Revell U-Wing

[Vanoyen]

Hey everyone,

After watching Rogue One I fell in love with the U-Wing and I've decided to have a go at making a diorama with one flying low along a stretch of beach with some palm trees and water effects. Revell's U-Wing, while not entirely accurate, is a nice little model that captures the look quite well. The plan is to keep this build relatively short, simple and not worry too much about screen accuracy.  I intend to build up the U-Wing first then work on the diorama on the side while I do a few droids, troopers, etc.

 

This is the general look I'll be aiming for with the U-Wing...

 

And the dio will be a strip of beach similar to this screen grab with the U-Wing a lot lower and rolling just slightly toward the port side.

 

 

 

With the ship in a flying position, the first thing I wanted to work out was how to light the engines. The kit comes with a green cockpit light which admittedly looks very toy-like when lit but the upside to this is that a power source and switch are already perfectly placed just waiting to be customised.  The goal is to clip off the existing green LED, place a white LED in each engine, run the wires through the fuselage then join the positive and negative ends to the matching ends of the cut off green LED.

 

Here's the internals with the green LED and switch.

 

The speaker won't be needed so I clipped the wires and removed it. I'm going to have the model sitting on an acrylic rod so the space can be used to install a mount. I cut a few squares of styrene sheet, epoxied them into the space then drilled them out.

 

 

 

 

Instead of using blue LEDs for the engines, I'm going to try something different. The kits parts are not moulded in clear plastic so I made casts of the engines in clear resin which was dyed blue with a few drops of food colouring.

 

Mould made of the engine.

 

Clear resin.. under the supervision of my cat Captain Jack Sparrow

 

Blue food colouring.

 

 

Cast made. I'll only be using the engine nozzle (grafting it on to the existing engine). 

 

 

Test looks good. The outside will obviously be painted with the centre being left clear.

 

 

The look I'm going for is to have the engines lit enough to be cruising but not full throttle. Similar to this pic...

 

 

I drilled holes through the engines and fuselage then test ran the wires through. This actual step however won't happen until after painting and weathering. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I primed the model with Tamiya white primer then did some very rough pre-shading with Vallejo grey. I REALLY need to improve my airbrushing skills 

 

 

I made up a base coat with a mix of Vallejo White, Light Grey and Deck Tan. It tuned out pretty well and pre-shading looks nice and subtle.

 

 

Next up was the blue markings. I masked off the areas to paint then dabbed on a little Maskol to simulate chipping.

 

 

I was a little heavy handed with the first attempt and not much of the blue went down so I kind of reversed it and used the same technique to add more blue into areas it was lacking. It didn't turn out perfect but I'm happy enough with it 

 

 

That's all for now. More soon

 

Edited May 8, 2017 by Vanoyen

[Gimme Shelter]

oh yes - this WIP is gorgeous - and I agree, the U wing is perhaps one of the nicer new designs in the film series - I too have been slowly falling in love with U wing - it's kind of in-between the solo star fighters triumphing Y wing and the passenger carrying part the Millennium Falcon played for the Rebel Alliance.

 

Really love your blue casting work - something I have not tried before - looking forward to the final beach diorama

[Pete in Lincs]

Now that's impressive.

[Hockeyboy76]

Very nice. Watching with interest (&a stealing ideas!)

[Jbbusybee]

This looks fun, thanks for sharing.

[Vanoyen]

Cheers guys.

 

A small update...

 

I painted the pilots in the blue/green shade seen in the movie. It looks sky blue in the pics but It's actually a nice deep blue/green colour. I also moved the seats forward a bit. The interior won't been seen too well but I wanted to make a few small adjustments anyway. I moved the seats forward a bit and scratched up a couple of hand controls.

 

 

 

 

 

Placed next to a Vallejo bottle to show how tiny these guys are.

 

 

 

The rear engine area was painted with a mix of 50/50 Vallejo Grey and Light Grey then given a wash with Starship Filth. After that had dried i gave it a second wash (more of a filter) with Flory dark Dirt then a little dry-brushing with Vallejo Gun Metal. in a day or two I'll do some spot-filtering with Flory Grime.

 

I'm still undecided about weather or not to make up a radiator for the back. It doesn't really look bad without one but I know it should be there and it's annoying me.

 

 

 

More soon 

 

 

[Vanoyen]

Very quick update...

So much for a nice quick build. I painted hundreds of tiny scratches and chips over the surface. I think next time I might try out one of the various chipping solutions available as this took hours. Another little thing i did was to mask off and paint the thin red markings at the rear of the fuselage. There are no decals for this with the kit and I think it adds interest so didn't want to leave it out. I've decided I'll have to scratch build the rear radiator as it's quite a prominent feature and another point of interest so I'll have a go at that tonight.

 

 

 

 

I should have another update soon with a painted engine test and some more weathering on the body. I'm also still not completely happy with the blue and may re-do some of the markings.

 

Cheers

 

Edited May 24, 2017 by Vanoyen

[Vanoyen]

Another quick update..

 

I've started preparing the engines to be lit up. I cut off the end nozzle pieces from the kit parts and from the clear blue resin casts I made earlier. I hollowed out the kit part (sorry no pic of that) then grafted the resin nozzles to the kit parts and did a quick light test to see how it looked. So far so good but I won't really know for sure until I've done some light blocking and painted/weathered the exterior so it's a bit of a gamble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've also started weathering the body and wings. This is a pretty new experience for me. I've only built five models and out of those, only one needed weathering but it was dark in colour so I'm plodding along carefully and using methods I've learnt from Googling and from you guys and I've actually been enjoying it a great deal. I've been building up the layers and isolating various panels using Filters. The panels of the kit are different to the actual ship so I've had to use a little creative licence but I think I'm getting pretty close. I've just got to be careful not to over do it.

 

 

 

More soon  

 

P.S. I big thank you to AndyRM101 for his help with posting pics. Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2017 by Vanoyen

[Vanoyen]

Got a few more bits done.

 

The kit engines lacked a large amount of detail. There's a pattern of panels in the centre which where completely missing on the kit so I scribed them in. I painted the rear engine halves a medium/dark grey shade then gave them a wash with Flory Models black.

Another detail that was missing from the kit was the grooves along the sides of the wings. I scribed along the centre of the wing then used a square mini file to widen the channel. After that I made up a very dark grey wash (again using Flory Models washes) and pin-washed the groove, wiping away the excess.

 

The glass on the model was a very thick plastic which didn't look too realistic so I sanded down the window frames, cut some .03 clear styrene to shape used it to replace the windows. I'm very happy with how well this worked. It doesn't show too well in pics because it's so clear but as the model is moved around and looked at from different angles there's a beautiful glint that adds a little realism.

 

I also ended up scratch building a radiator thingy for the back end. It's just a simple design with around 12 or 13 pieces of sheet styrene cut to shape and glued together with a small spacer in between each layer. I painted it the same grey shade as the centre engine piece but it still needs to be weathered.

 

I had a few dramas with the engine lighting. I wired it all up, tested it and they worked well. After gluing the fuselage haves together I tested them again and to my horror they started flickering, fading, then went out. If i had to guess, I'd say i had probably shorted out the circuit board somehow (maybe with resin) but i was very careful. Either way I to open her up again. I removed the circuit board, re-wired everything, added a small switch and now they work fine again.  

 

There's not a lot left to do now. I just need to join the engine halves properly, do some final weathering and she's done. I decided against making up a beach diorama because The U-Wing on Scarif had a different colour scheme so I'll do a simple desert theme display base instead. Once she's finished, I'll take a few proper pics and post her up in the Ready for Inspection section. 

 

Thanks for looking  

 

 

 

 

[salshred]

This looks great! I have this kit sitting in my closet and haven't felt the urge to crack it open yet, but your work may have just inspired me! Great work!