Bandai 1/72 T-70 X-wing - Finished

[72nders]

Hello all,

This is my first WIP, so I’m going to be learning as I go along; I chose to build Bandai’s lovely 1/72 T-70 X-wing, this isn’t my first x-wing (I’ve already built a T-65 in “Red 5” scheme) and this certainly won’t be my last as I’ve got 2 more in the stash. The kit itself is as good as any Bandai kit, which means that the detail is crisp, everything fits together without any glue needed, there isn’t any flash to be seen and the clear parts are beautifully moulded without any defects.

I’ll be doing this ship in Blue Squadron scheme as seen during the attacks on Takodana and Starkiller Base in episode VII The Force Awakens.

I have already cut off the cockpit parts which I painted in Ak real colors RC261 Neutral Grey, and I also cut out the pilot and droid which I proceeded to prime with Tamiya XF-2 flat white. Here are some sprue shots, I know this has been done before, but I thought it would be nice anyway.Note: I cut off the clear parts sprue section from the main sprue to avoid damaging the canopy.

 

Box Art

 

Instructions

 

Bandai decals and stickers

 

Sprue A with fuselage

 

Clear parts sprue section, cut off from main sprue A

 

Sprue B with s-foils

 

Sprue C with silver coloured parts

 

Sprue B2 with BB model droid

 

Sprue with base for The Last Jedi version

 

Sprue with base for The Force Awakens version

 

Here's what I've done so far:

 

 

The seat was painted with Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey

 

I don’t know how long I’ll take to finish this kit as I’ve got other projects going on, including a P-51D Mustang GB with my dad; I hope to finish before the end of the year but I doubt that will be possible.

I will also try to take some comparison shots to show the difference between the T-65 and the T-70 x-wings using both Bandai kits and hopefully by next week I will have painted the cockpit, and maybe done some sub-assemblies.

[Thom216]

I like those T-70s! Very sleek decedent of the 65. I'll be peeking in.

[Mike]

15 hours ago, Oompa Loompa modelers said:

Bandai’s lovely 1/72 T-70 X-wing

You're not wrong there

 

While I was scrolling down, I noticed that the pics were loading slowly.

 

I tested some of the pics, and they were 2.1mb in size, which is huge when posting up on the internet.  You should be aiming to save your files to around 200kb optimally, give or take a bit.  To accomplish this, you can reduce the size of your pics, as anything over the recommended 1024 x 800 maximum we advise, it's wasted bandwidth and storage space useage.  Most people view these pics on phones, tablets and 1080p screens, so huge photos of 2,500 x 2,000 px will have to be shrunk down by the forum software (load on the server and delay for the user), as well as the extra bandwidth that is uses up (10x what's necessary).

 

The downsides of this from a viewer's point of view is the waiting time before you can view the pics, and some people might get bored and click away.  From the server's point of view, it's wasteful of bandwidth, storage size (we cache images to improve speed), and it's also wasteful of the server's resources, which means a slower experience for all of us.

 

This isn't meant as a "telling off" BTW, more of a bit of useful advice to help you as well as help us.  If you can size your pics to the recommended limits, we'll be really happy, and so will the members

 

Keep up the good work

[72nders]

11 hours ago, Mike said:

You're not wrong there

 

While I was scrolling down, I noticed that the pics were loading slowly.

 

I tested some of the pics, and they were 2.1mb in size, which is huge when posting up on the internet.  You should be aiming to save your files to around 200kb optimally, give or take a bit.  To accomplish this, you can reduce the size of your pics, as anything over the recommended 1024 x 800 maximum we advise, it's wasted bandwidth and storage space useage.  Most people view these pics on phones, tablets and 1080p screens, so huge photos of 2,500 x 2,000 px will have to be shrunk down by the forum software (load on the server and delay for the user), as well as the extra bandwidth that is uses up (10x what's necessary).

 

The downsides of this from a viewer's point of view is the waiting time before you can view the pics, and some people might get bored and click away.  From the server's point of view, it's wasteful of bandwidth, storage size (we cache images to improve speed), and it's also wasteful of the server's resources, which means a slower experience for all of us.

 

This isn't meant as a "telling off" BTW, more of a bit of useful advice to help you as well as help us.  If you can size your pics to the recommended limits, we'll be really happy, and so will the members

 

Keep up the good work

Thanks Mike, I'm still learning, I will try to do that in the future.

[72nders]

Hi all,

Hoping that my pictures are smaller and lighter (if not please tell me), I manged to take some comparison pics to show the main differences between the T-70 and T-65 x-wings, I also took some pics of the progress I have done.

 

The two first pictures show the main difference between both x-wing models, which is the shape of the engine intakes , the T-65 has round (cylindric) engine intakes, whilst the T-70 has half-circle shaped engine intakes.

 

 T-65 x-wing

 

 T-70 x-wing

 

Secondly we can see that the fuselage of the T-70 is slimer and a little shorter than that of the T-65 (this is better demonstrated when seeing the bottom half of the fuselages).

 

T-65 x-wing fuselage:Top     T-70 x-wing fuselage: Bottom

 

A pic of the Bottom halves of both fuselages shows more clearly that the T-65's fuselage is larger and longer than that of the T-70.

 

T-65 x-wing fuselage: Top     T-70 x-wing fuselage: Bottom

 

Here we see that the canopy of the T-65, like it's fuselage, is also larger than that of the of the T-70, it is also shorter than the T-70's canopy.

 

Canopy of the T-65 on the left    Canopy of the T-70 on the right

 

Thirdly, the wings (s-foils) of the T-65 an T-70 are quite different, the T-65's s-foils are thicker and it's wing-span is slightly shorter than that of the T-70.

 

T-65 s-foil: Top    T-70 s-foil: Bottom

 

Looking more closley at the engine intakes we can see the most prominent difference between both x-wings.

 

T-70 engine intake: Left      T-65 engine intake: Right

 

Fourthly, though not the most important difference, the nose cone of the T-70 x-wing is slimmer and longer than the T-65's nose cone.

 

T-65 nose cone: Top      T-70 nose cone: Bottom

 

Those are the main differences that I saw between the T-70 and T-65 x-wing models, though there are probably smaller less noticeable differences; I hope this was an interesting read, and if not....

 

I also made some progress on the kit itself, I painted the landing gears (since I decided to do this ship in a landed position), I additionally painted the back-end of the ship (which covers the s-foils' actuator and various other ship systems), the engines, the exhausts and I managed to finish painting the cockpit, though not the pilot, he still needs some work.

 

Landing gears

 

The ship's back-end

     

                                        

Exposed portion of some of the ship's systems

       

 

Exhausts

   

 

Engine intakes

 

The cockpit

 

Most of the parts are painted Vallejo acrilyc Metal Colors, the exhausts and engines in jet exhaust color, and the back-end and the exposed portion of the ship's systems in steel, the details were painted in pale burnt metal, burnt iron, aluminum; the landing gears are painted in dull aluminum with some details in chrome, the cockpit was painted with some details in different shades of vallejo metal colors and some buttons were painted in red, blue and green .

Well that's it for today, I hope I can make some more progress by the end of the week,

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone,

Oompa Loompa.

 

[72nders]

Hello all,

Hoping everyone had a very merry christmas, I manged to make some significant progress on the x-wing this week, I applyied the main color of the ship and I also painted some of the grey panels on the ship.

 

The base color of the ship is gunze chalk white "Kalweisse" (H451) and the grey panels are painted in gunze neutral grey (H53).

 

 

 

I passed a layer of gunze gloss varnish on the s-foils and blue fuselage panels to protect the base color as I'm planning to chip the blue panels and I will therefore be using chipping fluid for this; I plan to masking the panels, then apply the chipping fluid and then finally aplly the blue paint, I will post more pictures when all of this is done.

Happy New Year to everyone,

Oompa Loompa.

[72nders]

Hi all,

Sorry for the slow progress, I started school again this week so I don't have as much time to do modelling as I did during the holidays, now most progress is usually done during the weekend.

I finally applied the blue on the x-wing, which I then chipped. I used gunze H323 Light Blue and AK worn effects chipping fluid. I think I went a little overboard on the chipping, but I'll just pass it off as battle damage.

Oompa Loompa

 

 

[72nders]

Hello all,

I managed to make some more progress this past weekend, I applied a coat of gunze gloss varnish, and then a wash with Tamiya grey enamel panel line accent color and it worked quite well in my opinion; I also started to put on some of the stencil-like decals supplied with the kit to add some detail to it.

 

 

I finally finished the pilot figure who is know seated in the cockpit, ready for take off! The suit (which looks more reddish in person) was painted with a 2:3 ratio of Life Color matt orange LC05 and 1:3 ratio of Life Color matt red LC06, the black gloves and boots were painted with revell acrilyc satin black, the pilots' lenses are painted with Tamiya clear orange X-26, and I added a coat of vallejo model color gloss varnish n510 over the helmet to make it look as though it was made of Plasteel like in the films.

  

 

In addition to all of this I painted th engine cowlings, the blue part is the same as used on the wings and fuselage bits, and the metal edge is painted in Vallejo metal colors Silver.

 

That's all for now, I hope to finish adding the decals, apply a layer of flat varnish on the kit, then put everything together and finally finish it.

Oompa Loompa

[72nders]

Hi all,

This weekend instead of doing any progress I've encountered an important delay in the build.

After dipping the x-wing's canopy in future (and waiting over 3 days for it to dry) masking and painting it, I discovered upon taking the masks off the canopy, something horrible! The future had reacted with the Bandai sticker I had used to mask the canopy; at first I thought it was just glue so I attempted to erase the excess with a cotton bud and water, but to no avail. Looking at the canopy against the light I noticed that the reaction had marked the future too badly, so my only option was to strip the paint and future with ammonia (windex) an start all over again. This time I will use Tamiya Kabuki tape (which I know doesn't react to future) to make my own masks.

Here's a pic showing the damage:

 

 

Well this was a lesson learned, don't apply Bandai stickers over a canopy that was dipped in future, I thought the reaction was quite strange since I had used bandai's stickers as masks on other canopies (which I also dipped in future), with no reaction whatsoever, but.....

On the bright side, there were a few hairs stuck on the paint in the canopy frame that were bothering me, so hopefully this time there will be no reactions and no hairs.

Well that's it for now,

Oompa Loompa

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

On 1/19/2022 at 11:30 AM, Oompa Loompa modelers said:

After dipping the x-wing's canopy in future (and waiting over 3 days for it to dry) masking and painting it, I discovered upon taking the masks off the canopy, something horrible! The future had reacted with the Bandai sticker I had used to mask the canopy; at first I thought it was just glue so I attempted to erase the excess with a cotton bud and water, but to no avail. Looking at the canopy against the light I noticed that the reaction had marked the future too badly, so my only option was to strip the paint and future with ammonia (windex) an start all over again. This time I will use Tamiya Kabuki tape (which I know doesn't react to future) to make my own masks.

Here's a pic showing the damage:

Yeah Whenever I get masks from someone else I use them to make Tamiya tape versions. I take the original and place it on Tamiya tape then cut out the new mask. 

[72nders]

16 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Yeah Whenever I get masks from someone else I use them to make Tamiya tape versions. I take the original and place it on Tamiya tape then cut out the new mask. 

Hi Corsairfoxfouruncle, using masks from someone else and copying them with Tamiya tape is a good idea.

My dad (also a modeller and my mentor), suggested that I should do this too, but since I had used the Bandai stickers as masks on other kits (my Bandai Tie Advanced and T-65 X-wing) with no reactions at all, I thought it would by easier and that it would save some time. Well, I've learned my lesson now and shall never use vinyl or sticker type masks on a kit ever again.

I already re-dipped my canopy in future and it is now masked (with my home-made Tamiya kabuki masks), primed, and I applied a layer of Vallejo Metal Colors, Alluminum on it yesterday. I plan to pass a layer of semi-gloss varnish on it ASAP, I will post pictures of it as soon as that's done.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Yeah I learned the hard way using a set of Pee-wit masks that came with a kit. After a week or so they were almost impossible to remove. With that and the residue was a nightmare to clean up. 

[Hunter Rose]

All looking good, glad you managed to sort out the canopy, annoying things like that can really kill your mojo so well done for cracking on 

[72nders]

Hi all,

Hunter Rose, thanks for your kind words, the damage on the canopy did lower my enthusiasm for the kit just a little, but since I have P-51D GB going with my dad I really wanted to finish it so I could concentrate on finishing the mustangs I'm building.

I made some progress this weekend which ended up with me finally finishing the x-wing!

After passing a layer of gunze semi-gloss acrylic varnish on the canopy and gunze flat acrylic varnish on the fuselage and S-foils, I unmasked the canopy and was relieved to see that there were no strange reactions in sight. I also drilled a little hole in the tips of the gun barrels to add detail and finesse to them. To add some finishing touches I weathered the model with Tamiya weathering powders and Mig light rust modelling pigment. I am pretty pleased with the results and am now calling the model done.

Here are a few pics of the assembly:

 

Fuselage assembly

 

S-foils assembly

 

Finished model before final weathering

 

Here's a pic of the completed model with some weathering done on the exhausts and landing gear (though I think I overweathered the landing gear)

 

I will post pictures in the RFI section as soon as I can,

Oompa Loompa.