Jay Chladek Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 (edited) I got this beastie done late last week for the show in KC. Thought you guys might want to check it out: It is the FineMolds kit done up as close to the 32" studio model appearance as I was able to manage. It was built essentially OOB, although I did use a Dremel Mini-Mite and a couple engraving bits to add some battle damage like what the studio model had. More images of the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy can be found here: http://s92.photobucket.com/albums/l31/JMCh...Molds%20Falcon/ "What the heck is an Aluminum Falcon?!" Edited April 23, 2009 by Jay Chladek Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SBARC Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 That has got to be one of the best jobs I've seen on this kit. I jsut watched the Start Trek series on TV a few days ago......your model captures the look very well. BTW....in the movie....there was one scene where they were manning the AA guns on each side of the ship. Are these guns part of the model? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jay Chladek Posted April 23, 2009 Author Share Posted April 23, 2009 You mean these? The gun turrets are top and bottom. The gunners climb up and down into the bays and artificial gravity has them sitting essentially on the front wall of the turret relative to the rest of the ship so they can look out the window in front of them. It is a little goofy sequence though as pretty much every blueprint out there of the Millennium Falcon has shown that there is not enough room in the ship to have an access tunnel that long to both turrets. FineMolds has the gun turret wells with the gunnery chairs and even though they are shorter then the set pieces, the tunnel that links them by comparison is still a bit too short. Oh well, it looks good in the movie though. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Alvis 3.1 Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 You came here in THAT???? :P Great job...takes me back to 1977 when I first laid eyes on Han's ole beater... Alvis 3.1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
K2Pete Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 I'm just amazed that this is OOB! The level of detail is tremendous! And Jay, you've done a nice job with the paint, the delicate weathering, the subtle battle damage, to make a terrific looking model! And your photos of it are excellent! In 1/72, what's the diameter of this here Star Trek ( isn't it Star WARS? ) Magnesium Falcon vessel? It looks to be about 10" or 12". I can't get over the infinite little details INCLUDED on this model. The guys who did this should be congratulated! That's a really nice job you've done on it Jay! Thanx for posting the pix! Pete Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SBARC Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 You mean these?The gun turrets are top and bottom. The gunners climb up and down into the bays and artificial gravity has them sitting essentially on the front wall of the turret relative to the rest of the ship so they can look out the window in front of them. It is a little goofy sequence though as pretty much every blueprint out there of the Millennium Falcon has shown that there is not enough room in the ship to have an access tunnel that long to both turrets. FineMolds has the gun turret wells with the gunnery chairs and even though they are shorter then the set pieces, the tunnel that links them by comparison is still a bit too short. Oh well, it looks good in the movie though. Ya....those are the guns......funny I always assumed they were on the sides.....due to the length of the tunnel and all. It's cool to finally find out where they are on the actual ship. It is a "stellar" job you did on this model. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
taylorde Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 That has got to be one of the best jobs I've seen on this kit.I jsut watched the Start Trek series on TV a few days ago......your model captures the look very well. BTW....in the movie....there was one scene where they were manning the AA guns on each side of the ship. Are these guns part of the model? Star WHAT ????? DaveT Quote Link to post Share on other sites
taylorde Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 What color paint did you use ? Did you use the decals , or paint the various markings too ? I enjoyed the build on YouTube, just not sure what they are saying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JR84jmxwL0 DaveT Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aigore Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 it´s... it´s... it´s beautiful!! :wub: Wonderful paintjob and finish, pretty much spot on I´d say!!! On a side note...it´s so fun looking at the details on Star Wars stuff and try to determin from what kit they came :P pretty much all Star Wars ships where kitbashed!! Cheers! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
illithid00 Posted April 23, 2009 Share Posted April 23, 2009 This has got to be the best paintjob I've ever seen on the Falcon. You captured the look and feel of this iconic Star Wars ship absolutely perfectly. Great job! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GreyGhost Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 Beautiful Falcon, Jay ! Good luck at the show ... Gregg Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jay Chladek Posted April 24, 2009 Author Share Posted April 24, 2009 (edited) Thanks guys. First of all, the model is about 12" in width and a little over 17" in length. It is supposedly 1/72 scale, although a new set of dimensions has come out from LFL making it maybe a little smaller then that (close enough for government work). It is slightly smaller in size then the MPC Millennium Falcon kit and a little bigger then the Revell snap together kit. I did build her out of the box so I could enter it in IPMS OOB categories. All things considered though, this model is so packed with detail that it doesn't really need much else beyond what the kit provides. Only things I might add after this contest season is over are a more accurate looking set of control yokes in the cockpit and more levers on the instrument panel. Only modification I did to the kit (still legal for OOB) was to open up the cutouts on the edges of the main hull pieces as these are sort of flashed over. I know why FineMolds molded them that way as it would have been very difficult to mold these cutouts open and removing them with a square file only took maybe a couple hours total. The Japanese videos on Youtube did provide some assistance to my model. Although they are in Japanese, there are the occasional bits of "Engrish" which I can understand and for some color callouts, they flashed up text versions on the screen showing the FS numbers. The FineMolds kit recommends Light Gray FS36495 for the basecoat. I first utilized a black preshade and oversprayed the basecoat over that. It looked fine on smaller parts, but on the main hulls it looked a little too blue, probably due to the pre-shading. I had considered camouflage gray as an overspray, but to me, Falcon models done in straight camo gray look a little too brown. The Japanese modeler utilized a mix of FS36495 with FS36622 Camouflage Gray Gunze colors. I took that recommendation to heart and dumped a new bottle of each (Model Master brand in my case) into a larger Badger mixing jar for a straight 50/50 mixture which I sprayed over the original light gray basecoat. The resulting color match looked very good to my eye as it seemed to have just the right touch of blue and brown. Almost all the panels on my model are painted on. I did utilize the decals on three of the panels on the bottom and one on the cockpit pod for a little different paint variation (they are a bit browner then the neutral gray color that the instructions recommend). The real chore were the slightly darker gray shade panels found on portions of the hull as FineMolds made no mention of these. The Japanese modeler used straight Gull Gray (FS16440) for his panels, but the color looked way too dark to my eye. So I did a nearly 50/50 mixture of Flat Gull Gray (FS36440) and Camouflage gray for my accent panels. Neutral Gray (two shades, Testors and Tamiya as Tamiya is a little darker) and Testors Rust mixed with a few drops of red were used on the dark gray and red oxide panels. In my mind, painting the panels on instead of utilizing the decals gave the model a better appearance. The battle damage and weathering were the fun bits as I attacked the model with a Dremel Mini-Mite and a couple tiny engraving bits (#105 and #108 respectively). I used the bits for everything from minor paint chipping on the red oxide panels, to the black chipping on the gray panels (using a black pigment pen with a .005 tip to re-color black in areas where I etched down to the plastic), to the heavier blast damage spots on the hull. Pastel chalks were applied with Microbrush brand brush applicators. These little guys IMHO are perfect for adding pastels to a 1/72 model. BTW, the digital Millennium Falcon model made for the Star Wars special edition releases of the films did appear in Star Trek. It is one of the background ships seen briefly in First Contact right as the Borg Cube blows up. It was snuck in by ILM digital artist John Knoll as an in joke. http://memory-alpha.org/en/index.php/Battle_of_Sector_001 Edited April 24, 2009 by Jay Chladek Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Blappy Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 That is a nice piece of work Jay. Did you have that at Wonderfest and how did it do? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
richter111 Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Nice build! Great job on the painting. When I was a kid, I lived in Okinawa and had a clear blue rubber falcon, it cam with some candy I bought. It was about the size of a quarter. I also had the star destroyer and the X wing in the same size. Man those were cool! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
niart17 Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 very nice jay! that easily could be the studio model. Bill Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jay Chladek Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 Nice build!Great job on the painting. When I was a kid, I lived in Okinawa and had a clear blue rubber falcon, it cam with some candy I bought. It was about the size of a quarter. I also had the star destroyer and the X wing in the same size. Man those were cool! Man you are bringing back some memories as I also lived in Okinawa when I was a kid (Feb 1978 to July 1979, went to school at Kadena Elementary, first and second grade) and I had several of those clear rubber SW minis as well. I had a Falcon and an X-Wing and an Imperial Cruiser. I can't remember if there were others in the series. The two Falcons I had were green and yellow. I wish I could remember what happened to them as I recall having them for a few years when my family moved back to Texas and until the big Kenner toy came out, they were the ONLY Falcon toys I had. Thanks for the good words guys. I did indeed take the model to Wonderfest and it took a bronze. I was expecting it to do at least that well, but I was hoping for more (Silver mainly). I think the basic stand let it down as I probably should have come up with a better display platform for the model. Still, I felt the stock stand was satisfactory for it and a lot of people did snap pictures of the piece. Ah well, I am still very proud of what I accomplished with this build as it is my best SF model to date. The next Falcon I do will be the blue trimmed one seen in SW Episode 3 as I have some closeup images of it and a Micro machine diecast painted in these colors as well. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RedHeadKevin Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 I jsut watched the Start Trek series on TV a few days ago......your model captures the look very well. In 1/72, what's the diameter of this here Star Trek ( isn't it Star WARS? ) Magnesium Falcon vessel? It looks to be about 10" or 12 Sorry... My eye just twitched a little. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
HOLMES Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 Really STUNNING Jay.... Your detailing is SUPERB HOLMES Quote Link to post Share on other sites
moeggo Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 Damn thats a nice build!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cksh Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 Absolutely incredible build!! I am getting inspired to work on mine. But knowing that it will look nowhere near as good as yours I may not I enjoy painting but do not have an eye for chosing color. I tend to use whatever is recommended and at the most might lighten it up. Looks like you got it spot-on! I also watched the build on youtube. May I ask how you masked those panels off? The guy on youtube looked like he used a liquid mask. I can't see taping them off do to the uneven edges. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jay Chladek Posted June 5, 2009 Author Share Posted June 5, 2009 (edited) Absolutely incredible build!!I am getting inspired to work on mine. But knowing that it will look nowhere near as good as yours I may not I enjoy painting but do not have an eye for chosing color. I tend to use whatever is recommended and at the most might lighten it up. Looks like you got it spot-on! I also watched the build on youtube. May I ask how you masked those panels off? The guy on youtube looked like he used a liquid mask. I can't see taping them off do to the uneven edges. In my case, I just used Tamiya tape of various widths (mostly 6mm on the edge, and fatter stuff elsewhere). Now instead of going the liquid mask route, during building I marked in the instructions to leave off certain parts to aid in detail painting (mainly some of the engine deck details top and bottom) and this helped with the masking quite a bit. Then when the paint was down, I glued those certain parts on. I went with this method since I've never had good luck with liquid masks, no matter what I tried. As long as you keep your airbrush paint mixture light and mist it on, then leaking under the masks isn't a problem. Edited June 5, 2009 by Jay Chladek Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cksh Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 In my case, I just used Tamiya tape of various widths (mostly 6mm on the edge, and fatter stuff elsewhere). Now instead of going the liquid mask route, during building I marked in the instructions to leave off certain parts to aid in detail painting (mainly some of the engine deck details top and bottom) and this helped with the masking quite a bit. Then when the paint was down, I glued those certain parts on. I went with this method since I've never had good luck with liquid masks, no matter what I tried. As long as you keep your airbrush paint mixture light and mist it on, then leaking under the masks isn't a problem. Thanks for the reply! I like the idea of building in stages. I will give it a try. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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