Bandai’s 1/48 Star Wars Snowspeeder Part 2: Assembly And Painting

Luke’s Snowspeeder had gray stripes?!

It’s funny the things I miss when watching movies. I get so focused in on the action and dialog that quite often the scenery itself is lost on me.

So it has been quite fun to “discover” so many things I’d missed in the Star Wars movies through building scale models.

For example, if you’d have asked me even just a few years ago “what color was Luke’s X-Wing Fighter?”, I’d have said “white with some red stripes.” Imagine my surprise then when I first built Bandai’s 1/72 X-Wing Fighter to find that it was a veritable patchwork of color. Who knew? (Besides George Lucas and ILM, of course…)

I even went back and watched some of the clips from Star Wars, and sure enough… there they were. All sorts of color. And it turned out to be the same way with all of the “alphabet soup fighters.”

Color Me Gray (Or Red)

The first time I built Bandai’s 1/48 Snowspeeder, I decided to go with a decidedly non-cano color for the stripes, opting for blue. I even came up with a funny little backstory about Blue Squadron’s role in the Battle of Hoth.

Just like my wonder at the X-Wing colors, I discovered through Bandai that Luke’s Snowspeeder was adorned with gray stripes. In all the times I’d watched The Empire Strikes Back, I’d never noticed it. Did anyone know it besides me? (Besides George Lucas and ILM, of course…) I need to pay better attention.

For this build, I considered doing Luke’s Snowspeeder, with its exciting gray stripes over dingy white scheme. Still, the more I thought about, I realized that in my mind, for almost 40 years, I’d thought of it with red stripes. So I decided to go with what was in my head, scary as that thought may sound. If anyone asks, I’ll just say it was one of the overweight guys in Red Squadron.

(As an overweight guy, I’m glad to know there is a possibility of flying space fighters, even I have to change my name to something more porcine in nature. I think I’d go with Sau-Sage Baconacious, from the Sp’aaam system.)

Anyway…About THIS Snowspeeder

This video details the parts breakdown I used, some detail painting, getting a distressed look for the base paints, adding stripes, and putting a few decals on. And if you missed it, be sure and check out the previous installment in this series covering the cockpit painting.

Get this kit – you won’t be disappointed!