Red 5 X-Wing WIP

Treehugger
Iirc the blaster cannons could use drilled out holes. Might be a little tricky if you aren't used to centering holes properly.

I just realized that I could try use a chrome pen for the R2D2 unit. Some things about using a chrome pen: Rubbs off at a touch of a finger, can be covered with a gloss coat to protect the chrome paint, can be removed with solvent if you aren't careful getting a fully covered surface. Can be difficult to apply on gray plastic because you can hardly see where the chrome is and where the remaining gray plastic is.

Gidge
The back of the blaster canons? Shouldn't be too hard with a hand drill, as there's a nice ridge. Though I'm not sure it's worth it in this scale. I had to take a close look at the reference photo to work out what you were talking about.

SMS make some ideal lacquer metalic paints for R2D2 that's pretty robust. Or are you talking about painting a blue undercoat on the dome, then applying the chrome and rubbing it off the raised sections afterwards?

Mr James
Watching with interest...

Jennifer Franklin
Following 👀

DerMattes
Following 👀

Finn
Will follow

Torsten
👀

Gidge
These decals are HORRIBLE!!!!

Dash Rendar
Oh damn, really? Are they broken easily or why?

Gidge
Just the opposite! Very stiff and rigid, wouldn't soften even with Mark Fit Strong! The carrier film was protruding over the edge of the surfaces and wouldn't bed down. I had to use Tamiya Extra Thin to soften them and make them conform.

I've had different reports from a friend who build the same kit, so your milage may vairy based on the batch.

Dash Rendar
Hmm interesting. I will try to keep this in mind. Hope you can still use them and bend them to your will. Heh.

Gidge
Based on this I plan on only using the decals in the cockpit. I'll mask and paint the exterior details. The only particularly challenging bit looks to be the unit markings but I've got the Green Strawberry masks for that.

Peter de Bruin
These kits have a set of decals and a ser of regular stickers. You sure you had the decals? I have this kit in the stash and the decals look fairly thin. Could of course be a batch thing as well.

Villiers de Vos
Very nice progress.

Gidge
Decals are fairly thin but super ridged. It's like they've tried to make them less fragile after complaints. Kit reviews have very inconsistent opinions of the decals so it's likely they vary greatly from batch to batch.

I tried the stickers for the helmet after stuffing a couple of the stripes (at least they give yous pares). The stickers for the helmet have fuzzy semi opaque clear boarders surrounding the Rebel insignia and the helmet stripe because they're so thin. Most of them do have no exterior clear boarder however. The stickers and decals have quite visibly different colours.

The decals are based on the studio models colour, NOT the way it appears on screen (they had substantial colour shift thanks to early blue screen tech) so that's one thing to keep in mind depending on what you're going for and how important accuracy is to you

Peter de Bruin
Thanks for the info. Will post my experience once I build it

Nicolas
Nice Build so far, joining in.