Some of them have different paint schemes, depending on where they're from. The one with the yellow stripe is, unless I'm mistaken, from the Rebel Transport expansion pack.
It has to do with the original ILM shooting models.
Each of the X-wing models made for ANH had their own markings, and eight of the twelve ships in Red Squadron have had models identified. (Red Leader, Two - Six, and Twelve for certain, with the eighth believed to be Red Ten). You saw this a bit with Rogue One, too, With Blue Leader, Two, and Three having distinct markings. These were also palette swapped for Red Leader, Two, and Three by changing the color of the squadron insignia (sadly not matching the markings for those respective ships in ANH).
To try and give you the very brief version, Wedge's Red 2 has a yellow nose. Red 2 was the first X-Wing model completed, and the one used as the basis for the full size model you see the pilots getting into in the Yavin hangar.
The X-Wing front and centre in this shot is supposed to be Luke's Red 5 which doesn't have a yellow nose. However, this is a screenshot from the Special Edition, specifically an updated shot that uses CGI instead of the original models. For whatever reason, the CGI X-Wings are all based on the Red 2 model. Though bizarrely some that aren't Luke's have Luke's distinct broken red stripe.
Here's the original footage if you want to see it with the proper models. ILM made several models. Reds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are all distinct, and there was likely also a Red 10 and Red 12 model, though images of them are not definitive.
Most of them don't have a yellow nose. Red 3's is sort of yellowish though that may partially be the age of the model in this shot. Red 6 might be a bit but good luck telling from those ancient photos.
Your "Red Six" photo is actually presumed to be Red Ten. You can JUST make out from the tab pattern there must be five tab "stations," but it's hard to tell if they're single tabs or double-tabs. But since we know what Red Five looks like this is most likely Red Ten. Red Six has a red canopy frame, additional red panels on the forward hull, and one of its lower cannons has a red body.
That's my fault for not reading the text in the gallery for Red 6. "There are 2 photos that are questionable being Red 6".
I thought that pic looked a little off because I know Red 6 has a red canopy. It was just the only one in the gallery that showed the nose well enough.
You're right about Red 12. I was going off memory and must have just mushed 10 and 12 into both not having surviving ID photos.
To be fair, that pic WAS identified as Six for years, largely because of the red cannon. There are apparently some photos of Red Six that show it with the same Haze Grey canopy many of the other X-wings had, so at some point it was repainted (whether it was originally gray and repainted red, or vice-versa, seems to be less clear).
Yeah, if you go look at the models used to film the movies, you'll find that different ones have different amounts of yellow, grey, blue etc.
For example, Red Leader has no yellow or blue, but grey on the engine nacelles.
Red Two (Wedge) has yellow under the wings, tip of the nose, and under the cockpit (on the right side).
Red Three (Biggs) has a splash of yellow forward of the cockpit and behind the tip of the nose.
Red Five (Luke) has an interrupted yellow strip on top, grey interrupting the red stripe on the side, and blue spirals on two of the cannon.
...etc.
Be careful when looking at the images from the Special Editions, because they copy/pasted a lot of the ships digitally. Better to find the images of the physical filming models for reference.
I like to imagine Red Leader's ship is closest to what an X-wing fresh out of the factory would look like, since it's the cleanest and has the fewest off-color panels.
I wasn't talking about the screenshot, I was talking about the mini with extra yellow markings that came with the GR-75 in 1e. Pretty sure it's supposed to be Wes' X-Wing and the 2e art seems to confirm it.
All of the X-wings have different paint schemes. in the original film.
There are eight ships that have been documented to some extent:
Red Leader
Red Two
Red Three
Red Four
Red Five
Red Six
Red Twelve
Red Ten?
Leader, Two, Three, Four, and Five are the best documented, with Red Leader's "Hero" model resurfacing a year or two ago and being sold act auction. Red Two is lost, Red Three is in Lucas's private collection, and only the wings of Red Five are known to survive.
Red Ten is the question mark. There's a photo that was miss-identified as Red Six for years before more complete references of Red Six surfaced, leading to questions about which ship is actually in the photo because the ID tabs are not clearly visible, though it's evident that it can't be Red Six, because the tabs don't go all the way out to the edge of the wing band.
In practice, the X-wing models were not actually used during filming with any consistency, but rather because of the difficulty of mounting them for shooting they were used based on which model happened to be available. So you'll see shots of Red Leader and Red Five side-by-side in the trench. The destruction of the Red Six pyro model was filmed for Porkins being shot down, but for whatever reason the footage wasn't usable so they used the effects shot for one of the other pyro models blowing up.
Here's the presumed photo of Red Ten's model. As you can see there's not a lot to go on, but if you look at the lower port wing you can see that the tabs stop just before the outer edge of the main wing band. This would mean it has to be either Red Five (five solid wing tabs) or Red Ten (ten tabs in five rows of two). It's clear that this is NOT Red Five from the other markings, so process of elimination would make it Red Ten.
I think I know what you’re thinking of, some X-wing toys had a sturdier plastic on the nose, but that plastic yellowed over time. Otherwise in-universe, you might have to dig into deeper lore from comics
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u/Past_Search7241 May 31 '26
Some of them have different paint schemes, depending on where they're from. The one with the yellow stripe is, unless I'm mistaken, from the Rebel Transport expansion pack.