Build The Millennium Falcon

Mods could i get this thread moved to the "Models" forum please? I think it might be better suited over there and i can get some advice off the guys with more experience than me!

Thanks a lot


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

EDIT by Mod:
Thread moved to Models as requested.

Last few days i sprayed a base coat of Vallejo German Grey. So far so good, ill let that dry then start adding some more bits to it.



I also got the Tamiya AS20 i ordered to try sort out the falcon base coat debacle. the water paints just didnt want to work. it was decent out yesterday with no wind out the back so i brought some pieces out and sprayed them. you can see the panel lines showing through the coat of AS20 here, i might leave them like this now or maybe give them another light coat.

The two main pieces had been sprayed with a white tamiya rattle can base coat then panel lined with german grey, but the back section with the vents i had sprayed with that DOA falcon paint, so i might panel line that again and give another coat of the AS20 just to try match the colours, because they look a bit different at the minute, that part and the main sections, you can see that in the last image, panel lines not as prominent and a slight different colour..

But i think the AS20 turned out great, very easy to spray from the can and went on flat.

Something i learned too building this model that is vital and never really mentioned, is get a dust brush and dust off the model before you spray anything on it. seems obvious but i didnt on a couple of parts and the paint seals the dust and it looks bad.

Not much of an update this week, but got a few bits done.

First up i put an coat of "Starship filth" Oil on the pipe i made last week after the airbrushed coat and stripes dried. I rubbed this back off after a few seconds. I forgot to take an after photo though. doh.



Next up i added some spare bits i had to the back wall and then added some oil paint, rust and starship filth to parts of it. Made a bit of a screw up when i went to add one of the parts i made from styrene. It just didnt want to glue on and the glue clouded the paint, you can see it above the cut out wall in one of the images below. I managed to fix it though by adding the two skinny grey pipes to hide the messed up glue and using some oil paint to dirty up that part above the cut out section.





I then made a box to go behind the cutout parts of the wall, which i will add some spare parts and wiring etc to.



and on the side wall, beside the Nav console i added in the pipes and some of the columns in front of them. In the kit thats basically it for that section, the columns just free stand there with nothing on top. but i decided to make a top for that, im going for a vent look on the front of it. The first flat piece of styrene i will be cutting a long hole in it too and putting an LED strip in there to shine light downwards onto the pipes.

You can see in the images a bit better what im going for.



These will all be sprayed etc for the next update. that back wall looks a bit rough at the minute, but with weathering etc i think it will be fine. There will also be a lot of barrels and cargo in front of it so i think it will be grand.

Unfortunately not, its been a while since i had a chance to do anything with it. I dont want to force myself to do it either because i wont do it right that way, so havent really pushed myself at it, ill only end up doing it quickly and not correctly and wont be happy with it when its finished. I will get back to it though and will update when i do!

I should actually get back into this. Most of it is still boxed away. Now is the perfect time to get some done.

Got a bit more done, its a slow process waiting for stuff to dry.

First up i added some fibres to the hold bench. pain in the *$&£*

I got them in anyways, waiting for glue to dry, I used a soldering iron to bend the fibres to a 90 degree angle, had to use a blade to shave off plastic so i could get them to fit in the groove in the bottom of the bench. fingers crossed it works out. we will see.




Next up , i wasnt happy with the extra hold piece i built previously to go above the pipes so I made a new piece from styrene and am waiting for it dry after spraying it.



There is a light in the falcon beside this door, the kit provides a piece of plastic crap to go there but i wanted it to light up. I previously had made this light from some spare white spru and copper wire i had. I drilled a bigger hole in the wall and glued the light i made over it. then i put a light in the back and glued it place. images below.



Finally for today The Nav computer. I was dreading this because before i packed it up last year i drilled it for loads of fibres, i found them very hard to work with in the small size required here, so i kinda got lazy and cheated a bit. First i just used some dry brushing to add dept t the console itself.

I had "glass paint" that is basically transparent when dried. So i painted some red blue and yellow colours on the back of the nav console and im just using led strips im making at the minute to illuminate them from behind. you can see the effect below, using a torch here. Good enough! To put it in scale this isnt much bigger than a 50 cent piece,theres actually a decal for the bottom left panel in the image there im debating about putting on or not.




Thats it for now!!

Thanks a lot appreciate the comments. With regards the insides, when the model is completed you can take the top off in 2 places, the main hold and one of the corridors, the hull pieces are held in place with magnets. you can see them off in the image below.

GinSoaked wrote: »

I wonder if there is anyway you could film a walk through with some sort of mini camera?

I’m sure there is something that could do it.

Last update for this week.

First up I put the piece i sprayed in the last update in place over the pipes in the hold. Looks ok there i think, i also put a black wash over the white light beside the door as it was a bit too clean i think and i did a but of dry brushing in the pit, the doorway and some other small places just to add some debt. ill do more later.

I also soldered two led strips together to go behind the nav console eventually to light the buttons.



Then my least favorite thing to do , applied some decals to the bench\bunk area and the Dejarik table top. it worked out ok for the most part! was worried id mess that up.




While doing the decals i noticed that the side of the bunk wall is a bit blank looking, so i decided i would add some spare parts to it to make it look interesting, ill add some wires etc too later as there is a few wires coming out of it in the actual films. In the final image below you can see them added, these are the pieces i chose to cut up and add, i sprayed them german grey too.



The bunk behind the bench needs a light on it so looking at the one from the films, i had previously half made it by joining two lights together and filling down the top of each bulb flat as its like that in the film. So now i sprayed them white, masked them off and sprayed the two flat ends black. i also cut up a straw and sprayed that black, this will go over the middle part of it, where the wires are joined. so it should look like the one from the films. You can see what im mean below before i sprayed it.



and finally, the Nav computer in the kit doesnt come with the Nav chair for some strange reason, Han sits in this while talking to Ben and Luke in a new hope about how he doesnt believe in the force.. anyways! Lucky for me, when i first signed up to this , so did my brother, but he only lasted about 15 issues and gave up!

I got all his spare parts though! which includes two Chairs from the cockpit which are almost the same as the nav chair from the hold. the difference is the ones from the cockpit are hollow at the back, and dont have the same kind of stand as the Nav one, also they have some greeblies on the back ill have to add.

First thing i did was cut the bottom off it and then fill the back. when that dried i sanded it down flat. I then create the film style stand for the chair from some spru and styrene pipe. Then i sprayed it silver. because when i spray it grey, im going to use a sharp blade to chip some of that grey off to reveal the silver underneath to make it look like metal with the paint worn off. here is some photos.



Finally as a test i just put the bunk, bench and table in place beside the back wall and tested the fibres with the decals on, you can see the bits i added to the side\end of the bench here too. more to add, wires etc. ill probably use a couple of flashing colour bulbs in the final build so those fibres flash on and off different colours.

thats all for now!

This one is mostly Barrels and the Nav Chair. I found these spare barrels i had so decided to spray them to see if they go in the hold to add something to it, i seen a few images of barrels in the film reference photos.

I sprayed them first with silver, then varnish, so i could try the scraping off thing again with them. Then i painted 2 white and 2 black. I probably wont use them all but just did them anyways.



Next up the Nav chair. I sprayed it black, then scraped off some of that to reveal the silver underneath. I then masked it up and sprayed the cushion parts a tan colour then dry brushed the edges and where you would sit\have your back with a flesh colour to give it a bit of a worn look. Finally i used a black wash just around the edges of the cushions to make them blend a bit better with the chair. (aka hide my sloppy painting) i still have a few bits of greeblies to add to the back of the chair, im waiting for their paint to dry.



and 1 more thing, i finished the bunk light i made, painted each end of it black, put the piece of straw in the middle i sprayed black. and here is it is lit up.

I took the tape off the bunk too from when i sprayed it finally, and you can also see in this image the wires and spare bits i added to the end of the bunk section to make it look better, i dry brushed these silver after painting grey and gave the wires a black wash.



Thats all for now!

Back again.. with more corridors !

So after last week I finished off the corridor ends by adding the cushions. I used some Tamiya weathering kits to add some soot, rust and oil stain to the cushions as they where too clean. all the cushions for the corridors will be getting this on them to make them look worn etc. Here they are finished.



Next I put a coat of flat white on the underneath of each floor piece and the corridor itself, this is because im going to put light strips underneath to light up the sides of the floor grates and it will help the light bounce around better. especially as the led strips will be on the bottom of the floor pieces.

Also the corridors in the Falcon in the films is missing a couple of cushions in certain parts, id imagine due to some "upgrades" or repairs Han and Chewie did. The kit doesnt account for these missing cushions, but I am going to. So i drilled out the Tube where these cushions are missing in screenshots from the films i checked out online, i painted the cut out parts white, then dry brushed with some flesh to make it look cut away.

I then cut some styrene squares to cover the cut out holes, and sprayed them German grey. I glued these to backs of the tubes. Once in place i put some different colour wires etc in there and gave them a quick black wash to make them look dirty. They look out of place now but when that corridor piece has the cushions on it will make more sense.



After this i concentrated on the straight piece of corridor first. I dont currently have enough LED strips to do the 3 Corridor pieces so ill have to wait for more to arrive.

I started by soldering two of the Warm White LED strips together, then i stuck these to the underside of the floor piece.



Then i also ran two warm white normal lights up the middle of this. These are to light up the control panels i added last week to the two end corridor pieces. I have green arrows pointing to these in the first image below.

I then slapped some white paint on the wires just to help the light bounce around a bit.

A quick test of the lights to make sure they work in the second image below with the corridors added.

and then you can see how the two bulbs light up the control panels and the LED strips light up the sides of the floors. I could probably due with adding some paper backing to the control panel there to difuse the light a bit, i also need to do some light blocking at the side of the corridors as there is some light leak currently. I also added all the wall cushions in that straight corridor after weathering again with Tamiya weather kits soot, rust and oil stain.



Finally this week i needed to figure out what to do about the corridor lights. You can see them below on the right (You can also see one of the exposed sections in this image where a corridor cushion is missing).



These dont come in the Kit at all, just blank cushions on the walls. You can buy 3D printed ones but the price is ridiculous i think for them, 40 quid delivered was the cheapest i could find and they dont arrive until mid June. So i decided to try make them myself. It will involve some drilling and lighting, but first i needed to figure out how to make the lights!

The Paragrafix corridor photo-etch comes with these flat discs that make up the back part of each light, but they are not really right, so i had a black tube i found in one of the kids lego (shhhhh!) that i took and cut into tiny tube pieces. i then shoved these on the end of cocktail sticks, loads of em, and glued them.

Once they dried I cut them all off and put them on some tape then sprayed them. Now, while i think they turned out OK, i wasn't fully happy with them, the tops could do with sanding flatter and i wasn't happy with the colour i sprayed them. So i sand the tops down more on all of them and re-sprayed them a Gun Metal colour. but i forgot to take a photo!



Thats all for now, stay safe!

Quick update this week, took a while to figure out how to do this.

Working on the corridor lights for the 1st corridor. First i used a spare corridor cushion from the box of parts i got off my brother when he gave up on it, i used this to make a template for where the light holes need to be drilled on the ones on my corridor. Once i was happy enough with the position of the small holes, i held this piece over the ones on my corridor and marked through this with a hand drill onto my own corridor cushions.

Once i had the small holes drilled, i used a bigger drill piece to increase the size and ended up with the ones below.

I have a bunch of warm white lights that come with these clip holders for the bulbs, so i removed the black bulb holders and glued them onto the back of the corridor where i drilled the holes. You can see that in the last image here.



While the glue was drying there, i wired up all the bulbs for this corridor as best i could, im no expert at this stuff, i had these handy wire clip things you can see in the image that helped save time, you just clip the wires into them. handy.

Once that was made, i stuck the bulbs back into their clips that i had glued to the corridor.



Then i tested the lights.. I have included an image of what the stock corridor looks like first, just to compare to. The reason this corridor is "open" on one side is because a part of the hull of the falcon when complete will be removable to you can have a look in at this corridor.



and finally i wasnt 100% happy with the underfloor lighting on the corridor, so i decided to try something different while i can. On the next two corridors instead of just painting the bottom white, i used some PVC glue and tin foil, and just stuck that down.

I havent tried it yet but id imagine it will reflect the light better. I have since taken apart the corridor above and tin foiled the bottom of that one too.



Thats all for now, thanks!