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Han Solo's Corellian Hotrod


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Well here i am again with another FM Falcon. This time i have refined all of my lighting techniques. I will also be building this as my model not as the studio miniature , so it will have washes etc and the clear windows instead of the frames only. This Falcon came from ebay for £150. Now i know that sounds alot but the ones i have had in the past have all been £200 plus so i was well chuffed when i won it. I plan on having an internal battery that will go in the boarding ramp compartment. There will also be 2 hidden switches. One for the engine , cockpit and gunwell lights , and one for the headlights. These will be under the docking ring which will be held on with magnets.

On to some photos.

Heres the box with that fantastic artwork.

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Heres what i will be using to light it. Wide angle LEDs with resistors. A measly £3.75 from ebay.

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Heres the turrets and gunwells with the quad lazers. I will be adding some fibre optics on the back wall to light it.

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I will be posting more photos this evening of the lit cockpit and engine.

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LOL 1 sig ed and 2 standard MR ones and this is the fifth or sixth one of these! This is the first one i have built for years where i did not have to worry about what other people would like. Back to hobby modelling again!

How many of these and the M.R. Falcons have you done now?

I'll watch along as always. :)

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Heres the engine. I have tried normal LEDs in the past but you get light hotspots and its not solid enough. The next one i used electroluminescent sheet and that looked great , but the invertor hum was too annoying. Sooo wide angle LEDs seem to the way to go. There are 13 in the engine.

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I then fixed a white piece of plasticard over the front to diffuse the light into a soft glow. I want to keep it white without the grill as that is how it looked in the original untouched films.

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So thats the engine done. The cockpit was simple. Ive used fibre optics in the past but to be honest theres no need. I scribed some panel lines on the bulkhead and then drilled holes of various sizes. You wont see some of these once the seats are in. I then glued clear plastic on the rear and painted various glass paint colours on. i wide angle LED lights it , simples!

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Thats the cockpit done apart from the figures.

I have done some work on the forward parts adding the details too.

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The simplest most effective mod to the kit is to cut the notches out around the edges. It looks 10 times better.

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Edited by gunpowder17
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Lol looks liek a lot of tank kits died to make the first Millennium Falcon - there are three rear decks from something German looking, road wheels, suspension elements, side panels and whatnot in that last photo

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if only I knew anything about fibre optics

You don't have to Gunny is using wide angle leds to very good effect. (sorry didn't mean that to come out in a smartarse way.)

Edited by Pilgrim_UK
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There are Sherman parts and i believe the rear parts are from an airfix 1/76 Panther on the studio model.

No, the studio model was much larger. (As big as the 1/72 kit is, it's only a fraction of the size of the original.) (Well, of course there were several studio models at various scales, but the first one built for A New Hope was the big one.) Remember also that the models were built at ILM in California, Airfix kits would have been relatively rare and unusual at that time and place. The story goes that they went to a local hobby distributor and practically emptied their shelves of all kits. (Mind you the Airfix Saturn V kit was used to make the engines on the Y-Wing model, so I suppose there were Airfix kits about ....) Any way, those Panther rear decks, and the numerous sets of Sherman suspension that can be found all over the original model are all likely 1/35 (Tamiya) or 1/32 (Monogram).

Now the MF was rebuilt (and redesigned slightly) for The Empire Strikes Back, and the Fine Molds kit represents that version. I strongly suspect that when they built that model they cast it from scratch using the original as a plan, rather than go through the painful process of tracking down the same kits to use the same parts in detailing, especially since the model for TESB was much, much larger (better for filming) than the model used in ANH. (Of course by that time they were probably casting all parts themselves once they had the basic design finalised.)

Here are some photos of the studio model from A New Hope when the Star Wars Special Effects tour came to Melbourne a couple of years ago. All the models were in glass cases so reflections etc. were unavoidable I'm afraid.

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More photos of the exhibition can be seen at my Picasa site here.

For me one of the most surprising discoveries about the original MF model were the numerous little "danger" warning signs etc. that were clearly sourced from modern jet kits.

Unfortunately they didn't have the main studio model from The Empire Strikes Back to compare ... they did have the mini-MF that was clamped to the side of the Star Destroyer though! It was maybe 3 inches long!

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For really good detailed shots of many of the Star Wars models (as well as background information) I recommend the book Sculpting a Galaxy by Lorne Peterson (Insight Editions, 2006). It's big and pricey, but worth it. Here's the "kitbashing" quote (from p.14): "... the endless details that would dress the surface of the Falcon or a Star Destroyer were often racecar, battleship or German artillery parts (the 'Anzio Annie' and 'Thor' ... were our favorites). ... Hasegawa, Tamiya, Revell, and other model kits filled the Model Shop shelves, and we'd dip into them as needed. When struck with the model-making equivalent of writer's block, we would head out to the warehouse and load up shopping carts with new ingredients for inspiration. ... we could fill a bookcase, and sometimes we had eight cases going at a time."

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Thats correct this model is based on the 32" Model that was made for TESB . The original was 5ft! The rear parts on the 32" model were from a 1/76 panther the 1/35 decks would have been on the 5 footer. I know this because when i was going to scratchbuild one they were the first things i bought. That was before i researched all the other kits and realised it would cost a fortune to build! There are so many parts from trucks , cars (the infamous Entex 1/8 Porsche!). They are some great photos you have posted. Thank you for that. :thumbsup:

BTW there was also a "Hows my driving" decals on the back!

Edited by gunpowder17
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Thanks Guys. The more i got into building the studio scale models the more it kind of ruins the magic! You end up seeing a plastic shape with lots of parts of kits stuck over them in a fairly random pattern , rather than an intricate detailed model!

When i have finished this one i will build the AMT/Ertl kit straight from the box with all of its faults.

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