A-Wing of my childhood... with instructions!

[Jerac]

I found these instructions lying in some old, forgotten place at brickshelf... remember brickshelf?
This is page three of four. All hand drawn, with each mistake being permanent. 



I wondered if I could decipher all that, and to be honest, it was all surprisingly clear! 

About 30 minutes of LDDing later and let me present you... the A-Wing of my childhood!

 

Aaahh memories. I did not have white wings, which is why it is partially black, and piece palette, obviously, was pretty limited. The thing was built like a rock, you can even see the technic-bracing which also goes inside! I was building everything to be able to withstand dropping from a desk without losing any part, but if I recall correctly, this particular build survived being thrown across the room. I am also genuinely surprised its proportions are not that bad, with me having no resources aside from watching EP6 over and over again; this was pre-internet times here in Poland. 

So there it is. 20 year old piece of history and perhaps that one Jerac's A-Wing you did not know of :D

Edited September 4, 2018 by Jerac
changed title

[deraven]

Love it!  I've come across some old MOC photos and such recently as well, and I really like that you've digitally recreated your drawing from 2 decades ago.  Goes with all the other nostalgic stuff being posted right now with the minifig anniversary, etc..  Thanks for sharing!  

[Smitty500]

it's always neat to see MOCs people built before LEGO acquired the Star Wars License. old school techniques and limited parts to create the shapes of the odd vessels. Thanks for sharing! 

[icm]

Do you mind if I build this myself from the instructions on Brickshelf (or better yet, can you send the LXF)?  This would go perfectly with the retro-styled T-65 X-wing and TIE fighter I posted recently.  I've been thinking about building an A-wing in a similar style, but I hadn't yet figured out how to do it without making it overly large compared to the X-wing.  I think this build would fit pretty well.  My main idea is just to revisit the makeshift builds of my own childhood (A, X, Y, TIE), but it would also be nice to have these physically built by the time the Juniors A, X, Y, TIE come out next year.

Edit: One more question, if you don't mind: what year does this model date to?

Edited September 5, 2018 by icm
Added question.

[Johnny1360]

Not bad at all, you could tell even back then you were destined for great MOCs.

[Jerac]

5 hours ago, icm said:

Do you mind if I build this myself from the instructions on Brickshelf (or better yet, can you send the LXF)?  This would go perfectly with the retro-styled T-65 X-wing and TIE fighter I posted recently.  I've been thinking about building an A-wing in a similar style, but I hadn't yet figured out how to do it without making it overly large compared to the X-wing.  I think this build would fit pretty well.  My main idea is just to revisit the makeshift builds of my own childhood (A, X, Y, TIE), but it would also be nice to have these physically built by the time the Juniors A, X, Y, TIE come out next year.

Edit: One more question, if you don't mind: what year does this model date to?

Sure, no problem!
Here you have the relevant brickshelf folder: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=365955
As for the lxf I'll send it later today when I get back from work.

Guessing the date will be tricky. I am pretty sure it was pre-SW sets which means pre 1998, or maybe equal? For 100% though it was before official a-wing debuted, because I remember how much in love was I in with it and since then, all my a-wings were copies of the official set. Let's settle with 1998 then!

[dmaclego]

19 hours ago, Jerac said:

I found these instructions

Gosh, now I envy you - I never thought about DRAWING my own instructions back in the 80's! :) What a sweet reminder of childhood.

Boy, those were the days! Just a handful of bricks was enough to build ANYTHING.

 

[Anio]

I used to draw all kind of plans and stuff like that when I was a child. Things that no one could understand but me. Maybe because I was not very good at it. haha

 

The model is cool. But this picture of your plan is priceless. When I look at it I feel like I am back in my childhood. Thank you for that ! :D

[icm]

Thanks again for posting the pictures and the instructions.  I made a few changes while building, but the result is still basically your childhood A-wing:

Quote

 

For comparison, this was the childhood A-wing that my brother built:

Quote

 

And this was the childhood A-wing that I built:

Quote

 

Clearly, builds like yours were way out of my league back then, and builds like yours are still way out of my league now!  Hopefully it won't take another ten or twenty years to get up the moxie to build your excellent A-wing, X-wing, and TIE fighter in real bricks.

However, after building it virtually I'm not sure your old model quite fits with my retro X-wing and TIE fighter builds.  It's still a bit too big.  Still, thanks a lot for posting this build!

[Jerac]

No worries!

Don't worry about "skill level". This was not my first a-wing, this is a last one in a long line of ships. The first one I remember was REALLY wrong and also about twice as large as this one :D

[Kristof]

Even if I had some pieces of my early lego history like this, I am certain it wouldn't be worth sharing :D This is pretty cool. I have never done a hand drawn instruction or schematics to any of my designs and now I regret it :D Its surely a cool thing to get nostalgic about!