Topic: Finished! B-Wing teardown and lighting/kitbash/ect...

[TheBoo]

Hey all!
Ok, finished up the B-Wing project.  This one wasn't nearly as involved as the AT-IC or the Tydirium, but did bring some new challenges to learn on.
I think it was towards the beginning of doing these that I did a B-wing, and it's cool to look at what I've learned and how I've gotten better.  The original B from back in the day lives with a collector in Greece now. I think this winter I might do another classic TIE...
Here's a video of the final thing with the animated cockpit lights.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="

frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So anyways, I'm missing a few pics, but I started with kitbashing and scoring the panels of the ship, and taking the cockpit apart. I had a friend score me a ton of model kits to kitbash with, but it was hard not to do too much.  Just little detail touches.




After that, I ran a few dozen fiber optic lights, separated into bundles and CRAMMED them into the cockpit. It was much tighter than the forber cramped champ, the Interceptor. Also kitbashed the hell out of it. (I only have the pics of this on instagram)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BihNxJmBQY7/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiaZTY8hFQh/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjVES2tF5vs/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Then it was a rough assembly and lighting test...

https://www.instagram.com/p/BineRYJlfqI/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Next up was getting the wiring sorted out, and starting base coats and detail painting. had to work backwards in some places because of the way assembly was going to go.






So by this point, it's assembled, and all that's left to do is scratchbuild the wing guns (out of plastic and aluminum and copper tubes) and weathering.



After that, a few nips, tucks, and some waterslide decals from other kits and it's done!  The power hookup looks like a greeblie, so i can have it standalone or hook up wall power to it.

[Tamer]

You can read more of my comments on the front page and our facebook page. You sure do know to build thats for sure. It looks brilliant.

[(SID)]

Looks really great. b-wing is always a top favorite of mine. This honestly  looks soo good it makes me wonder/think was lucasfilm never just hot rod the toys instead of CGI I mean it has to be cheaper and faster 😉

[StenHunter]

Hey there, 
What color and type of paint are you using for your base coat here? Amazing work man!

[Darth More]

I think studio models from ILM/Lucasfilm are the holy grail for many fans. Projects like these always earn my highest respect because they look exactly like these studio models, just in a different size and scale. Apart from all the incredible wiring you did, the paint job on both the B-Wing looks amazing! I cannot imagine this concept look any better. I can only omagine all the LEDs you integrated into the cockpit, but looking at the picture my favourite detail are the turbine engines!
It just looks stunning - especially with the lights on the display stand.

Also the pictures you took are stunning talking about detail and sharpness!

Thanks for sharing your inspiring work!

- Philipp

[TheBoo]

Hey there, 
What color and type of paint are you using for your base coat here? Amazing work man!

Hoooooo boy, is that a (short) story....
Well, it had been awhile since I had done a rebel ship (X-Wing), and I had always used this kind of Valspar "riviera dune" from Lowes that would apply beautifully, but was a pain in the ass to season and get it to accept weathering. Well, when it came time to start the B-Wing, I went back for another can.  And they had discontinued ALL of the Valspar aerosol paints. Crap!
So, I ended up finding this Rustoleum spray, I think it's "french cream". It applies like dogshit, and you have to really baby the application. But it seasons much better, and saves time on the weathering.  I find that a cream color will season and weather back to the perfect rebel ship color. I use AS-16 for the Imperial stuff like Walkers.
The blue squad designation color is a color of that Valspar brand. It's just the right color, and I've used it on my TIE ships, and if you tint it just right it'll turn into the perfect TIE color.  I think I have juuuuust enough to do one more classic TIE.

[TheBoo]

I think studio models from ILM/Lucasfilm are the holy grail for many fans. Projects like these always earn my highest respect because they look exactly like these studio models, just in a different size and scale. Apart from all the incredible wiring you did, the paint job on both the B-Wing looks amazing! I cannot imagine this concept look any better. I can only omagine all the LEDs you integrated into the cockpit, but looking at the picture my favourite detail are the turbine engines!
It just looks stunning - especially with the lights on the display stand.

Also the pictures you took are stunning talking about detail and sharpness!

Thanks for sharing your inspiring work!

- Philipp

Thanks so much for the kind words!

When I got started Making, I built props from my favorite movies. I was really inspired by Adam Savage, and thought, well, if I want that particular prop, it's either gonna be thousands of dollars, or a lot of learning and hard work. And it was so much fun!

I started doing these ships because I remember seeing the behind-the-scenes making of the original trilogy as a kid, and wanted one of those filming models sooooo bad. A friend of mine is a Comic Book and Maquette artist named Andy Price (MLP), and I was gonna commission him to paint me up an AT-AT, but I figured I'd try and learn to do it myself. So after practicing on other projects, I tried my first one, which was a snowspeeder. Learned a lot, and on the next one I applied what i had learned, but tried to add something new, like lighting. The first B-wing I did had a cut up piece of strip LED lighting, which didn't work super well, but I hadn't learned how to do Fiber optic and my own wiring.  So, the next one, i tried to learn to do that. And so on and so on, trying to be better than the last.

I thing the next ship I'm gonna do is a Classic TIE, but first I have to build a full-size Tom Servo for my wife. After that, not sure, but i still need to do an A-Wing, and I think I'll spend the cash for a really nice Studio scale Y-Wing kit, or if I have my own FormLabs2 printer, I'll use that.

Oh, and the inner cone details on the engines?  Those are faucet aerators! Just happened to run across some ones with a cool pattern

[Darth More]

- It's who?

- It's TheBoo that knocks you off the chair!


Your customs are truly AMAZING!


- Cheers!