by Phill Besio

Not long after the battle of Yavin, a group of designers came up with a modified X-wing that could hold its own in a fight. The group lead by Zebulon Cobb (ZC for short) went about adding everything they could to the ship.

Small booster drives were added beside each main drive and directional vanes were added to the main drives. This gave the ship more speed and maneuverability then just about any other ship.

The amount of firepower was increased substantially, triple blaster units were placed on each wing (12 total), double gun pods were mounted near the main intakes (4 guns total), a nose mounted set of canards sported another 4 small blasters while an upper vertical wing was added that gave the ship two more forward firing lasers and four aft firing ones on a pivot base. A single heavy blaster was mounted in the nose and aft of the upper wing as an added bonus. In total there are 30 forward firing beam weapons, two torpedo launchers and five aft firing beams.

The night before its test run a group of overenthusiastic engineers gather buckets of paint and brushes. They covered up the pristine white with shades of green and black, the colors in the big hat worn by Zebulon Cobb over his helmet.

It is seen here as it was on its last mission when the Rebels attacked the second Death Star.

Construction

I got this partially built X-Wing off ebay for only a few bucks. With a few leftovers from a B-wing, Droid fighters, missile pods off some robot, space shuttle robot arms and a few scratch built items I created the Mean Green Machine. Many of the small guns came from the landing gear struts. Two Droid fighters sacrificed themselves for the small engine pods, the side gun pods and the nose canard. A Millennium Falcon gun gave the ship aft weapons to ward off pesky TIE fighters.

The small engines are small dowels wrapped in tape with superglue cap ends for nozzles. The main engines I wrapped in wire and added some support straps to. The direction vanes came from a small tube cut at angles to get right shape, straps of foil tape give them some details. Scratch building the details was the most time consuming, such as the hat worn by the pilot made from epoxy putty. Wire wrapped around wire gave me heavy cables to add to the inside of the wings, along with styrene sheet to cover the inner wind holes.

The R2 unit was sanded smooth and painted green to match the ship. The radar eye is a small bead of silica gel. Aluminum tape gives it a shiny strip below the dome and I added the 3 lens protrusions with bits of stretched sprue.

After all the subassemblies were done they got a few spray coats of flat white. All the green was painted on by hand, black stripes were painted with a steady hand, magic marker with a straight edge or painted 2mm strips of tape. I painted some tape green for the outer gun spiral wraps, it turned out better then I thought but spray painting the tape would have been better.

I weathered it all with a black wash then wiped most of it away going from front to back. Small black streaks were done the same way but with a thicker wash and wiped gently with a damp towel. All damaged was hand-painted on. Once all was painted a light coat of dullcote for the ship and final assembly.

Image: Left/front view

Image: Top

Image: Bottom

Image: Underneath

Image: Pilot

Image: Turret

Image: Upper deck

Image: Fin

Image: Nose

Image: Extra guns

Image: Inner wing

Image: Engine vanes

Image: Rear closeup