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Bandai 1/144 TFA Millennium Falcon


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Hi Mike, Nicholas, Don thanks guys! Hi David, thanks - yeah, I just love this model. The curved hull and detail are amazing -- it's a pity you'll find it in 1/144 only, when Bandai has a whole line of Gundam Mobile-suit kits in High Grade, Real Grade and king-sized Perfect Grade. At least Finemolds offered a sibling in 1/72.

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Was able to paint and sandwich the mandibles today.

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Was also able to replace the blue LEDs with white ones which had a very subtle bluish tinge that strangely doesn't show at all in the photos. Although, the glow looks blue-green in the movie, doesn't it?

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With lower resistor value -- for full AB's : ) I'll see if I have some old potentiometer in the stash to make the brightness adjustable.

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It's probably just my own personal preference but I thought the lighting affects in these two shots looked great and captured the look of the Falcon quite nicely. The newer photos with the whiter LED's just seem too white to me. But again, it's just my own personal preference.

Great work again :thumbsup:!

Cheers!

Don.

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Hi Don, no, I really appreciate the feedback. And I completely agree with you about the white being off. I wasn't really happy with it either as it looked like the Falcon model could stand in as a desktop work lamp that way, heheh. On the other hand I thought the blue was just too stark. I've been examining the color further and it actually looks like a blue-green hue to me?

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I also tried to deal with the issue of hot spots on the light strip -- where you can "see" the position of the light sources-- whereas I wanted a continuous strip with even lighting. I know there are those backing light strips you can buy but their luminosity isn't that great. I want it to really fire up. I tried searching in youtube for diffusing methods used by light saber builders and learned about using packaging foam sheet like so:

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I tried stacking two of them with one LED per strip to make one long strip but I could still see the partition as the light seems to fade as it reaches the other end. I think the technique would work better if you have wide-angle straw-hat LEDs which I didn't have so I kept looking.

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I learned that stencil film is a good diffuser so I swung by Michaels to get some. I was surprised to see that the stencil film they carried (Martha Stewart non-adhesive) had the color I was looking for. I could actually use plain white LED and the effect should match the TFA Falcon's engine glow color. The instructions says to remove the protective backing before use. I guess that's where it gets the color. I tried to remove it but couldn't. All the better I guess :)/>

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I read of some light saber DIYers filing away the tip of the LED to diffuse the light better so I did just that.

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I bought a lot of Watercolor White LEDs from the electronics hobby shop -- huge mistake -- as "watercolor whilte" turned out to be slightly yellowish when lit and it cancels out the blue-green color of the stencil. I was lucky to find a few more ordinary white LEDs lying around so I'll be using those instead.

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I cut a strip of stencil and put it right behind my fake milk-glass and lit her up with one LED to test. It looks really close to the TFA Falcon engine glow color, doesn't it? Or maybe just my eyes playing tricks -- what do you guys think?

Edited by crackerjazz
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Considering she languished in the heat, sun, and sand storms of Jakku for a fair amount of time it stands to reason that she'd be more filthy, gritty, and weathered. I know she was half heartedly covered before Finn and Rey "borrowed" it but you have to wonder about sun bleaching on the exposed upper surfaces.

I like the new lights too btw :thumbsup:!

Cheers!

Don.

Edited by Don
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