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Super Star Destroyer


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Bandai's latest addition to the Vehicle Model range, the Super Star Destroyer, at the somewhat eye watering scale of 1/100,000. I'll probably make a start on the build later tonight, but for now I'll post some sprue shots to show off Bandai's exceptional injection moulding skills.

There are only two sprues for the SSD, along with a third for the standard Bandai stand (back in black again, rather than the more recent clear), with only 20 parts to make up the ship.

 

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The surface detail (here on the lower hull) is even finer than on the previous Star Destroyer.

 

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Lower engine section and aft hull extension.

 

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Upper half of the aft hull extension.

 

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Detailing on the upper hull.

 

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Slide moulded engines.

 

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The absolutely miniscule (about 3mm wide) bridge.

 

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         That's it for now. The build (not that there's much to it) should begin later.

 

             Andy:cat:

 

 

 

 

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There must be an imperial destroyer in the collection of SW ships that I am accumulating in the hiding place, and there will be.
I will be attentive,  because I know you will do an amazing job and it will guide me.

 

3 mm for the bridge is absolutely tiny !!!

 

Regards.

 

Andrés S.

 

 

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Thanks all

 

13 hours ago, Portaler said:

Do you expect the paint to obscure any of the details at this scale Andy ?

I got a base coat on it last night and non of the detail was affected, so no problems in that regard.

 

Sorry for the delay in updates. As mentioned above, the construction's finished and the painting has started. I'll post shots ASAP, but I''ve just replaced my old pc, and the new one doesn't have a built-in memory card reader, so I can't process any photos at the moment. I'll pick up an external one in the next day or two and we should be back on track.

 

Andy:cat:

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Okay,  PC issues sorted, back to the build

 

The rear hull extension is the first area to construct. The section with the engine bells clips onto part A1-4 (on the right in the photo), and partly overhangs some of the moulded detail. I gave those areas a coat of paint before connecting them in case they were hard to access later. Probably not necessary, but I hate seeing bits of unpainted plastic showing on a finished model. You might be able to see, particulary on the engine section on the left, that I've reamed out the holes where the parts connect (you can see a rough edge on the large hole in the tab at the end). I routinely do this with Bandai kits so I can dry fit the parts and still get them apart again. Everything is then glued together for final assembly.

 

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That area was also given a light wash with Vallejo rubber black thinned with glaze medium. Some of this will get covered again when I do the main paint work, so it's more of a security measure. The assembly, together with the remaining engines, was attached to the main upper hull.

 

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For anyone curious about the size, it's just short of 19 cm long. That scales out just about right in 1/100,000 as the 'real' one is about 19 km long.

 

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It's quite a bit larger than the previous box scale Star Destroyer, although much smaller in scale of course.

 

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More later.

 

Andy:cat:

 

 

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It looks absolutely gorgeous. Hats off to Bandai for this.

That box scale regular Star Destroyer you've got there is a work of art. What is it, 15cm long? What a little gem! B)

What are people's thoughts on the colour of this wee beastie? I have a vague recollection that in Empire it was a rather darker grey than the regular Star Destroyers with something of a blue tint. Was it the same in Jedi? I believe the wreck on Jakku that Rey flies the Falcon through was meant to be one of these ships as well. Poor thing.

 

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14 minutes ago, Gazontipede said:

That box scale regular Star Destroyer you've got there is a work of art. What is it, 15cm long? What a little gem! B)

What are people's thoughts on the colour of this wee beastie? I have a vague recollection that in Empire it was a rather darker grey than the regular Star Destroyers with something of a blue tint. Was it the same in Jedi? I believe the wreck on Jakku that Rey flies the Falcon through was meant to be one of these ships as well. Poor thing.

The standard Star Destroyer is about 11cm long and scales to around 1/14,500. There are more shots of it here, along with a link to the build.

 

Regarding the colour of the SSD studio model, it was a fairly neutral pale grey. The colour of models on screen tends to vary due to the lighting used during filming and the film being duplicated during the compositing and fx stages.

There are some shots of the studio model here.

 

Andy:cat:

 

 

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2 hours ago, Gazontipede said:

What are people's thoughts on the colour of this wee beastie? I have a vague recollection that in Empire it was a rather darker grey than the regular Star Destroyers with something of a blue tint.

 

I would not know what to do about it. In fact I have been with that doubt for quite some time with the red color of some areas of the Tantive IV.
On the one hand in the study model the red color is not intense, rather with some mixture of brown. However, in the initial scene of "A new hope" you can see the red color very colorful and intense.
Certainly Andy is right, the colors will change for the lighting and other factors but I've been doubting for many days and I have the model stopped because I don't know what shade of red to apply.

 

As for the kit, in fact it is a little gem. The detail is incredibly nice.
But I would have liked the kit to be a little bigger, as was the Tantive. I think having a length of 25 or 30 cm would have been perfect.

 

Andrés S.

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9 hours ago, Andrés S. said:

I would not know what to do about it. In fact I have been with that doubt for quite some time with the red color of some areas of the Tantive IV.
On the one hand in the study model the red color is not intense, rather with some mixture of brown. However, in the initial scene of "A new hope" you can see the red color very colorful and intense.
Certainly Andy is right, the colors will change for the lighting and other factors but I've been doubting for many days and I have the model stopped because I don't know what shade of red to apply.

It's easy to over-analyse colours on film models. Ultimately, it's best to go with what feels right to you. Having said that, if I was painting the Tantive, I'd probably go with Gunze Russet or possibly Vallejo Cavalry Brown, both of which are deep, slightly muted reds.

 

So, I left off with the engines connected to the upper hull. The lower hull then clips into place leaving just the upper superstructure to add.

 

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The superstructure is built up from several overlapping strips which create a very intricate layered effect. Some of these have to be placed in a specific order due to the way they overlap each other. The brief instruction on the box lid to point this out, but it's easy to miss if you're not paying attention.

 

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Like the rest of the kit, the detail on these strips is amazing.

 

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With the superstructure in place, the build is finished. There's less than an hours work to get to this point, although it took me longer due to pre-painting the engine section.

 

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On to paint then and, for now, I've just laid down a simple base coat of pale grey. I used Gunze FS 36622 with a tiny touch of black to darken it, and an even tinier touch of brown to lessen the monotone feel.

 

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I'm still debating how I'll approach the rest of the painting. The aztecing I used on the regular Star Destroyer would look out of scale here, but I might add some subtle modulation over the flat areas of the hull to help with the scale effect. I'll give it some thought over the next day or two.

 

Andy:cat:

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5 hours ago, j_holtslander said:

Hmm mine came with a black stand. Interesting.

Yes, mine too. I borrowed the clear stand from my Tantive. I wish they'd included a clear one with the kit though, thye look much better than the black ones.

 

5 hours ago, j_holtslander said:

One problem I had with mine was after priming, base coat, and then a clear coat I found that all those layers obstructed the pieces fitting together properly and I had to go back and shave it all off the joints so the pieces would fit together again.

That can be a problem if you're painting before assembly. I always find it best to mask off the contact areas first when pre-painting. It takes a lot longer, but it's worth it in the end.

 

Andy:cat:

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I am really looking forward to this and consequently what is possible with this model in this scale. Then I will decide if I even buy and try one (somtime in the far future).

Currently I am working on the Blockade Runner and that is already pretty tiny. I often ask myself why I am going through all of that when I already have a gorgeous Fantasy Flight Games "X-Wing" CR90 for a reasonable price (60€). That is a fantastically detailled model with a more than passable paint job in a presentable size. I thought I have to repaint it, but left it as it is... I never played it once in the miniature game - only a few games with the starfighters only. Sadly the painting of "Rebel transport" is terrible and sometimes I have to repaint it.

 

The FFG "Armada" SSD also looks also very detailled but something seemes wrong with the colour/painting from the pictures and videos I saw. Aside from the expensive prize, isn´t that a option to repaint? It definitelly has more meat on it.

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On 17/09/2019 at 18:38, Gemini 8 said:

I often ask myself why I am going through all of that when I already have a gorgeous Fantasy Flight Games "X-Wing" CR90 for a reasonable price (60€). That is a fantastically detailled model with a more than passable paint job in a presentable size. I thought I have to repaint it, but left it as it is... I never played it once in the miniature game - only a few games with the starfighters only. Sadly the painting of "Rebel transport" is terrible and sometimes I have to repaint it.

I've been thinking of picking up one of the X-Wing game models for a while. They do seem well detailed and a good canvas for repainting. I might get the Ghost when I see it for a decent price, as I love that ship.

 

 

So, as I mentioned above somewhere, I wasn't really sure how I wanted to approach the detail painting on the SSD. Aztecting would look wrong at this scale, but I didn't want to leave the main hull in a plain colour since I thought it would look a bit dull against the heavily detailed superstructure.

With no real end plan in mind, I masked off the centre of the hull with silly putty with the intention of spraying a shade coat around the inner edge of the hull panels to give them some subtle modulation.

 

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The shade coat was mixed from the same pale grey and black I used for the main finish, but with a little more black in the mix. It looks a bit weird here because the superstructure is still in the base colour, but that will be getting a wash later on and will end up darker.

 

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At this point, I didn't really know what to do with it next. The modulation shading kind of worked in adding a bit of tonality to the hull, but it wasn't doing much to help with the impression of scale. I left it for a couple of days while I though about how to proceed, then this morning though 'sod it' and took my usual approach of just trying something on a whim and hoping it would work.

I wanted to get some kind of paneling effect, without anything as distinct as aztecing, and something that would hopefully accentuate rather than diminish the sense of a very big ship in a very small scale. In the end, I simply applied strips of masking tape across the hull at intervals from front to back. I then sprayed a very pale grey up to the tape strips, leaving a hard edge on one side and a feathered edge on the other.

 

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At the moment, I've only done the top side, but I'll do the same to the underside later on. I'm not sure at this stage whether I'll add any more masking. I quite like the effect as it is, but I'll see how it look when I've added a wash to the superstructure.

 

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I think, if you look at the model from a low angle, the banding does to some degree give the impression of viewing a very long ship, without looking too contrasty and distracting.

 

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Andy:cat:

 

 

 

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Fabulous micro surgery as always, Andy. 

If this thing is 19km long then you could probably get an X-wing between the vanes on that 'fan' assembly under the centre engine.

Now there's a thought! Hey guys! we found the weak spot! 😆

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16 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

If this thing is 19km long then you could probably get an X-wing between the vanes on that 'fan' assembly under the centre engine.

Now there's a thought! Hey guys! we found the weak spot! 😆

I've just measured it, and the vent/fan thingie would be about 250 meters in diameter on the real thing. I think you could probably fit the Falcon between those blades.

I'm guessing it's a giant Saniflo waste extractor connected to the ships plumbing system:poo:

 

Andy:cat:

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Sorry to tell you that the white background is not the best to appreciate the work on the model.

It is difficult for me.

 

Surely, as in the first photos of the delivery, a blue background would be more suitable to better appreciate the work done.

 

Andrés.

 

 

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17 hours ago, Andrés S. said:

Surely, as in the first photos of the delivery, a blue background would be more suitable to better appreciate the work done.

You're right, the white isn't ideal when shooting light coloured subjects, but I prefer not to use blue once the paintig has started as it tends to reflect a blue cast over the model.

The ship stands out okay on my monitor. Some screens can wash out pale tones making them harder to see against white.

 

Andy:cat:

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Progress on the SSD has been a little slow over the last few days while I've been catching up on other projects, but I've got a little done here and there, and it's starting to get to the point where I can call it finished.

 

The underside got some linear highlighting to match the upper hull. Again, that was done with a very pale grey (FS 36622) and strips of masking tape laid across the hull. I didn't mask off the the inset section at the front or the engine area, since the grey went on very lightly and any overspray will get cleaned up later by the washes.

 

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I'd already added a dark grey wash (Vallejo dark rubber + glaze medium) to the upper superstructure, then I used some of the FS 36622 left over from the underside highlighting to add some more random highlights to the higher points around the centre of the superstructure.

 

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Since that highlighting step had covered some of the previously applied washes,I added some more being carful not to overpower the layered effect that the highlighting had created. I used a lighter (medium sea grey) wash around the highlighted superstructure. I've also started to pick out some of the raised details around the inside edge of the hull plating. That effect was accentuated by adding a blended wash arouns the details.

 

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The same process has been started on the underside (still needs more highlighting) and the engines have been glazed with Citadel seraphim sepia.

 

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So that's where it currently stands. I'll probably pick out more of the details on the top and bottom of the hull, and probably add some sprayed highlighting on the higher areas of the engine section.

 

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Andy:cat:

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