1/24 T-32 Deuce X-Wing

Gallery Article by Alvis 3.1

Silly Week 2008

 

George Lucas is likely best known for bringing us Star Wars, but he did a film before that which was hugely popular as well. That film was American graffiti. But, let's imagine, what would we have gotten if he had combined BOTH films into one? 

Why, we'd have gotten:
Star Graffiti Wars!

The story so far...

Young Luke StarRacer was bored on his uncles' evaporator farm, so he set out to find some fun and adventure with his friends.  Along the way, they tried to locate the beautiful blonde princess who kept cruising in and out of their star system, encountered a rougish pirate named Han Solo and his Bigfoot copilot Chewie, linked up with the famous Obi-Wan Milnobi and helped defeat the massive DeathDrive-In, a huge spacestation that cruised from system to system destroying its' competition!  Luke used his trustworthy Incom T-32 Star Rod Fighter, heavily modified and chopped, dropped and capable of lightspeed in a blazing 6.5 seconds!  In the climatic sequence we all know so well, Luke was saved at the last minute from destruction by County Sherrif Garth Vador by the timely intervention of Han in his Millenial Falcon freight StarTruck.  The rebellion was saved, and the young racers could compete for intersystem pink slips in freedom!

The scene here is of course the moment outside of the Yavin DragStrip where a StateStormTrooper is attempting to give Luke an "undue care and attention" ticket, but Chewie has other ideas! Truly a great moment in the film!

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

The Kit

One day, at the hobby shop where I work, we bought a collection of car kits, and in it was the American Graffiti '32 Ford. Lacking all the chrome, it was relegated to the "Heavily Discounted" rack, where I rescued it. It occurred to me that George Lucas did both American Graffiti AND Star Wars, and since I was looking for something to enter in the local model contest as a '32 Ford, it was a natural.  Parts from the Ertl Speeder Bike and some bits from the scrap box fleshed out the idea.  I added the "S" foils from sheet plastic, and the decals were run off on my inkjet printer at home.  Artoo is made from scratch.  The majority of the body was painted by using Tamiya spraycans, and the burning marks was done by airbrushing on layers of yellow and brown Tamiya acrylics. The Luke and StateStormTrooper were metal keychains, and Chewie the BigFoot was a bad ripoff Planet of the Apes figure.

Alvis 3.1

Photos and text © by Alvis 3.1