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Hi guys, well it's been a while since I posted anything, but I've finally got round to finishing my Zaku kit. I put it together before Christmas and I've attached a picture of what the Gundam looked like before I started with the Slave 1 paint scheme. The plan was to use it as practice for trying out the paints for my Finemolds 1/72 Slave 1 kit. I hope you like how it turned out.

Hi everyone, My first post here and I just wanted to post my favourite build from last year (and it took pretty much all of last year to do!). This is the 1/144 Bandai Millennium Falcon that I have modified to be (my favourite) version, the one from Empire Strikes Back. Mostly an out of the box build, it uses a lot of 3D printed parts (the radar dish, cockpit interior and exterior, maintenance pits, sidewalls on the mandibles), some photoetch (the rear circular grills) and is lit (although you can't really see this in the photos). The engines have a blue flickering glow, the headlights are SMDs, there is an interior light for the upper gun well (the lower one is where the support pole is) and the cockpit rear wall is a mix of fibre optic and back lighting. I have some videos of this knocking around online (on Instagram mainly). Painted with DOA paints (hand brush) as well as Citadel ones and various washes, etc until I was happy with it. Feel free to ask any questions.

TIE Fighter, TIE Fighter Advanced X1 & TIE Interceptor Updates (02016, 02116 & 02216) 1:72 GreenStrawberry It's Star Wars – nuff said. Bandai's new(ish) range of 1:72 kits have been wreaking havoc with the resale value of FineMolds kits for ages now, and despite the fact that we can't officially get them outside of the Far East due to licensing arrangements with the new owners Disney, there seem to be plenty finding their way into the hands of avid Star Wars modellers like myself. GreenStrawberry are similarly minded, and have made a number of excellent sets to improve on even the high levels of detail that Bandai cram into their snap-together kits. They also do Star Trek and many other brands too, so even if you're not a Star Wars fan, you're sure to find something they can help you with. The Evil Empire have Seinar Systems creating the iconic TIE Fighter series for them, with more than a few variants hitting our screens over the years. The original H-shaped TIE and Vader's TIE Advanced from the Titular film, and later in the trilogy the TIE Interceptor for a change of pace. All of these share a very similar central section, especially in their cockpit area, which is why I'm reviewing them all together. All three sets arrive in a resealable clear film package, with a central cardboard stiffener protecting the sheet of Photo-Etch, the header card, and the small resin parts at the back, which are bagged separately inside to save losing the parts. The final layer is a small but concise instruction booklet with sci-fi themed design and simple diagrams showing the way. All sets have a common core of components that are arranged differently on the sheets, but essentially the same up until step 6 on the instructions, and as you can imagine those parts are the cockpits. The initial stages have you building up the multi-layer coaming and controls that are seen in the hands of the pilot for the interior shots, with three layers joined to give them a degree of thickness, before they are attached to the back of the coaming. The kit seat pads are removed and replaced by new parts, and side details are added to the chair before the coaming is fitted into the open front of the floor. Inside the front of the cockpit a detail skin is added to the lower half, and a pair of faceted panels are glued to the "corners", to which the two resin clusters of round-ended tubes are fitted. The "visor" at the top front is removed from its mounting lug and given a new more detailed attachment point to the edge of the windscreen. Underneath the hull is a panel that has a hole in it for the stand, but in this instance if you are planning on using the next set of parts, you'll want to glue in the plug B4 to cover this up. The inner face of the panel is sanded flat, a skin with Star Wars gylphs etched into it, and a ring with extended legs is added. This then clipped inside the lip of the aperture so that the "luggage compartment" is depicted dropped to the floor, which although it might not appeal in all cases, it is a useful option to have on hand. The top hatch receives a partial lip in PE, and the hinge for the hatch is replaced by a new two-part boxed arrangement, with the Ion engine exhaust at the rear being fitted with a hexagonal grille. From here on in the sets diverge from each other slightly, as described below. TIE Fighter (02016-1/72) This seems to be the base set, so refer to the description above for what's included. TIE Advanced x1 (02116-1/72) As well as all the common parts listed in the top section of the review, the x1 also has a set of dual layered skins for the top/bottom of each of the "arms" that connect the ball to the panels. On the inside of each panel there are two small rectangular panels that are filed off and replaced by new PE parts. Two small parts are also inserted into the inner edges of the front cut-outs on the arms, and at the rear of the ball there are two small cranked panels which are skinned with a new detail part each. TIE Interceptor (02216-1/72) As well as the core components, there are three panels on the wing panels that are filed flat and replaced by new PE parts. Conclusion Three super little detail sets that are based around the common core that is the knot of the bow-tie, with subtle variations specific to the sub-type. If you'd like to see the details in situ, GreenStrawberry have helpfully included pictures of the bare parts built into the Bandai kits to show you how they should look, so have a click on the "available here" buttons to have a mooch. Very highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

I have been meaning to build a Z'gok, have a go at some water and build my own trees for ages, so i thought i might as well have a go at all three at once. I really enjoyed making the wire trees, the resin i usec for the water did cause a few small issues but all in all i enjoyed this one a lot. Well i hope you like it and your comments are all wellcome. Cheers Brian.

This squadron has been a long time in the making, although it only settled in to this configuration with a flurry of activity very recently. Here we have my converted F-Toys Y-Wing with scratch built hull plating additions, and a Bandai Vehicle Model A-Wing and X-Wing that I painted up to match as soon as I'd finished painting the Y-wing and fell in love with the deep red and cream color scheme (it's highly likely that I'll add a T-70 X-wing to this in the future, with extra shiny silver accents to go with the red & cream). The U-wing is still unmodified from when I finished it last year, but fit right in with these ships. The final ship is Nicholas Sagan's McQuarrie Concept A-Wing from Shapeways, painted in the colors from The Last Jedi. It also fit right in once I'd finished the other three. RZ-1 A-Wing Modified Y-Wing T-65 X-Wing McQuarrie TLJ A-Wing Lots and lots of WIP pics in my flickr albums.

This month i started a new kit,

This is a very old HG, i snapped it together last night in about 20mins and i now have a few possible ideas for the kit. I will be scribing lots a new panel lines but i might also put him in some water. Here is is for now. He might be an old kit but he still look cool.

I have listed some Star Wars kits for sale in the FOR SALE section

This was a quick weekend build of Bandai's box scale (1/144) TIE twin pack. The kit turned up on Friday, and I built them up that evening, adding a little battle damage to one of the standard TIE's solar panels. The X1 was a straight OOB build. They were painted yesterday (Saturday), then weathered today. Nothing fancy with the painting/weathering. Just base coats over a black primer, detail painting, then a few pin washes and some dry brushing over the damaged areas on the panel. This is how they looked on Friday night And then fully finished tonight The obligatory scale comparison shots with paint pot and, of course, Nigel. The Gunze barley grey in the photo was used for the main base coat on both TIEs Thanks for looking

Okay, having grown tired (for the moment) with continually sanding my 1/72 Lancaster, I decided to take a break and go for a 'quick' build. One with minimal scratching and just straight building to clear the pallet a little. So I pulled my Bandai 1/144 Millennium Falcon off the Shelf. I hear there are inaccuracies, but I'm not too worried about those as a build-n-go is what I'm looking for. I will do some battle damage, and I have bought a PE set for the engine grills. Bandai put some nice details under the grates that would be a shame to just cover over with the solid parts provided. I also bought a paint mask set to help out with the clear parts. Obligatory box art. The PE set and masks, And the trees, masked with tape before starting on the side and interior detail. And of course the main hull parts. First off, I used the dremel to start making the damage. I thinned the plastic on the inside before making the gash. I think I made it too thin, making it harder to rough up the edges, but I'll refine that later. And that's all for tonight. I hope to keep a good clip going on this, rather than having it drag on and risk losing momentum on it.

Thought I would try out JPG's new Bespin Landing Pad resin kit. It has been designed to complement the Bandai Vehicle Series Falcon so gave me a good excuse to finish one I started a while back. The Landing Pad comes as 4 resin pieces plus a number of greeblies for round the outside and some resin lights, unfortunately they don't light up and the base has not been designed for F/O. There is an electric tea-light and red film for the windows on the round section. I had already started to light the Falcon which now has front running, engines, cockpit and underside landing lights. Need to tidy up the base and paint it then add a bit of weathering to the Falcon. Cheers, Warren

wip topic is here. hope you like it

Hi all I recently purchased the Bandai 1/144 falcon and I’ve been looking into using the shapeways cockpit but I’ve never used shapeways before, does anyone have a link to them as I don’t even know where to start looking Sam

Hi guys, this is my first Gunpla build. The kit arrived last week, I spent a few evenings putting it together, my plan is to paint and weather it in Slave 1 colours as a practice for my upcoming Star Wars Slave 1 build.

Hi everyone, I completed this one earlier this week. First model in a while (I've painted a few miniatures but not much), it's pretty small, maybe 1:144 scale, airbrushed the black basecoat, but otherwise mostly brush painted. Only posting the one photo of this one here to experiment with linking to photos, but more photos of this one on my blog: http://droidworkshop.co.uk/models/finished-poe-damerons-x-wing-box-scale/ Quite a cool fun little model, its amazing the level of detail that these little kits have. Any comments, criticism, suggestions or feedback welcome. Thanks

Here's my first SF Space subject. It's the newish 1/72 Bandai snap kit. I thought I would just snap it together and rely on the pre-painted parts and I'd be done in a couple of hours BUT... Firstly I thought the orange moulded parts were a little too bright but they matched the decals so I thought I would proceed anyway. Once I got to the cockpit I just had to paint the tub and consoles grey to give some definition from the fuselage. I then tried one of the console decals and discovered that the decals were thick and did not want to settle over the raised details. That meant I was going to paint the consoles and panels. Then there's all that nice detail on the coaming in front of the pilot. So it began. The details on the parts is pretty good and it was pretty easy to pick out switches, panels and cables. The colour choices are totally discretionary since reference photos of the "real" ship are sparse. Since the decals were going to be difficult, I decided to paint the orange panels and squadron markings and so I mixed my own darker orange shade and also applied this to the orange moulded parts on the sprue. The model is actually weathered quite heavily although it doesn't show up in the photos very well. As far as fit goes, it was very good and gap free. The X-Wing foils are moveable as is the canopy and you can remove the closed gear bay doors and then insert landing gear and open gear doors. The stand and base is included and you may pose the stand in a variety of positions. The stand and base are moulded in white and I painted the arm in black and the base in a water effect. This is also my first attempt at painting "water". I had so much fun with this I've asked Santa for a Y-Wing. Please feel free to add any suggestions! Cheers!

Two Quick question’s Im new to Sci-Fi building. Im curious if anyone makes stormtroopers and Rebels infantry to accompany the AT-ST Walkers ? Im thinking of buying a walker but would like to have infantry escorts. The 2nd question - Does anyone make the Imperial tank used in “Rogue one” that was used in the ambush scene in Jedha city ?

Lets start another project. I think think this suites design is one of the 5 best design in the Zeon Ms Suites. This is the original colours, i will change the colors...

I enjoyed the 1/72 version of this kit so much I ordered the Bandai 1/144 scale Y-Wing which promptly arrived in the post via a South American river. A little box art to whet your whistle. Gratuitous sprue shot Sticker placement guide for those who plan to use them (not me) And neatly hidden instructions inside the box lid (magnifying glass not included). Not content with building out of the box I started with hollowing out the blaster cannon and carving away some of the supporting plastic from the base. Steering vanes required opening up so out with the drill and scalpel and next to an unaltered one After trimming some of the pipework to look more like pipes (where possible without actually cutting them off and replacing them) and refining the rear bumper bars (the L shaped things at the rear of the fuselage) it was time to construct some sub-assemblies and slap some paint on. Undercoat is Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black and the engine glow was simulated with Orange mix fading inwards to yellow with a white highlight in the centre. Quite pleased with the effect Applied some gloss clear to the black painted windows and once dry masked them by cutting out the window stickers from the (now redundant) sheet and placed in the window apertures. Applied chipping medium (Vallejo) where required (where I plan to add paint chips) and misted on a top coat of Tamiya XF-2 white (most of a jar) mixed with about 10 drops of XF-55 Deck Tan. Applied XF-23 Light Blue to those areas that needed to be blue (obvious, I know but still) Using water and a small stiff bristle brush I gently scrubbed around the nose and engine pods to get some very fine chips. Also connected some of the sub-assemblies together and applied a light mist of Rubber black to simulate heat and soot deposits. Decided at this point that I would represent Gold 2 with the additional yellow panel on the nose and the White and Red astromech (R2 unit) Masked off around the yellow areas on the cockpit pod and also went over the previously painted yellow bands on the engine pod nose caps as Gold 2 didn't have 'em. Also realised Gold 2 had a white stripe down the centre of the canopy so I masked and added that. Painted the Yellow areas with thinned Tamiya XF-3 and removed the masks. Painted the relevant pipes an orangey-yellow mix, added the blue stripes on the side of the nose (freehand) and added some of the blue chips on the engine pod nosecaps. Gave the whole thing a very light pin wash of heavily watered Rubber Black and once dry I set to with some Tamiya weathering powders. Assembled the base and Bob's your uncle (you don't have an uncle Bob?) And on the stand And next to big brother Thanks for looking in Phil Now to edit out those strange added links where the spaces and text are.

HI guys, some picts of a job make 1 year ago enjoy

Final pictures wip topic

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

Thinking about my next build and fancy having another go at a dio. So with that I have a small tank and a robot with a massive axe......robot smashing tank.....sounds good to me. This is the tank and I must say it's very nice little kit. This it snapped together with no effort. But should end up a bit like this.

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

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