1/72 Bandai Red 5 X-wing

[mz3]

I started building this a couple of months ago, again like alot of my smaller builds just on the side. Now I'm at the paint and figured I share. I was also inspired by all the X-wing builds posted over the past few months. It's been a very long time since I've built an X-wing.






I'm experimenting again with the pink primer. The base color will be mr. Color Aqueous HUG 01 RX-78-2 Gundam white, which is an extremely light grey.

I have to admit, despite the fact I like building Gundams and other Mecha kits, I've never been a big fan of snap kits. I prefer the Finemold kits, even if they aren't as detailed. I cemented everything on this kit, except the s-foils.

X-wings are my favorite thing in all of sci-fi. So I'm going to put a little more into this one. I've been studying photos of Red 5 for a bit now. I'm not going to try to copy the studio hero models. I just want to make a nice Red 5.

[kyledehart5]

The iconic Red 5. Awesome. I absolutely love these kits and X wings. Looking forward to seeing this one!

[mz3]

First round of paint...




I used my H and S airbrush with the .15 needle to do the panel lines, I CLEARLY need more practice with it. But, I'm not too worried about it since so much of that will be covered/blended in.

The the first layer of Gundam White.

[kyledehart5]

Nice start on the paintwork. Looking good.

[TJ]

The iconic Starfighter of the sci-fi world

[brandonk]

That looks really good. The preshading is showing up just right. Time for some layering.

[benb]

Looking great so far! I love the X-Wing and Y-Wing kits.

Ben

[mz3]

Jul 27, 2024 10:03:13 GMT -5 benb said:

Looking great so far! I love the X-Wing and Y-Wing kits.

Ben

I have a Bandai Y-wing sitting here. I might do that next. I have to steal the droid body from it. This X-wing is the rise of Palpa... excuse me, Skywalker version. It's the exact same kit as the other X-wings, but it has Rey and no body for R2.

[buddho]

Awesome results ..looking fantastic.

[mz3]

Second layer of the gundam white...






Pics are a little bright. There are a few areas I need to fix, there are some numbs I missed on the blasters and a mold line in one of them.

[kyledehart5]

Looking an awful lot like red 5 now. I like the gundam white

[mz3]

Last layer....




I'm not going to use most of the decals. They are very thick and have no chips or weathering on them at all. I finally found a website with with good pics of all angles of a really good model of Red 5. I spent a while last night figuring out all the colors I'll need to finish.




Should be fun. I can get the paint chips I really want on this.

[kyledehart5]

Awesome. Can’t wait to see the color on it and your chipping and weathering. This will be cool.

[mz3]

I wasn't able to get anything done for about the last 2 weeks. At work we are at the end of our summer season and we were taking advantage of a weird situation at the company we subcontract for to make alot of moneys. Sonwe busted our asses for most of the summer.

Anyway, painting has begun...




The yellow is Aqueous gundam yellow HUG 03. I'm not trying to use the gundam colors, the 2 I used just looked the best to me for this project. This yellow seems to be a little more defused then the other yellows I have. I used mr masking sol neo for the chips. The grey is xf-63 greman grey. I'm not completely happy with the way that chipped, but I won't do anything until after I have painted and chipped the rest of the kit. I also think I need to repaint the canopy. It's too grey, I think it needs to be more blueish. The decal sheet is grey, but the pics I'm basing this on is a blue-greyish color.

More to come...

[mz3]

Also...





I really do prefer this kit to the Bandai.

[mz3]

Now that's motivating....







Straight old xf-7 flat red. One tiny mistake to fix. I didn't mask a small part on one of the strips. I also mixed xf-18 medium blue with xf-2 flat white to get a grey-blue color for the canopy. I sprayed over the grey that was there and got a decent color.

I'm trying to get the fuselage done before I start on the S-foils. I have a few more artist license areas to do.

[kyledehart5]

Excellent!! That’s looking great. Lovely paint work.

[mz3]

More...






Nose is pretty much done for now. I went ahead and added some paint back into the red and panzer grey. I used a brush and retarder.

The hard part for me is next. I SUCK at making masks. I've been trying to make the markings on the Sfoils for a couple of nights and can't get them down. You would think putting tape on decals wouldn't be hard. I can get the "L's" down, I just can't seem to get the strips down properly.

[mz3]

Hard part done...


Took me all day, but I got the s foil markings done. They aren't straight or lined upn 100%, but they are close enough.

Little bit of clean up. I left the masks on when I went back over the red to fill in chips and had a small run. Blah



Here it is almost done...






All I have left is the spirals on the blasters, which I will use the decals, I'm not trying to get mad. And painting the cockpit.

I saw a video where a guy said once it looks like a clown it's time to weather. Looks pretty clowny to me...

[kyledehart5]

Ha!! Looks like a clown. Never thought of that but it works. Looking great!

[mz3]

McX-wing

[handiabled]

That's some great weathered paint work!

[mz3]

Last pics of cleanliness...








I did use the decals for the swirls around the laser cannons. Just easier at this point. I sanded then and use a blade to chip then a bit. Final step was adding all the little black marks. I was kind of a pain trying to find pictures of the marks on Red 5. Alot of sites and instructions say the marks are the same for each x-wing in red squadron. But the movie still show they are not. Not even close. Each unit has different black marks all over. So I got as close as I could. I'm sure I missed a few.

Next step is gloss and then weathering.

Forgot, I finished the cockpit...




Bandai's decals are always a bit of a let down. That's why I sprayed everything else. 2 of them didn't fit too well. Not a big deal as they are hard to see and will get a pin wash. Hopefully that will cover them a bit and make them harder to see.

[handiabled]

That really is some fantastically weathered paintwork!

[kyledehart5]

Yes this is brilliant!!

[Medicman71]

It really looks great!

[mz3]

Weathering...






Zippo lighter fluid works amazing as a thinner for washes. I used it with black oil paint. It's thin, it dries quick, it doesn't seem to react with the clearcoat at all.

This is just the first round. I don't want to go as heavy as I've seen others do. The movie stills show that they aren't all that dirty, at least in A New Hope.

I think I take back what I said about preferring the FineMolds version.

[bakster]

That looks great! I have this in my stash. Hope I can do it justice like yours.

[kyledehart5]

Absolutely brilliant. This is looking so good.

[handiabled]

You wash really made the fine detail pop on this! Night and day difference before and after.