[MOC] Republic N-1 Starfighter - Alternate Build of 75402 ARC-170

[Wurger49]

After doing the Z-95 and the Razor Crest, I thought of taking a low hanging fruit of the N-1 Starfighter as it shared many features of the other two. The clone pilots patrolling on Naboo got a squadron of N-1 on their hands and definitely preferred the N-1 over the Z-95 due to its great handling and capability to take an astromech.
 
Things were going smoothly with engines pods done quickly, then I hit a roadblock on the wingspan of the N-1. There are plenty of 3x8 wedge plates with only two 3x6 wedge plates; the 16-stud wide wing was definitely too wide, so I built the ship with 14-stud wide wing and it was still too wide in relation to the cockpit and fuselage. I was about to give up with I saw the two pieces of 2x6 wedge plates, bingo! I got my 12-stud wide wing.
 
I also wanted to build 2 starfighters as there are 3 windscreens from the ARC-170, so I was building the N-1 with minimum amount of pieces with the hope to leave enough pieces for the second ship. After I finished designing the wings and nose, I realized that I will get a half-arsed N-1 and another shoddy model. So, I scraped the 2 ship idea and concentrated on building the best N-1 alternate. 
 
I didn’t build an astromech slot as it took up too much space, just used the dome head piece behind the cockpit. The rear finial was connected to jumper plates and curved slope.
 
The dark red wedge plates created the pattern leading to the flat silver grille pieces, they represented the laser cannons grooves. Spring loaded shooters have been built into the belly of the ship for play functionality. If you handle the model around the fuselage and wings, the structure is very sturdy, just be careful with engines and rear finial.
 
The technic stand can display the model in 4 difference angels, small changes are made to the one in the A-Wing.
 
The end product is a nice sleek Republic N-1 Starfighter, it’s much more minifigure scale compare to the massively oversize LEGO official Mandalorian N-1, will make a fine addition to any LEGO Star Wars collection.

Instructions are on Rebrickable: https://reb.li/m/210609