[MOC] INCOM T-65B X-Wing "Snubfighter"

[KrasiniArithmetic]

Way back in 1999, I was 9. Which is a great age, and a very impressionable one, too. That summer, the very first wave of Lego Star Wars sets came out. I was given 7140 - the X-Wing fighter - as a gift, and I loved it to death. I still have that set today, complete and in great condition. I loved it so much that I played with it almost every day - but was careful not to damage it, even as I played. It was a great ship, a nearly perfect translation of the iconic form of the ship to the common Lego design language of the era. Sure, it wasn't Accurate, per se, but it had that grace and simplicity that even now makes the '90s one of the greatest eras of Lego design (issues with expensive parts and poor accounting aside).

Then, in 2003, 4502 - the Dagobah X-Wing - was released. It marked a second generation of X-Wing design and a radical change in the apparent design goals of the Star Wars line as a whole. Now, instead of translating things into the Lego language, the goal seemed to be accuracy in modelling the shapes and functions of the filming models. It blew my mind, quite frankly. Until that point, it had not crossed my mind to complain about the Generation 1 model (7140 and 7142). I HAD to have it! At the time, I thought it was about as good as it could get. Over time, though, the clear shift in design goals eroded my confidence in it. Generation 2 consisted of 4502 and 6212.

Generation 3 (9493) improved on many of the aspects of Generation 2 that were problematic. However, it took several steps backward as it did so - most noteably in the orientation of the droid bay, which had been rotated 90 degrees so as to fit into a narrower fuselage. I gave this one a pass, though I did not skip out on the T-70 Gen 1 (75102 and 75149), which consists of a modified T-65 Gen 3 structure with new wings, engines, and canopy.

Finally, in 2018, Generation 4 came out. 75218 represents a huge step forward from previous designs in a lot of ways. Making use of the new, more accurate (though still correct) canopy introduced for the T-70 and with more accurately proportioned engines and wings, there were a lot of reasons to look forward to this new model. A more colorful, battered aesthetic and corrections of some of the biggest issues with Gen 3 were well welcome, too. I received this one for my birthday in July when my brother found it on shelves before it was officially released.

Initially, my attempts to make my dream of a correctly shaped detailed minifig-scale X-Wing were based hopefully on the Gen 4 model. I made a number of mods to it - first replacing the lever with internal gearing based off of the Gen 3 model, then rebuilding the engines and wings to fix the odd hump on the forward slope of the engines and the poor cannon design. Then I narrowed the rear fuselage, which felt too wide relative to the nose. I added fully retractable landing gear for the rear. Then I went to redo the nose, which featured an unfortunately flat top and sloping bottom - contrary to the proper shape of the fighter. This was where I found myself starting to need to seriously MOC. The nose from the set wasn't right and making it right seemed to require starting from scratch, then grafting the new nose on. I made a number of attempts at nailing the shape and before long, I became frustrated. I'll edit this topic later with photos of my attempts. Finally, as I would complete a new draft and try to graft it on to the hull, I began to realize that with all my mods, the ship I was building had little in common with the original set I'd started with!

When I realized that my modded ship probably no more than ten pieces in their original position left, I started considering simply MOCing my own model from scratch. Which I did. My first models, in late August 2018, were inspired by the fruits of my lengthy modding campaign and by the efforts of Inthert, Psiaki, Atlas, and WookieJedi. I'll post photos of these later, too.

Then Jerac released his model - a beautiful and ingenious creation. I owe a debt to Jerac. His brilliance gave me a swift kick in the pants when I needed it, for my model, looking back on it now, was a rather sad derivative of Inthert, lacking the genius and lacking the grace. Jerac helped me see how badly mine sucked. Cehnot, too, was a great help. His build photos and his dimensional diagrams helped me bring my failure into the light, even when I was nearing completion! This draft version, so close to finished (I really only had the greebling on the rear fuselage left to do), was discarded entirely and I went back to square one.

As I built, I had several goals. I wanted to produce a model that was correctly sized and shaped, with as much detail as possible. I needed to include moveable wings, a notch in the nose, fully retractable landing gear, and storage space as depicted in ESB. Further, I needed to do it without expensive, rare, or discontinued parts, as well as without using illegal build techniques or weak connections. Finally, the result needed to be as strong as the set and swooshable. When doing this, I felt free to look at photos of other peoples MOCs, but I would NOT look at instructions.

Near the middle of October 2018, I felt like I achieved these goals. The following photos show the model as it existed at that time. Note that there are some things that are included because I had the pieces - and are designed to be easily swapped for common pieces for those that don't want to spend the money for the discontinued parts. Further, note that the following photos show a model that is unrefined. Since these photos were taken, there have been a number of internal improvements that have improved strength and durability. The exterior appearance hasn't changed, but that rumpled weak spot you can see on top of the nose has been fixed - now the nose top is smooth and strong.

[KrasiniArithmetic]

I deliberately made some tweaks to the model. Notably, I narrowed the rear fuselage width to 6 studs maximum when the correct value is a little over 7. This was for ease of building - and because I didn't like how the more common shortcut (rounding to up to 8 studs instead) looked. You'll also note that I worked hard to get the correct nonagonal shape for the rear. Between these two factors, the rear fuselage looks a little squished vertically. I'm ok with that - in fact, I like it better that way. I've noticed most builders would rather produce a pentagon or hexagon rather than figure out the whole nonagonal form.

Further, in order to get the notch in the nose tip, I widened the tip of the nose to 3 studs. The correct value for the width of the back of the nose cone is slightly less than 3 studs and the correct value for the very tip of the nose is about 2.25 studs. Most MOCs that I've seen have maintained the 3 stud width for the back of the nose cone and have sacrificed the notch for the narrowing of the nose - often overshooting to 2 studs rather than 2.25. Recently, Markhchan posted his model that attempts to do both. His nose uses a design that I experimented with and discarded - I felt the narrowing was excessive at the tip and the resulting side profile was rather hawkish rather than smooth as it ought to be.

 

In the interest of addressing some of these concerns, I've produced a V2 model with an 8 stud wide rear fuselage and a narrowing nose. I couldn't abide the hawk-nose approach, so V2 sadly makes the sacrifice of the notch. Photos of the V2 model are below.

I DEFINITELY prefer the V1 model to the V2 model...

[icm]

Hi, @KrasiniArithmetic!  Thanks for posting another creation here!  This is definitely a nice new take on the X-wing.  I'm not sure what it is about the proportions, and of course I can't say anything about the internal structure without having seen it, but for whatever reason it has a much more solid, heftier look than most X-wing builds - like the proportions and angles may be the same, but this one looks like it could take a lot more punishment.  Does that make sense?  I'm not quite sure what I'm saying here, but I do know that I mean to say that your X-wing looks good, really good.  I haven't seen that solution for the gun tips before; the nose cone is sturdy and uniquely detailed compared to many others, and the landing gear looks much sturdier than in most Inthert-derived or Jerac-derived builds.  The picture of the X-wing next to 75181 UCS Y-wing is also nice, it really gives a sense of scale.  If your X-wing is faithful minifig scale, and the Y-wing is properly scaled next to the X-wing, then that must mean that the Y-wing is faithful minifig scale too.  Huh - I always thought it was a little too big.  I agree with you that v2 looks pretty pudgy though.  Would you mind posting pictures of the gearbox of v1?

[Cylo]

Looks great! Would be interested to see the internal structure too!

[KrasiniArithmetic]

3 hours ago, Reaper said:

Looks great! Would be interested to see the internal structure too!

Thanks for the praise! Sorry for the low quality of the photos - I've not got the best rig for that right now.

I'd like to be able to post photos of the internals right now, but the model is currently being exhibited at the Brick Slopes 2019 convention in Utah, so I don't have access to it right at the moment to get those for you. I'll get back to you with them in a couple of days.