry before more weathering to follow.