X-Wing Red Leader
as seen in STAR WARS "a new hope"

STAR WARS with all vehicles, characters, names and designs is © 1977-2004 Lucasfilm Ltd.

Improving Fine Molds 1:48 X-Wing Fighter

Fine Molds goes 1/48 and so I got myself a few of these kits. Although the detail was quite good I found a lot of things that need to be changed. Fine Molds only gave the possibility of making Luke's Red 5 - but these X-Wings are seen so often... Red Leader was my choice.

Necessarily a lot of reseach had to be done because every of the 4 famous X-Wings had their own feature and special detail.

click on each pic to get a hi-res image:

	Cockpit modified, seat layed back and pilot a bit deeper in his chair...
	port side
	stern above view
	perfect side view, with my modified AMT X-Wing in background
	Although the official R2-unit of Red Leader had a different head, the one that was used while filming the Red one model had a round dark red head with white stripes
	starboard view
builing process:	The complete fuselage has to be made thicker by given an extra mm on each side and bending the upper fuselage by about 1,5mm at the cockpit area. Reinforcement stripes added.
	The engine nozzles were given a new "haircut" and shortened by 1,5mm (picture shows original length)
	The nose intake needed a corrections as well
	R2-unit cut from the part and attached in different position
	canopy was cut, re-shaped and fit to the body
	in addition to the intake-mod, the nose had to be become more flat and lengthened.
	I decided to cut the wings because the needed to be attached to the body differently.
	fine molds designed the air intakes nicely, but also slighly wrong. So new detail was added.
	additional detail and raised stripes on the Saturn V part
	Red markings and other areas painted on
	painted parts, ready for weathering and damage...