ismaelg

Hello, And this one is DONE! First of all, I'm very happy because as of February 20th, I have finished the same number of models I did in the whole year 2022! This is my third completion of the year. This was really a fun project, not a serious one. Not sure if I may have gone a bit overboard with the weathering but in the movie it was really filthy when it was destroyed by none other than Darth Vader himself in his Tie Advance X1 (My first completion of this year). There is no such thing as an "accurate" model of a Star Wars space ship as the movies themselves relied of m

Hello, OK, I can explain. This may look like I blew up R2-D2's head and machined a new R5-series astromech head... And that is exactly what I did 🙂 Thanks, Ismael

Hello, Repeat with me: BOX STOCK... B O X S T O C K So, the laser cannon's arcs in the kit are wrong. They should be vertically oriented, not horizontally. A glaring error. But not that hard to correct. Just cut and rotate 90 degrees. In the process, I cut and added a sleeve ring just for fun. Drilled a small hole to pin them for proper alignment. Thanks, Ismael

Hello, My sister got me this for Christmas. It is the reissued MPC snap-tite Star Wars X-Wing Fighter. The kit is very basic. Almost crude. Not really suited for superdetailing. For that I have the much better but smaller scale (1/72) Bandai X-Wing kit. I also have the old MPC 1/43 X-Wing kit which is bigger, but been AMT we know it is a turd of a kit. I plan to eventually build the Bandai kit as Luke's ship: Red 5. But back to this one: This kit is even simpler than the B-Wing I did last year from the same series. Everybody builds this as Luke's Red 5 (included decals). I

Hello, While more than 90% of this was done in 2022, it was officially finished in 2023. First week of January and I am already at 1/3 of the number of last year's completions. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/uploads/emoticons/default_smile.png Darth Vader's TIE Advanced X1 There are far better kits out there, but I had the old AMT/ERTL kit from 1997 laying around. It is supposed to be 1/36 scale. The molds date back to 1978. This kit has been released a gazillion times as MPC, AMT, ERTL, Revell, Kenner and others. In summary, this i

Hello, Wow! What an excellent build! I missed it the first time around. I found it while researching Red 1. I got a little MPC snap X-Wing reissue for Christmas and I am thinking of building it as Red 1 (Red Leader). Will come back to this one frequently for inspiration on this and other X-Wing projects. Thanks, Ismael

Hello, This one is FINISHED! Honestly, there was really not much interest in this subject in any of the forums I posted it in so I skipped the last few updates. The canopy was a whole project in itself. The cockpit rotates gyroscopically to maintain orientation regardless of the position of the ship (which makes little sense in space as there is no up or down...) Here is the snap toy from 1983. Took it out for a spin. "Locked S-Foils in Attack Position" Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! KABOOM! Hope you like it. Than

Hello, Getting closer to the finish. Lots of fun hand painting this guy: Added an escape T handle, canopy rails, targeting computer, 2 control sticks, a display screen, cabin lights... Painted and detailed the blaster guns An idea on size: Thanks, Ismael

Hello, I understand this topic is not the cup of tea of the forum but I hope you can at least pickup some ideas or get your curiosity going. Now, each one of these is lethal. But all four in a vehicle? That's carrying a punch! Thanks, Ismael

Hello, First burst of color! Two days of masking for 10 minutes of airbrushing. The flat white base is actually primer that was slightly sanded. The gray is Humbrol enamel. Love those little tin cans! The roundels are Corvette (Chevrolet) engine red. There has to be a Corvette reference somewhere! The roundels are not decals. I cut my own in Tamiya wide masking tape. I insist the scheme looks like a japanese zero from WWII, but that's what the references indicate. Started the weathering. You can see the untouched body compared to the wings in process.

Hello, Thank you warhawk121! This model has no "landing gear". Let's not forget this is an MPC snap tite model from 1983 designed to be assembled quickly to play with. So, taking a bit of an artistic license and inspired by the X-wing landing gear, I came up with this: You are looking at 2 days of work here. Aluminum, brass, plastic and lots of determination. Test fitted: Minor tweaking still needed but getting there. Just to put it in perspective: I have to say I'm happy with it so far. I then machined these 2 washer like thingie

Hello, Kit's original design vs my way. The kit calls for the wings to be assembled into the swing axle. That is a problem to work seams and make sure the wings are smooth. So I re-engineered the kit to finish the wings first, then mount on the swing axle. First, the front plate needs to be removed Kit's original instructions: My re-design: Thanks, Ismael

Hello, This part goes at the bottom of the ship. It is supposed to represent another cannon like that ones on the wings and the broken part was supposed to be a Heavy Cannon which is actually longer than the regular one. It is also missing the Precision Targeting Laser. This is getting serious! This sucker is carrying quite a heavy punch! They are out of alignment as these are not fixed in position yet. They'll be straight in the final product. Thanks, Ismael

Hello, SW7A Cannons with their respective Precision Targeting Lasers. (Not yet fixed in place so not perfectly aligned yet) Don't let the beauty fool you. This is a lethal weapons platform. Need to remove the molded ones from the other wing. I think you can tell the difference, can you? Canopy design #9, modified autoblaster Thanks, Ismael

Hello, Can you tell the difference between the box stock and my own brass and aluminum Precision Targeting Laser? It is about 10mm long. The challenge now is to do 2 more identical ones. Also modified the GH72 Autoblaster Next: SW-7A Ion Cannons... Thanks, Ismael