by Wolfgang Bittermann

This scene is from the movie: Star Wars - Episode IV - A New Hope. It shows Y-Wing Group Gold in their thrilling trench run scene. This is certainly one of the most exciting scene ever in Sci-Fi Movie history. Gold Group was the first flight group attempt to destroy the Death Star by hitting a small vent opening with a proton torpedo at the end of the trench. As we all know they failed - all three brave pilots were shot by the evil Darth Vader, breaking up the rebels' attack:

• Gold leader: John 'Dutch' Vander
• Gold five: Davish “Pops” Krail
• Gold two: Tiree

I wanted to create a diorama of this scene that would look like it was taken straight from the movie. I chose a red grid construction structure as a base for the Death Star surface. Then I created two different looking plates with Death Star tiles - one was used as the floor plate and the other one for the wall plate. The position of the Death Star tiles must be carefully chosen because a random combination of the tiles may not look good. Both the Death Star surface plates and the grid structure parts were cut in asymmetrical shapes. The floorplate and wallplate were staggered - this ensures a cool and dynamic look of the whole diorama. The Death Star tiles were painted in various grey shades and a wash with thinned black was added.

These Death Star tiles are perfectly designed to create dioramas like this. I really love them. The larger ones were built by Tony Agustin and they are available in the Starship Modeler Store. The smaller Death Star tiles were built by Wolfgang Bittermann and they are available from www.triliance.de.

The Y-Wings are the Micro Machine ones but they were totally reworked. First I removed all parts from the small models that I wanted to rebuild, like the ion canons, laser canons and engines. The most remarkable change on these little Y-Wings are the rebuilt engines. The new engine were built from small H-rods cut into halves, with greeblies from my spare part box added. The ion canons are made from a 1:72 WW2 weapon set.Tthe laser canons are cannulas.

After all modifications were done, all three fighters got a base coat with white. A quick wash with thinned black gave more depth and shadows to the models. The highlights were made with various greys and brass colors. A light blue mix was used for the canopies. I used small decals to create the black cockpit windows. The Gold ( Yellow ) markings on the Y-Wings were also made from decal sheet.

Finally, the Y-Wings were mounted on the diorama with acylic rods. I used screenshots from the DVD for the position of the fighters.

Image: Overall scene, from above

Image: Another look

Image: What the turbolaser gunners saw

Image: Stay in formation....

Image: Darth's-eye view

Image: Closeup

Image: Underneath

Image: Here they come...