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Finished one of my shelf queens! My wife got me this kit as a Christmas present back in 2019. A few months later and it was all ready for paint. The cockpit and pilot were painted and installed. Windows were masked and the whole thing was primed and it seemed like it was all going at a pretty quick pace. And then it sat on my shelf for just under three years as I periodically debated how to paint it and looked at hundreds of photos for inspiration. In early February 2023 I decided that one recent idea was a good one and worth trying. I was inspired by Ukraine's heroic defense of their country and especially in the early days of the war, it felt broadly reminiscent of the Rebels in Star Wars battling the Galactic Empire. After looking at several ground and air vehicles used by the Ukrainian's, I felt the ground attack UAF SU-25's with their weathered and worn "clover" camo would look great on an X-wing. Initially my plan was this would be a straight forward painting project. But once I settled on making an X-wing inspired by SU-25's I thought it would be fun to add some SU-25 like details to the X-wing to make it a little more unique. I added several antenna's as seen on SU-25's to the fuselage top and bottom. SU-25's have a prominent sensor on the front of the nose. T-70 X-wings have a spot perfect for one on the upper surface of the nose so I cut out a spot for one and used three different coloured sequins to replicate the sensor itself. Two of the sequins were placed at different angles so that if you look at it at different angles, different sequins catch the light to add some pop to the nose sensor. The two long pitot tubes in the nose were initially scratchbuilt by me. But right as I was finishing up painting the model I caved and bought the gorgeous 1/72 SU-25 pitot tubes from Master Model. I was proud of my attempt but the Master Model pitot tubes were on another level. SU-25's have a large sensor at the base of the tail so I made up something similar entirely from styrene. I extended the boom for my tail sensors as it seemed like it would make more sense to have it located past the engines for better scanning. I was also going to utilize the cockpit and pilot as is but decided to repaint both as I felt I could do better. I also took this opportunity to add a Ukrainian flag to the cockpit combing which is something I have seen some Ukrainian Mig-29's do. The flag was lead foil that was folded and unfolded to give it some nice wrinkles. Re painting the cockpit and pilot of course meant removing the original canopy which was glued on fairly well and was damaged in the removal process. Thankfully Bandai is generous enough to provide two canopies in the kit so it wasn't an issue. In the three or so years the model sat on the shelf I managed to lose one of the laser canon barrel ends so I made new ones from styrene rod that I hollowed with a fine drill bit. I did the same to make new torpedo tubes. I think that's about it for mods. One final note. I did not use one single decal anywhere on this model. Everything you see was painted on. Well enough rambling, lets get to photos. 20230401-MJS_6059 by _m_sinclair 20230401-MJS_6086 by _m_sinclair 20230401-MJS_6072 by _m_sinclair 20230401-MJS_6066 by _m_sinclair 20230401-MJS_6067 by _m_sinclair Back in 2016 I built the same kit but in Poe Dameron's colours so I thought it would be fun to pose them together on the same kind of base. Though this time I had acquired from a friend some clear acrylic rod which I felt was a nice upgrade over the brass tube I used originally to support the model. 20230401-MJS_6053 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6143 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6144 by _m_sinclair 20230401-MJS_6099 by _m_sinclair 20230401-MJS_6106 by _m_sinclair 20230401-MJS_6117 by _m_sinclair 20230401-MJS_6121 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6180 by _m_sinclair I should add, the blue spirals on the opposing laser canons were inspired by Luke Skywalker's Red 5 which had similar markings. I figured a nod to maybe the most famous X-wing pilot would be fun and especially so as Mark Hamill has been a wonderful supporter of Ukraine during these dark times. 20230402-MJS_6187 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6188 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6194 by _m_sinclair I did a terrible job on my first attempt at painting the nose numbers. I think originally it was Blue 62. But I saw on several UAF SU-25's that old numbers were often painted over and changed over the years so I did the same with mine. My second attempt went much better though even then, plenty of touch ups were needed. 20230402-MJS_6252 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6258 by _m_sinclair, on Flickr 20230402-MJS_6262 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6267 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6268 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6285 by _m_sinclair I wasn't sure how much of my R6 astromech would be visible once installed, so I detail painted his entire body too. Not that any of it is visible now. Oh well. 20230402-MJS_6293 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6301 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6302 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6303 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6304 by _m_sinclair The Bandai kit comes with wing lights molded into the surface. I shaved them off with an x-acto and replaced them with clear resin lights from an old CMK set I bought years and years ago. 20230402-MJS_6305 by _m_sinclair Like the rest of the model, my R6 astromech was entirely painted by me. No decals. I also added his little protuding sensor by his eye. This was also made from styrene. 20230402-MJS_6313 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6331 by _m_sinclair 20230402-MJS_6334 by _m_sinclair Apologies for the photo spam but I'm honestly pretty proud of how it turned out. And it feels so good to get one of my few shelf queens done! Once I got back into it this past February it took just under two months to complete. Thanks for looking. -Matt