Rough pen thumbnail sketches were done to refine the design concept and come up with an interesting shape. A main design point was that it be easy and fast to make by not having any compound curves.

To that end, the Starfighter has been constructed out of sheet plastic, a pen case and half a ping pong ball. Kit parts used on this model came from a 1/20 scale NITTO SF3D kit, 1/700 scale waterline W.W.II Yamato battleship, HO scale train accessories, 1:24 scale Tamiya BMW car kit, 1/35 scale W.W.II tank and a 1:72 scale Apache helicopter kit. Evergreen strip and paneling with a small amount of solder complete the list of ingredients. Epoxy putty was used to form the rounded rear area of the cockpit canopy with everything else just flat sheet styrene. The pilot is from the Apache kit, as is most of the interior. Rocket nozzles are resin parts from a Japanese resin accessories maker named B&K Model. Most of the tubing details in the central section of the model is solder, were as the tubing in the rear is from the NITTO kit.

Underside

Top View

Rear View

Support tubes in the rear and underside of the craft are formed from large wall tubing obtained from a hardware store that is epoxied into the internals of the model. The tube fits snugly over 5mm brass tube, used to make the model supports.

The craft was sprayed with automotive Gray Primer (Soft 99 Corporations 'Surfacer'), and then Airbrushed with a very light gray mixture of Tamiya Acrylic, using Tamiya Airbrushes and compressor. Areas for markings where then masked off and airbrushed yellow, to get a Star Wars Y-Wing fighter like look. Airbrushing flat black dirt, then dry brushing flat aluminum gives the final finish for a particularly filthy spacecraft.

For more on this ship, see Adrian's SF2D&I site.