This is one of the largest, most accurate, and sought after Star Wars kits ever created. Often known as the Captain Cardboard X-wing, this kit is studio scale and is nearly 100% accurate to the original hero prop models used in the films. The original kits used on the studio models and countless reference photos were used to recreate every last detail. At nearly two feet long and a foot and a half wide, this kit is just awesome. It was originally produced by Captain Cardboard himself through Atomic City Models. Production ceased for several months and the masters were sold. Production then resumed under the company mslz22 Models. The kit is extremely clean cast with very little cleanup needed for the amount of resin poured. Just some flash and pour stubs is all that needs fixing. No air bubbles or other major problems. All the wonderful detail is reproduced crisp and clean. No instructions are included but an online streaming instruction guide is available at Blockhead Pictures here. The whole kit is just great and is pure quality. One of the parts arrived broken due to postal mishandling and Mike got a new one out to me right away. A+ all the way in my book. The best part is that the kit is about a third less in cost than the original issue.

I started this kit by cleaning and trimming all of the parts. A relatively simple task as the casting on this kit was superb. Then I began on the subassemblies like the guns, wings etc. This kit was built for a client who wanted his own custom base, full lighting and accurized details, so I couldn't go too far on the subassemblies before I needed to start working on these modifications. The first thing I did was scratchbuild my own cockpit. The kit included cockpit, however accurate to the original prop, is quite bare and doesn't look like the movie set. I wanted this kit to look like a real X-wing so I went and modified the cockpit part to look like what you see in the movies. I even made my own R2 and R5 units. The result is quite nice and castings of it are available for sale at the Starship Modeler Store. I then proceeded to hollow out the body of the X-wing as much as possible without compromising the structural integrity. I did this to make room for the Hyperdyne Labs X-wing Lighting Kit. This kit has a ton of lights in it to simulate everything on the X-wing. There are flickering lights for the engines, solid lights for the astromech and cockpit, and even phasing lights for the astromech. It also has a rather large circuit board and tons of wires that I needed to make room for. I drilled holes in the wing roots and engine pods to allow the wires to be routed to the engines. Once I made all of the appropriate allowances for the lighting, I started painting the subassemblies and putting them together.

For painting, I started by giving the entire model a base coat of flat black from Polly Scale. Then I sprayed flat white over all of that. I picked out most all of the details with varying shades of gray, browns, yellows and of course the Caboose Red from Polly Scale. I didn't do any weathering until I had the entire piece fully assembled. I started by giving most areas a nice diluted wash of browns, blacks and grays. I then airbrushed on some scorch marks and exhaust trails. I added some fine detail with ground up charcoal and fine brushes. I finished it off by rubbing the whole model with steel wool to simulate a worn look. All in all, it came out pretty nice and accurate to the original Red 5 prop.

The base was created by purchasing Death Star tiles sold by Blockhead Pictures. I'm not sure if he still sells them, but they were a big help. I arranged them out on a MASSIVE piece of MDF that I had cut with beveled edges on a table saw. I glued them down and filled them with extra greeblies and details to create some nice variation. I painted them varying shades of gray and some black. I created the support rod by purchasing some high quality acrylic rod and ever so carefully heating it and bending it to just the right angle. It was a very time consuming and careful step as it would be supporting the entire model.

I mounted it all up, fired up the lights and enjoyed one of the largest, most complicated builds I had ever done. It now lives in a good home in California.

The kit is available directly from mslz22 Models by e-mailing them at salzo1@aol.com