B-Wing Pilot
Parts:
- Arvyl Crynd (from Rebel Pilots Cinema Scene) lower body and arms
- Ten Numb (from Rebel Pilots Cinema Scene) torso and helmet
- GI-Joe head
- black rubber band
After all the trouble I went through on my Y-Wing Pilot, I realized that I had everything I needed to make a decent B-Wing pilot - except for a generic-looking head. I needed a head that would be big enough to wear the helmet well and have a neck long enough to come above the collar. Figuring that my customized Bo Shek is pretty much obsolete because of the new Hasbro figure, I decided to use his head, which is originally from an old GI-Joe figure.
The body on this figure didn't require that much work. I really only needed to reposition his left foot so he stood correctly. A little work was also needed to get the lower body peg to fit inside the torso.
The helmet was a bit of a challenge, since it comes with that funky mouthpiece thing. It's also pretty wide so that it fits Ten Numb's head. So to solve both problems (and to be more accurate - see below), I cut away the mouthpiece and straps and replaced them with a black rubber band. (I actually found a huge bag of black rubber bands at the dollar store a few years ago and knew it would come in handy one day for some customs. The end product came out better than expected; I wonder if I could start using these things for straps on removable X-Wing helmets.) I also cut off a little of the brown plastic at the back of the helmet, because it stuck out too much on the smaller head.
For painting, I used a red that was darker than the Arvyl Crynd figure, plus gray, black, and sand-color. I needed to use some serious dull coat afterwards to cut down on the gloss. After all the painting, I cut off one of Ten Numb's hoses and glued it on the chest box.
Here's a picture of the finished B-Wing pilot along with the other figures I used for parts:
Accuracy
B-Wing pilots got practically no screen time, so I was hard pressed to find a good reference picture. I found the following picture in the Return of the Jedi storybook. You can see several B-Wing pilots in the upper right.
Here's a closeup of the same picture:
I still needed a good closeup of the helmet, but there were no cockpit shots of B-Wing pilots. And then I remembered I'd seen one of these helmets in the old PC game Rebel Assault II. Looking through the game's strategy guide, I found the following picture of the B-Wing helmet. (If you are interested in doing customs of rebel pilots, Rebel Assault II is a great resource for seeing lots of cockpit closeups.)
This is how I concluded that the strap just went under the chin. The mouthpiece apparatus must just have been for Ten Numb. In this picture the strap is white, but I don't have any white rubber bands, so I went with black. Besides, the chin strap on the vintage B-Wing Pilot was black too.
I've read that the actual B-Wing helmet may have been on display at Celebration II in Indianapolis. I'd love to hear from anyone who might have seen it, especially anyone with pictures.
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