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This isn't so much a build (the things just fall together) as a painting progress. I actually constructed this kit and painted up the cockpit and pilot in February..... 2016. It has since languished on the shelf in all it's raw plastic glory waiting patiently for me to decide how I was going to tackle it..... until yesterday. So.. the box art we should all be familiar with by now. Cockpit and pilot painted up and weathered I wanted to keep the astromech droid body for a diorama I had in mind so I made a copy that would take one of the domes and look convincing in the slot. Thought I'd paint up the standing pilot figure at the same time And this is the condition in which it sat on the shelf for the next 20 months. Pretty, but too clean. On Sunday I grasped the nettle, took the bull by the horns and put my best foot forward. I also decide to paint it....properly. First things first, disassemble it into the discrete components that will each get an individual weathering treatment. The blue-grey and yellow parts were to get and undercoat of the top colour mixed from most of a bottle of Tamiya XF-2 White with about 10 drops of Deck Tan to warm it up. All the rest would get a rough base coat of thinned XF-63 German Grey. In the areas where I wanted chipping I thinned down some Vallejo Chipping Medium and sprayed it in an even coat. You can see the shine from it in the images below. I then applied the top coats over the relevant parts. Light Blue for the canopy and the front ribbed sections of the engine pods along with a masked stripe either side of the nose section, vallejo RLM 04 for the Yellow bits including a thin masked area at the back of the engine pods forward domes and everything else was the Tamiya off white mix. Unfortunately due to a rush of blood there are no images of this intermediate stage so here are some pictures of it after I had let it dry and then used a stiff bristle brush and water to get the paint to strategically flake off. At this point I had also added some light dusting with XF-85 Rubber Black around the engines and other appropriate areas. After some washes, decals... very small decals, and a painted up droid and stand, we arrive precisely here. Once I have a matt coat applied and the right lighting conditions I'll post up an RFI Thanks for looking in Phil

Ok, my Zaku Cannon is almost finished, i can start a new project Its not a Mg kit, therefore there is not a lot of parts... let see what will be happen

Bandai's tiny 1/350 Falcon from the Vehicle Model range, painted up as the Stellar Envoy, one of the past lives of the Millennium Falcon. Apart from a slight re-working of the scanner dish base, it's all OOB. It's a great little kit, and very slightly cheaper than the new 1/72 version wip (painting only) here Thanks for looking Andy

Hi folks, I finished the first part of my small scale Star Wars models-in-progress, this is the TIE Striker from Rogue One. It's available not in the Vehicle Model series but in a larger box along with the rebel U-Wing and two of the Imperial tanks. Irrelevant factoid: It turns out these are supposed to be tracked tanks (like the full scale vehicle built for filming) and the fact that Bandai and Lego have them as hover tanks is a mistake. I built the TIE Striker first since I've never built a TIE anything - or I think any Star Wars models at all - and it seemed like a straightforward place to start. (click for more/bigger) It's easier to see the fuselage with the wings up, but they aren't seen that way in any shots I could find in the movie, so all the rest of the pics are wings down. The base is a little wooden coaster (four inches/10cm square) with a piece of clear PET sheet glued to the top. I painted the underwater stuff underneath the sheet, and then built up the water on top a little with gloss acrylic gel. It took a few goes to get this the way I wanted and it's still not quite right but it looks nice in the pictures and hopefully looks a bit like Scarif The TIE is painted with Tamiya acrylics and the solar panels were masked and painted Rubber Black and given an Alclad Steel overspray to give them a bit of sheen. I also tinted them with Alclad Hotmetal Violet and Blue on different panels, which is *just* visible in the photos, I think I'd do that again but make it a bit more obvious and maybe use a gloss black undercoat? If you're interested the WIP thread is here - thanks to everyone who commented with feedback! Cheers and thanks for looking! Will

Posting this up as these are just so good if you like Gundam and love the Zaku you need to get some of these heads. Ifand you live in Japan this is the kind of thing that come out of a vending machines for about 500 yen. I picked the set of three from ebay. They are basically about 1/40ish scale Zaku heads of the standard Zaku, one of the tristar Zakus and Chars Zaku. Very simple but quite well detailed and look fantastic. So here are a few pictures of what you get......

Antoc Merrick's "Blue Leader" X-wing Bandai | 1/72 Bandai 1/72 scale T-65 X-wing in Antoc Merrick's Blue Leader livery. Completed with Mr. Paint and Alclad lacquers; Tamiya and Vallejo acrylics; Abteilung 502 oils, Mig Productions enamels and pigments. Comments and criticism is welcomed as always!

So being a Star Wars fan and inspired by the many great builds here, I treated myself to this guy earlier this year. While it didn't take that long to build, the weathering put me off finishing it. But I decided to just try my best and see how it turned out. First, a coat of Satin to take the gloss shine off the armour (thanks AndyRM101 & Mike) Next up was a coat of Flory Models Grime wash.. Then tried some pastels which were a mix of sand, white and brown. And more pastel added to his gear. For the shoulder pauldron, I masked that and repainted it orange. Then a flat coat on that and some white pastel to try and fade it. And he's done. I still need to improve the base as it looks too plain. I had planned to use the big Lewis Gun blaster but couldn't get a pose I liked with it. So just the standard-issue E11 for this fella! Thanks for looking! Cheers, Dermot

Finally finished. hope you like it here is the wip topic

I picked up this kit a while ago after building Bandai's Showmans Engine and Steam Roller. I started it back in May for the Made in Britain II GB and completed it toward the end of July. I stripped the brass and silver plating from the plastic and replaced it with Alclad and Mr Colour metallic paints. I can't say its a good kit - its 1970s vintage and the moulding is poor, lots of mould lines, sink marks and ejector pin marks EVERYWHERE!!! The photos here show the model just after it was initially complete where I had used the quite ropey decals on one side. Since then I've replaced the decals with gold vinyl lettering which looks vastly better. Here you can just about make out the lettering decals on the side - they are seriously rubbish and I'm not at all happy with them. This side doesn't have lettering I had to remove one of the fire extinguishers at the back as it got in the way of the ladder's axle The ladder does extend but its a very delicate operation as the plastic gears don't work Here you can see the wood-grain effect I got on the ladders

Stellar Envoy (AKA Millennium Falcon) I've had Bandai's little box scale Falcon sitting about in a base coat for a while, and since I was waiting for some filler to dry on the Gigant, I decided to get some more work done on it. I wasn't originally planning to do a wip for it, so I don't have any construction pics, but there's not really much to these vehicle model kits, and this is built OOB anyway. I have taken some photos of the painting steps though, so I thought I might as well post them. As the title implies, this is being done as the Stellar Envoy which, if you don't know the Star Wars EU that well, was the Millennium Falcon in a previous life, before Lando acquired it and then lost it to Han. The main difference between the Stellar Envoy and the Falcon we all know and love, is the blue deco over the hull, and that's going to form the bulk of the paintwork I'll have to do. To begin with, the whole ship was base coated in a pale warm grey I then spent this morning painting in some random panels in various warm and cool grey shades, using thinned acrylics and some washes. These aren't matched to the Falcon's panels, or even to the few reference images of the Envoy. It's just going to be my take on the ship Tonight was spent masking up and painting the first of the blue markings. I've started with the curved sections, as they're the trickiest to do. The masking for the edges of the curves were cut with a compass cutter, then the rest of the area covered with silly putty. While the blue paint was still a bit soft, I made a few scratches in it to give it a more weathered look I'll be fitting the work on this around the Gigant, so I'll probably be switching back and forth between the two over the next few days. Andy

I present my recently completed Bandai box scale(1/144) X-wing from some rather obscure movie franchise or other. I decided not to go with the more familiar rebel/red 5 out of the box scheme as the kit markings are supplied as stickers(not waterslide decals!! ) The colour scheme depicted is my take on the partisan x-wing which featured briefly Rogue One. The kit was finished in a selection of Tamiya/Mr.Color paints that I had to hand and some PITA masking due to the small size of the kit.

My Bandai AT-AT finally turned up yesterday (after the ***** at the post office had fleeced me to the tune of £12 for VAT and misshandling). Before I get going on the build, I thought I'd post up some sprue shots and close ups (there are plenty of other sprue shots out there on the net, so you're probably not seeing anything new here), and today, May 4th, seemed as good a day as any to post them. To see how it all looks built up, jump over to John's multi AT-AT build The box is quite large, but that's mainly taken up by the sprue holding the head and body sections, which have each been slide moulded in one piece. The rest of the sprues are pretty standard Bandai fare Sprue A The neck, parts for the head, the cheek guns, and other assorted bits, including all new 1/144 scale Mr Flatty, now in AT-AT driver disguise (he really is the Mr Benn of the Star Wars world) Sprue B1 The lower body sections that slip inside the main body moulding, and provide some internal detail behind the separate body panels Sprue B2 The chassis parts, including a nice representation of the Pegasus engine used on the original filming models Sprue C This is the one that requires the box to be as big as it is, due to the orientation they've moulded the parts in. You've got the main body, the upper head, the base of the head, and the main chin cannons Sprue D (x2) The last two AT-AT sprues supply all the leg parts, together with the two, microscopically small, seated driver figures The final sprue is for the standard Bandai base, this time in white to represent Hoth. This is the same size base that was supplied with the 1/144 Falcon Some close-ups of the parts, starting with the head and it's base plate The main cannons. These have been slide moulded to leave an open barrel You get a choice of two (slightly) different cheek guns Internal cockpit rear wall. Nicely detailed, considering you won't actually see any of it And no doubt also invisible on the final build, the AT-AT driver. Pretty well detailed for the size (about 8mm high), although someone seems to have amputated his hands The neck. This comes in two halves, split vertically, so there'll be a seam to fill on the top and bottom Main body moulding. Being one-piece, it will at least keep everything square. This is the right-hand side, with the hatches moulded in place. The left side has them separate Lower body inserts, with the detail panels that sit behind the open hatches on the main body There's a small moulding flaw on mine, in the upper left corner of the detail panel. Quite rare for a Bandai kit. Looks like something's hit the part after coming out of the mould. Not a big deal, as I'll probably have the hatches closed. Underside of the chassis and, yes, they are jerry cans on either side More chassis detailing The Pegasus engine And, of course, the 222 hull for the rear panel... ...and the accompanying gun shields The upper parts of the feet are split vertically, so more seams to fill, although the lower foot parts are single mouldings And to give you an idea of just how small an AT-AT is in 1/144... It really is a bit smaller than I'd prefer, which is what stopped me ordering it earlier. I don't think there's much chance we'll see a bigger one from Bandai though, so we'll have to make the most of it. To give you another comparison, this is the Bandai head compared to a Wizards of the Coast AT-AT that I repainted a few years ago. That one is (depending on the measurements you use) just under 1/48 More when I get started on construction Andy

I pre-ordered this straight away after seeing the film, and it's just turned up today. I wasn't sure about the design when it was first revealed, but it's really grown on me, especially after seeing it in the movie (despite the fact that it wasn't really featured that prominently). Before I get any plastic cut, I'll show a quick run through of the box contents. Sprue A1 One solar panel, half the main body, the hatches and the two laser bolts (and the triumphant return of Mr Flatty, this time in TIE pilot disguise) Sprue A2 The other solar panel and the other half of the body, together with the clear parts (hard to see here, I know) and the seated pilot Sprue B The lower frames for the panels and the wing pivots Sprue C Upper frames, cockpit details and the front and back of the fuselage Sprue SWB-15 The last sprue's for the stand. No textured base this time. Just a plain square like the ones that come with the figures. I don't know why they didn't include the sand base that came with the TFA X-Wing, as that would have worked for Scarif. Hope it's not a sign of cost cutting by Bandai Fuselage details. Essentially the same as the regular TIE fighters Albeit with an extended body Nice details on the panel frames Open canopy frame if you don't want to use the clear part And the clear parts themselves Very nice ribbed detail on the solar panels The pilot looks nice. Maybe not up to the standard of some of the earlier ones, but well detailed all the same. Shame there's only one as this is a two man ship, but you probably wouldn't see much of the guy in the back anyway And of course the star of the kit... Usual Bandai stickers and decals On top of that there's the regular style instruction manual, and that's the lot. Everything looks excellent and there shouldn't be any issues with assembly. The most important thing for me with this kit is that they got the scale right, as the Striker is a lot larger than a regular TIE. The real one's meant to be just over 17m long and this scales out pretty much exactly to that. To give you some idea of the size, this is the wing frame next to a TIE Interceptor. The Interceptor in this case is the Finemolds version, which is a little underscale, but it gives you a rough idea One last thing I'll point out, not really pertaining to the kit itself. I ordered this from Tokyo Model Detective, and it's the first time I've used that store. Anyone else that's ordered from there will know they don't have a shipping calculator on the webstore. You have to pay for the kit up front, then wait for a second invoice to be sent showing the shipping cost. It's only then that you know how much the kit will cost in total. I paid around £16 for the kit and, since these are going for about £25 inc. delivery on ebay, I was hoping the shipping would be no more than £7-8. I was somewhat surprised then, when the invoice came through, and it was £14, meaning I've had to pay around £30 in total. That's maybe not a big deal for some but, until the TMD site shows the full price inc. shipping, I'll be sticking with ebay and amazon. I'll get the build underway soon. Andy

This is somthing new for me an online building comp. Its over on the Mecha lounge here is the link and im sure there will some amazing builds in the GM vs Zaku comp. http://mecha-lounge.com/index.php?board=20.0 So for my build im going for a 1/144 RGC-80 GM but the only kit available is a really old Bandai kit, its so old you need to glue it together and with not much in the way of details im going to try and bring it a little more up to date by bashing it with a HG GM kit, and when i say bashing i mean cutting to bits and stick back together ( well thats the plan). Work so far..... http://mecha-lounge.com/index.php

Part 1 So, a new WIP for me to start and then leave partially completed because I've still not got around to buying the materials I need for the display and for my R2 kit. Anyway I was eager to start this one because I've finally got my hands on a compressor and airbrush so I can paint the parts I want to a little easier, I guessed this would be a good kit to start with. I should add at this point that I have been chronicling this one for a while now, waiting until I actually had some real progress to how before posting, but as with all my projects I have precious little spare time so diving out to my 'Nest' in the garage does not happen as much as I would like. First things first let's flip over the build mat - can't build a Storm Trooper on the 'metric' side can we! Here are the obligatory spruce shots. And this is just the water slide transfer sheet, but the plan is to use as few of these as possible I decided to prime and top coat the black parts whilst they are still on the spruces. For this I'm using Vallejo Black Primer. I snipped off the obvious white parts and gave everything a coating of primer. Then I panicked as I realised I had just painted the translucent eye shields So I snipped these off the spire and quickly rubbed a cotton bud soaked in airbrush cleaner over it to remove the paint. Phew! Now there is lesson number 1 for me: Double check the sprue! I was struggling with a bit of paint spatter and clogging at first whilst I worked out the best air pressure. I can spray with a full size gun so I rather arrogantly decided I would be able to airbrush with no problems. So the spattering was lesson number 2: Learn some humility you big head! Got a better layer of primer down in the end that I was happy with.

As a massive Star Wars fan I was delighted when Bandai started doing these kits. Loved putting the kit together and posing it exactly as I wanted. Hope you like. IMG_2069 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr IMG_2070 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr IMG_2071 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr IMG_2072 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr IMG_2073 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr IMG_2073 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr

Hi all, This box has been nagging at me for a while now: So I thought I'd get on and build it as a bit of light relief. I'm still umming and ah-ing a bit about the breakdown by colour - the masking looks quite hard, and the fit is good, but I'll end up with a weird panel line between the red and silver. So far I've put together some parts and filled gaps around the rear fuselage insert and between the nose and red fuselage section. I also attached the missile tubes to the wingtips, which was weird - I used thin CA and on both sides they cracked in half almost immediately along a jagged line. I think maybe it was a flow line? I put them back together with CA, sanded it all back, and one fitted OK while the other broke again. Third time lucky though. I wonder if this is another reason why the Bandai and Kotobukiya kits are so vulnerable to enamel thinner? If the flow lines are really hairline cracks they provide some good places for fluids to run into. The idea is to sculpt the head and shoulders of Atomic Monster Bemular (from Ultraman episode one) emerging from the water and have his deadly beam support the VTOL in flight, but let's just start with what we have https://youtu.be/4x7_DBzBetM Cheers, Will

Ahoy all, Taking a bit of inspiration from Gekko_1's thread on AT-ST and AT-AT camouflage... ...I decided to apply a camouflage to my own AT-ST. Since I love green camo, I wanted to try out a jungle-style pattern and my first real attempt at masking a hard edged camouflage. I ran into a few pitfalls whereby the intended curves ended up being more like angled splinters, and with the colour choices, made it look decidedly Swedish But I touched it up a bit and I'm happy with the outcome, even if some of my Maskol remains because it wouldn't come off at the time, and came off more in the final weathering stages >< Still have to finish up the base with a bit of turf and vegetation and maybe add some mud spatters to the feet. Enjoy Just wish my camera could pick out more of the detailing. Gaz

This is BC-44, otherwise known as 'Blue' for fairly obvious reasons. It's another re-paint of Bandai's C-3P0, and the idea for it came about while I was working on Boris. I'd given him some fetching blue leg stripes, and I though a droid done entirely in blue would look interesting. I got the kit just after christmas, and the plating has been stripped off for a few months, but I've only just got around to painting him. Actually, I say him, but I'd thought of making Blue a female protocol. There isn't actually any difference in the body panels, so he/she could go either way. At the moment Blue is err... undecided. Boris has been making some advances though, and he doesn't seem to be that picky one way or the other Thanks for looking Andy

Hello again. Taking a break from the tiny 144 star fighters to start on this AT-AT. Ive seen a few of these being built, and couldn't wait to start mine! Here is the base coat over the preshade. I used Tamiya NATO black as the preshade, and used Tamiya Light Grey as the base coat. Then I gave everything a gloss varnish, followed by an oil wash. Once the oil has completely dried, everything will get a second coat of gloss varnish, followed by some more oil streaks in different colors. I'm liking the way its coming together so far. Ill try to keep the weathering subtle so it matches the scale of this thing. Thanks for looking!

Hello everyone! My first entry into the Sci Fi section of this amazing forum! I have built pretty much all of Bandai's 1/72 Star Wars vehicles, but these are my first in the smaller 1/144 scale. I am very impressed with the amount of detail in these little things! So far I have two X-Wings, one Y-wing, the Tie Fighter set, the Millennium Falcon, and the new AT-AT in 1/144. My plan is to put the Falcon and the Rebel Fighters together with the Ties. I have other plans for the AT-AT. Here are the three main ships I started on. The Y-wing has to wait, because I only have 20 alligator clips for painting I started by building most of the sub-assemblies and priming them. I tired using a new Vallejo black primer. In the past, I had tried using alcohol based thinners to thin Vallejo, such as Mr. Levelling Thinner and Tamiya X-20A. I was never able to get the Vallejo to airbrush well with this method. There was always clogging issues and splattering problems. So this time, I just used distilled water. It worked so much better! I had some issues to start with, but once I worked out the right water to paint ratio, it actually sprayed pretty smooth. Nice thin layers and it leveled itself out and looked nice! I had read that others on this forum and others across the net where seeing flaws in the 144th Tie solar panel wings. Unfortunately mine had the same flaw. I was hoping that the black primer would hide some of this, but it doesn't look like it. Next step is the dreaded masking of the Tie wings and all of the cockpit glass. As for the base coats, I'm thinking Tamiya Ocean Grey RAF for the Ties and somw Vallejo White Gray for the X-wing. Need to do some tests first to see how they look over the black primer. Thanks for looking! Hopefully get some more paint on these soon!

This is my repainted gundam universal unit Zaku. Just a quick repaint of gashapon kit. There are some nice details on this little kit. And unlike a lot of other Gundam he can hold his gun up. And next to a 1/100 Gera Doga for size.

Here is my Bandai X-Wing. These little kits are fantastic, easy to build and a cracking level of detail. Painted in Humbrol enamels & washed with PLW black night by Ammo. I wanted to go with a different paint scheme and seemed to have come up with one Boba Fett would be happy with. Please enjoy the following. Time to start on the AT-ST. C&Cs welcomed. Thanks for looking.

Here's my completed custom color scheme Bandai Vehicle Model X-Wing. I dubbed this the NATO Squadron, because of all the NATO Black I used on it. Halfway through shooting these pictures I realized I'd forgotten to paint the R2 unit, and attempted to detail it....and I just shouldn't have. There's an extra splotch on the canopy now, where the paint pen leaked. And while I've gotten pretty good at free-hand panel painting, I apparently still have absolutely no skill whatsoever when it comes to detailing those bastardy R2 units. Oh well. A 1/144th scale mechanic was clumsy with a teeny tiny paint can on a wee gantry. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.... I might have over-done the paint chipping a little...the Vallejo metallic acrylics just brush paint so nicely.... A couple of in-progress shots are over here. And this last one is from before the final weathering pass, but I think it captured the pink pearl color in the engines better:

From BANDAI's site; http://bandai-hobby.net/sw/jp/products/millenniumfalcon_72_1.html Two things you can say, it is going to bee good, and its going to be expensive! Julien