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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.

 

This page last modified on 8/25/2006
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