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Once I finish the model I plan on making an updated LDD file. I wish they would release a new one with 2017 parts. I have scattered those parts throughout my model, but I may include photos showing what new parts to use to replace the older parts. The building process showed me what I did wrong in the LDD. This whole experience led me to understanding what happens when you only follow the LDD and do not add gravity and stress or pressure into the equation. I think I definitely will do a second x-wing in gray since I have most these parts.

While I wait for my last 2 brick link orders I wanted to share with you a few photos of my current design. At this point I am working on my ion cannons. I still need to add stickers, but waiting to do that at the end. Don't worry, those black technic axles are suppose to be inside the barrels. The Brick link orders I am waiting for include 4 black Technic, Gear 8 tooth type 1. These gears will slide down inside the barrels to simulate finned exhaust pipes. You can also see the gray technic axle that turns the wins to an open position. The design also features a bottom axle. I will include that into the LDD as an option for a stand so you can make the wings open via the stand. I will also include the alternative rear design so the axle in that option isn't shown. The landing gear is way too tall. I need to shorten them by almost 1 brick in height. The great part about this shot is you can see how my modified panel allows a magnitude of options for you to customize the rogue squadron colors. This is of course Red 5. The landing gear in the back is easy to change out for flight mode. Each engine pops off quickly and the half cylinders come out and and you connect the rear engines onto a 2x4 technic plate. I will show more details when the ship is complete. This is a great angle to show R2D2 and how close the LEGO brand canopy fits in the model. I truly wish LEGO would design a canopy with a 3 wide top, but a 2 wide front. Either way, I plan on doing my own canopy. The belly has a small cargo compartment for equipment and such. There is a simple plate hinge and clips holding it together so you can open and close it. The x-wing mechanical gears work nicely. They open and stay open. I will use my SLR camera when I do my final photo shoot. I have not decided what for of base plate design to do. I thought of a Yavin 4 base design. I also need a stand for the flight mode. I also thought about doing an x-wing entirely in gray parts and modify this one to become Red 2 or Red 4.

Thank you. Hold out for a bit longer. I am finalizing my design and will go back to my LDD file and update it to the current model. The new model is stronger and I figured out how to solve so many complicated issues with the wings, side panels and front nose issue. The new design holds all of these effortlessly.

The progress photos show what I am finalizing right now. In order to attach the new panels, I modified this section inside the main fuselage of the ship. What I discovered is that these ball joints I used in the LDD did not bend the right way like they needed. I replaced the 2 ball joints closer to the cockpit with the hinge you see. I also modified the side panels hulls to accommodate this. What I found was the whole structure became much stronger and the side panels are now 3 times as durable. The ball joints you see on the center have a modified hinge connector. I had to dremel out the side a bit to allow the joints to arch upward more. The LDD file did this without an issue meaning I had no clue this didn't work until I built this section. Now that I added the 2x2 hinge top on the right, I found you really do not need those ball joints anymore. So you model will hold up just fine without it. I kept them because they do keep the structure aligned a slight bit better and for me, I already modified the LEGO parts so I am going to keep them in my model to reinforce my side panel connections. The side panels now are much thicker since I got rid of the interior cross section concept. The great part about this project is you can modify your interior, or swap out parts to include a "half" cross section view. This panel can be taken off, revealing the inside and you can mod it to show only 1 side with an exposed cross section, that way it keeps the structure, but fakes the idea. You can see there is a 1x2 plate modified with clip pushing up the plates to maintain the shape of the panel. This was a simple, yet highly effective use of LEGO parts. The plate hinge on the top creates the perfect angle with this clip, and maintains a correct profile design to the actual x-wing. The 2 corner plates you see reinforce the panel and help guide the 2x2 hinge top into place. This works especially well when you watch how it slides into place and maintains the shape. What I also found out is these 2 corners act as an reinforced structure to keep the hinge plate from sliding out. The friction on both sides maintain the side panels from wanting to push out from the stud connection. Without them the side panels do maintain the shape, but surprisingly, they make it hold together even more stronger than i anticipated. Another crazy yet highly effective addition was discovered as I was trying to make an accurate cockpit. The 1x2 hinge top you see here connects to the 1x2x2 corner brick wedge. This whole connection makes the entire panel stay on in the back. The ball joints I have in the rear keep it aligned, but this locks the whole thing together. Thus, another way this keeps the side panels to stay on. When you add the corner were bricks with slopes, you can see how the cockpit stays intact. The side panels connect to the shop in the rear at the top, and bottom now. As you look at the flexible ribbed hose, I chose to cut this to fit inside the cockpit. After I redesigned the internal shape of the cockpit, you can now attach the scope for the pilot. I also love how the 1x2 decorated tiles on the panels solve my angled cockpit idea because the whole side panels are connected at a slight angle anyways. The 2x3 light bluish gray tile on top of the 1x2 slope will have a replica sticker from the UCS x-wing. Since the stickers for that set are very expensive I found an eBay replica with really great detail and highly professional printing. If you want their info, I am sure you can find him on eBay since he sells a ton of replica and replacement stickers for toys. R2D2 does fit inside the compartment you see. I came up with this idea while reconfiguring the panels. He can easily be taken out with a removal of one of those side slopes. The awesome part is they rest right next to R@ legs and hides his fat feet. This was my largest issue with my last design. I either wanted to display him for play factor, or just simply a permanent structure. This solves both. My attempt to working out dmaclego ion cannons. I cut a hole into the bent hose to be able to slip the bars/3mm hose through it. This locks them into place and hold up nicely on the wings. You can see i am demonstrating how I drilled holes into these wheel wells to reinforce the tube concept. They easily slide onto the hose and now maintains that cylinder form. The wings are my last design flaw people asked about. Some people decided to go with a 1x12x3 wedge plate. This is too short of an angle to fit the actual x-wing models. People mentioned they gave up on the wings I designed because they fell apart way to easily. The new designs hold up nicely, not as well as your 12 stud long plate, but they connect to the x-wing and hold the ion cannons without sagging. What I love is the awesome 2017 LEGO parts. I have used 2x3 tiles all over the ship because they look way better than the 2x2 and 1x2 tiles. 2x2 corner plate. Awesome 2017 addition to our LEGO parts inventory. These work perfectly to shape the inside debs grooves seen on the actual model. I cut the hinges off the 2x2 and 1x2 hinge tops to shape this beveled groove. I kept some of the hinge pattern on them and sanded them down to have some sort of tenure for my model. To do the red 5 markings I am using the white parts of lego brand stickers to cut off and stick on the tiles and wedge plate. I wanted a stronger wing, this is my only choice. Air intake and engine compartments. Redesigned with new 2017 parts. I also used brick arms clips to slide into those 4x4 technic cylinders. If you cut some hose and slide them into the side technic holes that hols the brick arms clips in place. Awesome sause. I did cut the LEGO clips down a bit to fit them into the hole and slide them into the stud axle you see in front of the 3x3 technique dish. Once i figure out a solution for the 4mm pneumatic hose to go onto my ion cannons, figure out what to use as a curved ion cannon piece like dmaclego used (he used a white hockey mask), I thought of using another lego mask he asked about on his flickr. Waiting for that part to arrive. Once I get these parts in place, the ship will be done. I am reworking the wings a bit where the gears are attached, but for the most part. Everything is done. Custom canopy. I did some early tests months ago, have a solution in the works. I plan on doing that after I upload high quality photos of the finished X-wing. I still need to build a nice stand.

I took a long break to focus on work and family. You are not the only one who messaged me about concerns. I spent month back and forth fixing the wings, the gear system and side panel issue on the main ship. I am finishing up the new ion cannons. I will post new photos of the final design in a week or two. I also will show detailed photos showing the changes I made. I will reverse engineer its build to fix the LDD file. Changes: 1. Two ball joint modified parts. Needed to sand down with a Dremel to get more range of motion to ball joints. 2. Completely redesigned side panels to fuselage. The new structure is more durable and holds together. This also uses several techniques that hold the side panels on the structure and reinforces the strength of the whole. 3. New cockpit design. The interior of the fuselage changed. I chose to make the interior structure not have a cross section. It can fit, but I have focused on getting the whole structure stronger. The cockpit has a nice cozy replica of the x-wing in LEGO form. Looking forward to sharing this. 4. The wing design. As a few people mentioned in earlier posts and several private messages I concur that the design simply does not work. I did not design the wings, just the gear system. Some people chose to use the 12 stud long wedge plate because of its strength and durability. I chose to use the same 4 stud long, but completely changes the type of tiles and plates. The under side of each wing in the real x-wing has 2 debossments. I currently use light bluish gray plates to show them. I customized hinge tops 1x2 and 2x2. I cut the hinge parts off and sanded them down. They work just as good as the 2x2 round turn table top as dmaclego uses. 5. Ion cannon design. I saw an ion cannon design by dmaclego and I admit I have no idea how he kept it together without drilling a hole into the wheel wells where the hub cap is. I did this to all the wheels and I admit this allowed bars to go through. He used train axles and slid them into the ribbed 3mm hose. The older ribbed 3mm have an inside diameter that fits the axles. I am currently working on these, waiting for an order to complete. 6. Gears. After looking at dmaclego I am trying a similar technic design because I want something that is stronger. Right now the current structure is okay. I just want to see how it fits in my current time model with a similar design he did. 7. Stickers/paint. I have been collecting LEGO stickers from xwing sets and ucs xwing on bricklink. I also picked up a few other star wars based stickers. The point is, I didn't WA t them adhered to plates and tiles since I didn't know what parts I was going to use. The cockpit stickers from the US xwing works perfectly for this project. They include markings and such that will look nice all over. Painting only the ion cannon stripes since 4mm pneumatic hose does not work when cut into stripes. I apologize for all these issues. I wish I had more time to solve this sooner. The good news is you will all be able to build this model with little customizations. I am sure you guys could do different rogue squadron designs on the model. Or just use the current ion cannons. I just have an interest in more accuracy. I am sorry for the lack of updates. I know your WIP was a difficult one. I have the same frustrations. It's the downfall of LDD. I am updating this topic in a week or so once the last few part orders arrive and I solve the wing connection issue.

Will you be uploading the LDD files? I would love to build one of these for my collection.

do you have instructions for this, or planning on doing instructions?

I took a break to get back to focusing on my job. I just finished with getting my stickers for my mack 5, echo 1, bttf deloreans and plan to add them onto my models first. I did, however get all my parts in for this build and about half way done with the fuselage. I have not started this, but I did get all the parts to build it. I am using going to start by using a x-acto box cutter knife, super fine sand paper to smooth down the edges and superglue the parts. I want to build a rough one first, then the final. I will post pictures of the build first, then update my concepts and work on the canopy. Sorry for the major delays.

I am waiting for several parts to arrive in aluminum from chrome block city and stickers to be made. I put up a WIP back in December. I am reworking the rear to lower the time traveling side panels the run from the roof, down the side and over the wheel well. I want it lowered a bit and to lower the 3 red bars. Trying new parts that recently released as well. I am so behind on doing my model updates.

Always amazing work. Did you do an interior for the car? If so, would you be willing to post a picture of it? Have you ever thought of tackling the BTTF delorean or even a regular DMC 12? I am always amazed by your scale cars and I would love to see how you would tackle that iconic car. I cannot get it to look right without staying true to a 7 wide body. And after the add ons with the wires and wheel wells it fits inside a 8-stude width. I only have seen Misterzumbi handle it with a 6 stud wide body, but I am sure with all the new parts somebody could try doing this size in 2017. I may attempt it after I release my 7 stud wide version, but I surely would love to see what you would do with it.

I got about halfway into the fuselage steps and realized I never ordered a large chunk of pieces. They should be arriving soon. I did worry about the wing construction. I am debating on making a mod where they are with larger white tiles instead of red tiles representing the red 2, 5 etc markings. this may help. Though it would mean the red markings would be stickers. Sorry for the delay. If I come up with a better solution I will post it and update my LDD file. I have already been modifying the side panels near the cockpit. Mainly for durability. I will post pictures soon.

I am using 2 mini fig hands. The build is slowly coming along. I deleted the wings just to focus on building the main fuselage section. I can understand wanting to make it more durable. I am doing the wings last. I think you need to post your updates on this. I am building via LDD build mode. I am about 1/2 done with the fuselage. Even with all the grouped file parts, I wish it would help make the generated instructions work better. I have a lot of random parts built. I may spend a whole day later this week to work on it. When you have time could you post photos and show us the issues after you work on the shuttle? Right now I am working on mine. Hoping to have it done over the next week. I think I know where you may be having stability issues. I will post pics soon.

I just got my last order a few days ago. I bought parts to build both versions. I will construct them and test it and then share my results. My guess is the gears will hold up just fine even though I prefer the back of the xwing non gear version. I got my stickers from various models as well so the cockpitpit should look full as well ago the removed panels inside the ship. Spent way too much money on sticker sheets for various upcoming star war model builds.

I will sometime this month. I just got my last order for my X-Wing.

that is why I need to get the parts to test it. I worry about that as well.