atlas

That's very interesting I would appreciate if you were able to share I don't think it's possible to get a fully clear picture by only looking at movie stills. Of course for different scenes there are "1:1" lifesize mockups made for actors to interact with, and there were miniatures for effects shots as I'm sure you know. I think it's fair to discard reference of the on-set mockups for questions of scaling for a few reasons. First, when we try to replicate the ships in our medium we are ultimately referring to the miniatures that were constructed first and foremost. That's where everything flowed from. Second, there are unavoidable incongruences between the lifesize mockups and the miniatures even though they are supposed to depict the same thing. For example the seam between the top and bottom of the X-wing front fuselage in the miniatures is very subtle and only develops a lip at the front, gradually. In the hangar mockup version the lip doesn't graduate in or out and is much more pronounced. Then you have size differences and so on. For example the falcon on the Echo base set is smaller than 1:1 so it could fit. I believe that there are only 2 model types for the X-wing minis. 'Hero' version and 'pyro' version (made to blow up). The fuselage seam on the pyros was vertical rather than horizontal so they could get a better explosion. The only major thing I noticed between the pyros and the Hero models is that the bottom of the fuselage directly under the cockpit has an extra angle. On the Hero models, the bottom has a very gradual single slope from the edge of the "cargo bay" section to the nosecone. On the pyros the bottom is perfectly flat under the cockpit and only starts to slope toward the nosecone near the front of the cockpit. It's basically the same otherwise other than the fact that the wings can't move. See below. Interestingly some of the differences in online 'blueprints' are visible here, even from that sourcebook I think you mentioned, one blueprint has this flat fuselage bottom under the cockpit and other reproductions don't have it. Even the UCS "Red 5" features markings of the Red 5 CGI model from the special edition which are completely different to the miniature built 20 years beforehand for whatever reason. The whole thing is a mess. So again, in this situation I discarded using the pyro red 5 model as a reference in favour of the hero red 5 model when i was working on my moc, as the Hero model is the most "true" version of the X-wing as it was conceived and finally produced by ILM. Without all of this knowledge I would have a much less clear picture of the work I was referencing in my moc and potentially could have made (inadvertent) mistakes - if I couldn't tell the difference between a pyro and a hero in different movie stills there could be inconsistencies in my lego work. In short my point is that it's best to research every aspect to get a complete overview of the work being referenced so it can be reproduced as faithfully as possible. If I only used movie stills I would have no idea how the right side of the red 5 fuselage is coloured and weathered, but I do thanks to other sources and media. Obviously with CGI models it's a different problem because there is no physical reference, the origin point is digital. For example in your comparison of the stormtrooper to the FO TIE fighter, we're looking at a chopped up image of a movie still of a movie featuring digitial models, and it's made more difficult by camera angles and the fact that it seems that the guy appears to be a good 10-15 metres and lower than the other object being referenced. Basically a lot of things muddying the waters, hence the requirement for a variety of sources to get the highest possible clarity. In an ideal world we would have access to the 3D scans of the old miniatures that have been made as well as the original CGI assets used in the new movies from Lucasfilm so that no detective work is required. But unfortunately that isn't the case so we have to make do. I think I have a decent collection of reference of studio models which helped me iron out a lot of inconsistences and establish some basic guidelines for the X-wing. (there are also other people who have done far more research than me on this who seem to have been able to pretty much nail it down) I'm curious what you found that you thought was inconsistent?

Wings are quite nice. I like the idea for the cockpit shape but it would be improved a lot if it was a bit smoother.

thanks. I don't think so for a digital build or step by step instructions. As it stands i am still not completely happy with the front, but it's complete for now. Some breakdown or interior images might be easier.

more photos in the pipeline! https://www.flickr.com/photos/atlaser/41379879581/in/dateposted-public/

Man, wow. I can't really see a single thing that's out of place. Keep doing what you're doing, because it's working, regardless of the time it's taking. Like I said, can't wait for it to be completed, it'll be a real sight.

Amazing. The top part looks just like the miniatures. I think you have even included the angled-down seam of the top sides of the fuselage behind the cockpit. Never seen anyone try that before - granted this thing is huge, but it's incredibly impressive nonetheless, especially with mostly technic parts. It's going to be beautiful when completed, I'm sure

Interesting, I think it worked out quite well and looks especially good in favourable lighting. What scale did you decide on - did you start with a predetermined length and width according to a general standard or is it specific just to this build? I've decided to go with 4 studs to a metre for my future projects, quite big but i think still reasonable - it comes out to 1:31.25, so essentially 1:32. It seems like this is made to 0.3 metres per stud, is that right?

I modified Bard the bowman's head.

That is a beatiful little build

Nice idea to put the curved slopes side on to fill the gap on the truncated cone sections on the front and back of the hulls. How did you attach those, mini ball joint, clip, something else?

Thank you. to be honest I don't really understand your question. Could you elaborate? When building something like this, my decisions about how to build a part of it are dictated by the source material (the original model) rather than a specific technique. If the best choice is to use a simple studs up construction (for example the slopes on the top of the rear fuselage, or the S-foils) then I'll do that without giving much thought to using a more complicated technique - sometimes that won't get the best result. On the other hand, there is no way to replicate the complex geometry of the fuselage with somthing simple like the plates and tiles on the wings. The walls need to be angled in and to the side (there are even more angles on the surface of the fuselage that I wasn't able to replicate, so I decided to focus on the primary and most distinctive ones). So I resorted to mixels joints for that. In short I don't really mind which technique ends up as the one I go with, just that it looks as accurate as I can make it. There are studs pointing in almost every direction, so I guess you could call that snot if you like.

That new bottom is a massive improvement! Well done. I love to see attention to detail in all directions.

Thanks I'm very happy with how most of it has turned out and I've had some great feedback from people along the way. Dmaclego and a couple others especially. I actually just changed the top of the nose thanks to one of his suggestions and now there are no gaps on the top. The finished model will be mostly my work, with a handful of elements borrowed from other great models - the guns and the use of panel pieces along the side in particular from dmac's amazing effort.

Thanks mate. It's been in the works for ages, and I'm very close to having it done. I'm looking forward to showing it in its finished state

https://www.flickr.com/photos/atlaser/40633596621/in/dateposted/ I'm at the stage where everything has been built, but I haven't really revised anything yet. There are a handful of things I am considering fiddling with, the top of the nose pictured here is one of them - dmaclego suggested road signs and I want to try that. Also thinking about bigger nozzles and maybe a cleaner bottom. This was a pretty difficult one to crack. It would have been much more straightforward to just rest tiles on top of the side walls, but that would have created a new set of problems - fuselage too tall, appearing slightly too wide, and eliminating the jump at the nosecone. So I decided that I had to fill it in instead. As a result there are some thin gaps. The insides are very crammed, so that's why the assembly had to be so thin, and also is why I wasn't able to put in extra pieces to plug the holes. (I had another set of hinge tops that I wanted to fit in, and they improved the look a lot, but no room for them unforunately. To me it was crucial that the fuselage didn't get any higher than the top of the side walls. I tried otherwise and it didn't look right. The reason why there is that really weak connection from the technic brick underneath the tan pieces to the section with tiles facing up is that there was a very small gap inside the fuselage that really only allows for a piece the size of a bar to get through. It is stronger than it looks, but not ideal.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/atlaser/40550061321/in/photostream/ Not a very pretty photo, try and ignore the messy background. I'm now shooting with an actual camera and am still very much a novice photographer. Some new developments since the last update: Nose is now actually attached, it was floating before. Top of the fuselage is completely filled in. Attached the cockpit. Started filling in the bottom of the fuselage. Other than the hole you see on the bottom, the interior, and the guns, there's not much else left to do. I will think about landing gear in the front but I think that is a very long shot. Also going to revisit the bottom engines and see if gear is possible there. I'm considering whether to try 3 wide engine nozzles, I think 2x2 is not thick enough. You can see that the seam on the side of the fuselage and the bottom is not continuous (see note). On the studio model it is, but I haven't figured out an elegant way to fill that in so at the moment it's staggered a little bit. Not the end of the world but it would have been nice to get that to wrap all the way around. One thing that is bothering me a little bit is that the fuselage is too fat. To accomodate the gears inside, I think the back of the fuselage is 1 or 2 plates too tall fom top to bottom. That's not a big deal, but I think the width is more significant. I'd say it's almost 1 stud too wide. It's not too obvious with the wings open so I'm going to save myself the trouble and ignore it, I would have to rebuild the entire fuselage from the inside out to make that change.

Where are these leaked figures appearing? I can't find them.

I thought I should thank you for the suggestion to double the armature. I tried it yesterday and it was a lot easier than I thought. For whatever reason, when I was first making the mechanism I was under the impression that the arms had to cross each other and so having more than one attachment point for each wing was ruled out. Not so. All I had to do was duplicate the first two arms and clear out some space on the inside, and then move around some plates under each engine assembly to fit the new scissors. I don't know where I got that idea from. What's more is that clearing out that space and doubling the scissor has completely transformed the durability of this thing. Because each wing is now stabilised at two points, there is no wobble whatsoever and everything sits where it should. Now the entire fuselage is much more rigid than before and it's even swooshable. The fuselage and wings assembly now also stay perfectly perpendicular to each other, as they should, instead of having room to wobble like before. I'm chuffed, especially because I haven't had to make any sacrifices with the exterior. A great difference indeed. I was dreading have to do the surgery on it but it was painless and it's a great result. Thanks for the tip man.

I think dark green is definitely a better choice. I don't know why Lego used that green in 75175 because I don't think they ever looked close to that bright. In the movie and all the photos I have seen it is a very deep green. However I have mixed in a couple of the brighter flightsuits into my squadron.

Confirmed this today: the a-wing pilot in 75003 "Arvel Crynyd" isn't actually Arvel Crynyd. Or at least, the helmet isn't. Here's Sila Kott from Return of the Jedi: Here's a side angle of the helmet from 75003. The important parts are the blue ear covers, and the red marks on the right cheek and top. Obviously it's a direct match. The top marking is partially obscured in this image but the real part is identical. So obviously the person who designed the pattern for this helmet was faithful to the source material, the only problem is it got mixed up. Which isn't a big deal because you can swap lego parts out easily. Plus, they made a good head for Crynyd, all he needs is his helmet to come out at som point in the future. I used Sabine's head to replace Crynyd's and it's a pretty good likeness to Sila Kott with the correct helmet. Here's Crynyd's helmet to compare: Key differences are the lack of blue ear covers and a clearly different red pattern on the cheeks. In the most recent A-wing set there was a new helmet pattern produced: Unlike 75003, this guy wasn't named on the box. But the helmet here is also accurate to the film. It belongs on Jake Farrell's head: You can see here the distinctive red ear covers. A better look: You can also see the little graphics on the left cheek and the rear right side of the top. Both of these are well recreated on the lego piece. The only issue I had with the figure is that they used one of their generic heads. On mine, I used this head instead and he looks great. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3626cpb0939&name=Minifig, Head Dual Sided LotR Elrond Brown Eyebrows, Cheek Lines, Smile / Frown Pattern - Stud Recessed&category=[Minifig, Head]#T=C&C=90

Thanks. I might, depends on the space I end up having, but I’ll try. Made some more progress today: https://flic.kr/p/242W8N5

Thanks people. I got the side fuselage pieces attached this evening. All that's left to do is the top and bottom fuselage and the cockpit. Hopefully the rest will be a breeze. I'm liking how this is turning out, not everything is completely bang on but most parts are pretty close, which was my goal.

Yeah. I think it might be possible to strengthen the mechanism but that would have to happen if I revisit this in the future, because I just want to finish it now. I started it over 2 years ago. When moving it around it is stable enough for the most part, and it will stay put if left alone, which is all I really needed for something that is purely meant to be a model.

I think I made that change earlier in the build. I am pretty sure that I put another technic brick on the back side of it while I was still fiddling with that part. I'm no engineer, so I was surprised when I was messing with it (back when I was still making that part) that the wings stayed open, shut, or half open. They balance each other out so they'll stay where you want them to. The issue I have is that the whole mechanism is only 2 plates deep. It really needs an extra set of arms to eliminate the little bit of wobble and droop that you get from having only two. I think the reason that I went with two is that it you had two arms for each side that plates would need to cross over into each other. Basically having several parts occupy the same spaces, which is impossible. The whole thing is very crude honestly.

Here's another update. Potato quality again, sorry. Got back working on this today and things are looking good. Recently I extended the fuselage 1 stud at the rear so it was long enough, today I reduced the width of the middle fuselage you see in the foreground. Before it was simply too fat and so leaving it as it was would have meant that the angle of the nose would be too steep. (I still think it's a little bit too wide, but it's not as bad so i'm ok with it.) Some of the insides were rebuilt to allow for this, unfortunately it's come at the cost of the astromech socket. R2 used to have some tiles attached around him that evoked the astromech-shaped hole on the top of the fuselage, now he's just got a rectangle shaped hole. I might try and add those back somehow but for now it's more important to have a better shaped fuselage than that particular detail. I have a rough idea of how I will make the rest of the front fuselage and cockpit area, so I'm looking forward to doing that and having a whole ship instead of just two thirds. The bottom will probably happen last. Some parts are placeholders obviously. https://www.flickr.com/photos/atlaser/28274382439/in/album-72157676216434583/