I would guess I bought this kit in 1979 or 1980 and since then I have only seen one other. The Estes "maxi-brute" was a rocket powered flying kit of the Star Wars® X-Wing. I have no interest in model rocketry, but was seduced by the kits' injected molded pieces and impressive size (Length 19 3/4 in., Width 16 1/4 in., Scale 1/20?). I was later to learn that it is exactly the same size of the miniatures used in the production of the film.

About 40% of the model you see is from the "maxi-brute" kit, the remainder being scratch built or kit bashed. The main body of the ship is from the kit. Since it was blow-molded to be thin and light, I backed the inside with polyester so I could scribe in plate detail. The wings are built out of sandwiched acrylic since styrene would be to soft and, over time, would warp. The engines are divided into two main pieces and there are almost totally kit bashed. The bulk of the front section is made out of one half of the "rocket stage 3" section of the common Saturn V model rocket kit. The engine bells from this kit were also used for detail in the front intakes. The back part of the engines is from a 1/32 scale kit of the Revell Phantom II jet. This kit is very hard to find, and to make matters worse you need 6 of the dang things! I kept waiting for someone to re-issue this kit but finally gave up and molded the one engine I did have. In addition to the back engines, these pieces also fit into the inside recess of the wing opposite the Saturn V piece.

I first primed the model with black primer, and then painted (with the exception of the cockpit interior) the model with a gloss white enamel. After the model had dried for a week I dulled the surface down using a fine grade scotch bright pad. Over that, I used floquill railroad colors for the detail paint. The aging was created using a variety of techniques. An airbrush was used to dirty down large areas with a dark grey. I also like to use black acrylic paint thinned with water. If you moisten the model with a spray bottle of water you can drissle and splash this mixture and get some great effects. The best part is that if you don't like it, it washes off. With the hard white surface underneath the floquill you can use the scotch bright pad to distress raised detail and an x-acto knife to chip away the detail paint.

Front View (large image!)

References