Richard Baker

The high prices Revell kits are repackaged Finemolds kits. If they sold them for half that price they would be worth it, but they were expensive whan a small company such as FineMolds was producing them and now that a very large company is producing them they chose to keep the price high (or higher).

If you want to get picky there were two versions in the third movie- the hood mounted time circuit greebly with the old style white wall tires and then the same car with railroad wheels and front mount for horse drawn towing.

Prices will bounce around some after the kit is released- i remember how the Bandai kits started off and now they are quite reasonable. I still expect to pay some big bucks for this ISD though- it is a big model with lots of plastic.

Those are some spectacular images- I need to go through them carefully when I get home.

That is a great Diorama concept!

The original snap Y-Wing did have an opening canopy- pretty useless since the clear plastic window piece pretty much filled the cockpit. That was an OK kit if you added a lot of plumbing yourself.

That new tool 1:72 Y-Wing is a weird choice- they already have the Fine Molds version to sell in that scale. Perhaps this one is cheaper to produce...

The funniest is that the Nebulon B Medical Frigate uses a kit part from the MPC X-Wing (The 'tech strip' behind R2), which is a replica of the studio scale detail which was built other model kit parts.

This move keeps looking better and better. Some have complained that it is not a 'true Star Wars' because it does not feature Jedi but that is one reason I really like it. It is great to see the war from the perspective of a common fighter and the Super Saiyans have been over used. Is it my imagination or is that an Imperial space station under attack in the space scenes? It has Death Star type gun towers on it. If so that will be a big plus- we have yet to see any Imperial space based installations, just DS's & ISD's

I would put them in the SciFi section- it is a time machine after all. It changes abilities and some features in each film, but it's main purpose in every movie is to travel in time.

If there is nothing definitive to go by for that area of the cockpit detail just have fun and do what you think is appropriate- no reference will say you are wrong either. Rebel equipment is also consonantly repaired and patched with whatever they had on hand so no two cockpits are likely to be identical anyway.

Logically from a design point of view, having identical symmetric shapes usually indicates similar function. It would make a great deal of in universe sense to have a craft designed to repeatedly land on the moon to have way for the pilots to directly eyeball the landing point on descent. One thing that made the Blade Runner Spinners seem so real was including clear floor panels into the design. It is though a Gerry Anderson Craft and sometimes those vehicles have features which are there just to make it look cool. I believe about 2/3's of the builders talked about painting the lower cockpit windows black as well when the kit first came out.

There are a lot of ambiguities with the Eagle design- are the lower cockpit windows really windows as used in helicopters for better vision when landing or just black panels for some sort of sensors. The upper pod windows are matched at times to interior ceiling illumination panels- we have materials now which can shift from opaque to transparent to illumination as needed (even flatscreen TVs which are totally clear until they are turned on). A lot of the Pod interior set configurations we have seen ignore them entirely and have storage lockers of equipment where they are. I am going to build mine with clear windows and an open door- http://imgur.com/Z58QNmy This ramp was designed by someone on the EagleTransporter.com site and while not canon, looks both feasible and interesting.

There is a resin Pod Interior available- I thought about getting it myself for my build. The only problem is that most of the overhead windows would be blocked so you would no t be able to see much after all that work. I decided to build my own custom interior. The studio sets changed around a lot and while just about all Eagle Pods were identical on the outside the interiors were specialized so you can do pretty much anything you want, jsut keep in in style with what has been shown before. I think the deal you got is incredible! Looking forward to seeing your build of this great kit.

I think somebody translated it to be a general description of the Rogue One movie plot, not a teaser for a new model kit in the works...

People complain that ours is a dying hobby with builders getting older and young people more interested in video garbage, but if each of can find a one or two kids to learn the art of building and the joy of making something unique all your own, this hobby will never die.

Thanks from both of us! It is a rather confusing kit- the fact the parts do not fit well even when you get them in the correct position didn't help. He would be working along, get into bind and ask me where something went- we would spend time looking at the instructions, the box art and finally googling references. If I had know the kit was like this I would have gone with something else for his next build. The Falcon is going to be a relaxing cake walk after this :-)

I think the Japanese have some wonderful concepts but most of the time the hardware designs come across as both needlessly complicated and needlessly stylized. I see some potential in these models but none of them look practical as combat units. To be honest I have the some issue with the Ma.K stuff- machines designed for combat should not have a lot of exposed hardware and hoses sticking out everywhere to be tangled with or damaged. I do think it is great kotobukiya is making in house designs instead of just making replicas of existing subjects.

Out of this new batch I will be probably only going for the TIE-Striker. Not my favorite design but I like TIE variants. I do hope they release a Death Star kit- it would be nice to see one made correctly.

It is a LOT of money but reading through the details of it if you are a serious collector obsessed with the provenance of details then the price would be reasonable.

Fantastic Concept! Until now I never thought what happened to Luke's X-Wing that he had to leave behind.

Thanks for posting!- haven't seen some of those shots before. I wonder if that was a natural reaction from Carrie Fisher when Chewie grabbed one of her 'assets'... Love the old school model building images- makes me want to clock out and go home to make something!

My son has Dyslexia but when he is engaged with something physical he can really focus. Adding the rigging was his idea, he wanted to do something to take the model up a notch or two. This build took a lot longer than anticipated- the kit is an older one and the parts do not fit together as well as current kits. The instructions were also pretty frustrating- when he was done we had a small ceremony at the shredder.

I use a six foot silhouette figure in my sign designs for a scale reference- without him a 4'x6' & 6'x8' Church Signs look to be about the same with one costing more. I like the idea of having a figure for the display, I just wish they would have made him 3D like the early ones so he can be useful as well. Maybe Bandai is trying to create a need for a 1:72 ground crew and support equipment package to be sold separately

The toughest thing about the kit was tying to understand the instructions- they were not very well done and the parts being slightly off did not help. The carpet monster ate a sacrificial detail pieces and all was well. When I am building I tend to avoid duplicating the hero ships down to the last nuance. There are plenty of perfect builds out there anyway and it sort of becomes work. If I have a client who wants that I can do it, but I like to build for the enjoyment of building, not some sort of 'measuring contest' to prove something. Of course most of my building was before the Internet so the models just sat in my room and others rarely saw them. The next build is going to be the Ertl/MPC Millennium Falcon. After the Arizona I figured it was time for a more relaxed build. It will be the first kit of his that will feature an aftermarket part- the MMI Engine Grill set- https://starshipmodeler.biz/shop/index.cfm/product/8282_131/172-millennium-falcon-egg-crate-engine-detail-set-for-mpcertl.html The stock kit just has those clear arc pieces and we are not going to light this one up so those grill units will look great in a powered down state. Another reason for this kit is that it is a great one to learn about weathering techniques. Lots of panels to streak and half the hull is hidden so there is a good practice field. Thank you all for the kind comments- I am going to share them with him tonight.