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Imperial Star Destroyer

Bandai Box Scale

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Don't worry, I haven't forgotten the X-Wing. This will just be a quick side project. There's only a handful of parts in the box, so I'll just run through the main assembly steps

22 parts in total for the destroyer, plus a poseable stand. The instructions are printed on the inside of the box lid

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Construction starts by adding the side walls to the upper hull. Like all Bandai's stuff, this is snap fix, although I added a little glue here and there to strengthen the joints

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After that, the docking bay clicks into place

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Followed by the lower hull. It starts to look like a SD now

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The rear panel's got some very fine detailing on it. I'll be leaving the engine bells off for painting

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The upper hull superstructure is built up from 5 main parts, plus a couple of detail panels on the rear tower

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Then the superstructure simply clips onto the upper hull

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Some of the detailing on this is pretty special considering the size. If Bandai do decide to scale this up, then the results should be spectacular.

I'll post the final build shots later on

Andy

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Maybe it's both? Haha.

Where can someone in the UK acquire these kits? I have an account with hlj which was my first call but a search reveiled nothing other than a statement that they were being removed from their main site last October-ish time. I've seen plenty of these builds on this forum and I think it's persuaded me now lol.

I love the dinkiness of this kit lol.

Ashley

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That looks a nice little kit Andy :)


Where can someone in the UK acquire these kits?


eBay's your best bet, as they're popping up on there now for around £7 delivered. My X-Wing arrived today, and I'd echo Andy's comments about the Star Destroyer. Kawaii desu ne! ^_^
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Either its a very small box or you have one GIANT right hand.

Very much the former :D

Maybe it's both? Haha.

Where can someone in the UK acquire these kits? I have an account with hlj which was my first call but a search reveiled nothing other than a statement that they were being removed from their main site last October-ish time. I've seen plenty of these builds on this forum and I think it's persuaded me now lol.

I love the dinkiness of this kit lol.

Ashley

Officially they're not sold outside Japan, which is why HLJ had to stop selling them. I got mine from Japan via ebay for around £7. If you want to get one from here then Shane should be stocking them at Japan Cool before too long.

Right, final steps of the build (I'm slightly bemused that I've just built a kit in about 1hour)

The bridge is made from three sections, all with the same level of detail as the rest of the kit. The bridge then slots strait on to the tower

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The last thing to make up is the stand, which comes with a ball and socket pivot at the top of the arm. The arm itself has three different mounting points in the base. I'm assuming they use the same base for the micro X-Wing, and presumably for any subsequent releases in this range

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And, apart from the nozzles, that's it done. Everything went together as well as all the previous Bandai SW releases, and the end result is very impressive. I didn't think I'd be interested in these micro scale releases, but I really love this (still not sure about the tiny X-Wing though). I'm off work this week so I might get a chance to get some paint on tomorrow (and on the X-Wing too, hopefully)

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And a last one to give you some idea of size. It's 11cm nose to tail, which scales out at approximately 1/14,500

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Andy

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Excellent and swift progress.

Thanks for the info on where to get them, guys. Wasn't expecting this kit to be quite that cheap so I failed to resist. Saved the seller too so I can fail to resist in the near future ;)

Can't wait to see this painted up.

Ashley

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It's amazingly detailed, but those seams (particularly the vertical ones on the front face of the superstructure) are going to be a pain to fill :(

Will

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have a look at this: ISD and you can see what can be done with one :) just scroll down to the bottom

Yes, I'd seen that one. It's a pretty amazing build. Probably the best way to go about lighting it. As Phantom said above, there's precious little space inside to run FO. I'll probably get another and light it with one of Warren's kits when he has one available

It's amazingly detailed, but those seams (particularly the vertical ones on the front face of the superstructure) are going to be a pain to fill :(

Will

Yes they'd be hard to fill without destroying a lot of the fine detail, but they're nothing like as prominent in person as they look in the photos. The strong lighting exacerbates them, along with the fact it's shot with a macro lens due to the tiny size

Andy

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Would a bead of Vallejo putty from the fine applicator tube be the way to go perhaps? :shrug:

I was thinking normal putty applied with a tooth pick and a cotton bud dampened with nail polish remover to get rid of the residue. It would leave the nice detail untouched, nice and sharp

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I was thinking normal putty applied with a tooth pick and a cotton bud dampened with nail polish remover to get rid of the residue. It would leave the nice detail untouched, nice and sharp

That would work very well. As it goes, the primer has filled the joints, and they just look like natural panel lines. They really do appear over exaggerated in the above photos

in that scale a guy could make a Battle of Jakku diorama.

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A Jakku diorama would look very cool with this model. A larger scale Jakku diorama with a big SD would look even cooler (hint, hint, Bandai)

So, got a bit of paint on today after priming it last night with AMMO black

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The first paint step was to give it a coat of white, sprayed vertically downwards, leaving some of the black in the nooks and crannies to give it some shading, and this is the stage I've got it to now

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My original plan from here was to pick out some of the panels and smaller details with a brush, then give it all a thin glaze of pale grey to tie it all together. However, now I'm thinking I might add some very subtle aztecing to give it a bit more perceived detail and texture. I'll try it on the underside first, to see how it goes

Andy

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As I said above, I'm going to try some aztecing on the hull to give it a bit more detail. I'm doing the lower hull first as a test run, and a couple of hours masking last night got me to this

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This morning I gave it an over-spray of a very pale grey (pretty much white really), then spent another hour peeling all the tape off. The contrast looks a little strong, but that will be toned down with a light overspray at the end. Before that I'll pick out some of the raised panels and other details with a brush to give then a little more clarity

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Now I've got to go and do it all again on the upper hull :hypnotised:

Andy

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Bandai's really doing some amazing things for us enthusiasts. They've nailed the shape on this small scale Star Destroyer.

The work you're doing is really bringing out the best in the kit.

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Thanks everyone

wow, my destroyer arrived just now, after seeing the size of ship, i cant believe your masking and painting job...

Thanks Tolga. The masking isn't really difficult, just a bit fiddly. It was all done with strips of 1mm and 2mm Aizu tape, cut into random lengths, and applied wherever looked right.

OK, so, I've got the aztecing applied to the top side. It was a little harder that the bottom due to the fact I'd added more shading and highlights during the initial painting, so some masked areas didn't show up as well as others. The aztecing was very much an after thought, and I'd originally planned to have a much simpler paint job. If I do one like this again, I'll use a more even, solid tone for the initial coat. As it was, I had to keep partially peeling back bits of tape to check on the contrast, then adjust the over-spray to be darker or lighter to suit. It's come out with a better effect in some areas than in others but, overall, I'm reasonably happy with it.

I've picked out some of the smaller details with Vallejo Off-White, to sharpen it all up a bit. I'll probably add a wash around some of the features like the gun emplacements, and maybe some shading with oils around the raised sections

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Andy

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