Incom T-47 Airspeeder

[81-er]

A random impulse buy while I was in Hobbycraft, I couldn’t really resist it at only £4.50! This one ISN’T going to be finished as the standard Hoth speeder we’re all accustomed to. I’ve got an MPC Snowspeeder kit (yes, the one with the deformed pilots) I’m planning to build in the “Above the Karman Line” GB next summer, so this is going to be a guinea pig for one of the possible finishes I’m thinking of for that. I might even go back and get a couple more so I can try some of the other ideas as well.

 

So what do you get for your £4.50? A spiffy foil envelope instead of a box:

 

 

Four grey sprues of parts (including a stand), a reasonably clear canopy, and a very thick set of stickers (not decals), which I won’t be using:

 

 

For a sense of scale (claimed to be 1:52), here’s a comparison with a Tamiya paint pot and the 1/22 MPC kit:

 

 

 

The pilot’s aren’t amazing but are dramatically better than the pilots in the MPC kit:

 

 

The main cockpit tub was painted Mr Hobby H416 RLM 66, with seat cushions picked out in AK Real Color RC235 Intermediate Blue FS 35164, as these seemed to match some of the colours seen in the films (though I did note that not all of the film craft had the same cushion colours). Grey areas received a dry brush using Mr Hobby H306 Semi Gloss Grey FS-36270, with the seat cushions and cockpit floor getting a dry brush of Tamiya XF-52 Flat Earth. The whole lot then got a wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade:

 

 

 

Instrument panel details were picked out using Tamiya XF-2, XF-3, XF-7, XF-71, X-14, X-15, Mr Hobby H24, and Revell 25 & 312. That produced a sufficiently bright & busy sci-fi IP, which was then muted by the dry brush of H306 again. Next time I’ll dry brush first and then pick out some details after:

 

 

 

Pilot figures were painted in a more camouflaged flight suit than the standard orange seen in the films, with Tamiya XF-62 olive drab chosen for the main suit colour, XF-72 brown for the gloves, XF-1 black for the boots, XF-57 buff for the balaclavas under the helmets, XF-54 dark sea grey helmets, and XF-11 Japanese navy green for the chest panels. Since it’s an alien universe, one pilot had Tamiya XF-23 light blue chosen for their skin tone, with the other getting a more standard (to us) XF-15. A final wash of Agrax Earthshade was used to add some shading. And no, figures REALLY aren’t my strong point!

 

 

The figures & IP’s were glued into the cockpit, which is when I realised that I’d put the most detail into what I’d assumed was the pilot’s IP, but was actually the gunner’s. Another lesson for the next one:

 

 

 

Being a snap-fix kit, there’s a lot of location features as standard, most of which needed to be removed in order to allow the fuselage to close up without gaps:

 

 

The upper fuselage got the same paint treatment as the cockpit:

 

 

The lower fuselage had a run-in with the sprue cutters, knives, and sanding sticks:

 

 

I think I’ve knocked everything down far enough to get a tightly closed joint, and left two of the locators to help align everything when I glue it together:

 

 

The cockpit was installed, and looks pretty good. I’ll not bother detailing anything past the IP locations next time as they just can’t be seen:

 

 

 

The canopy was removed from the sprue and the retainers cut off the locating tabs, so I could dry-fit. It’s nice and clear:

 

 

Finally, the stand was glued together and got it’s first application of filler. I suspect it might need a couple of applications as the filler shrinks when drying:

 

 

James

[81-er]

The canopy is on:

 

 

And there’s some gaps to fill:

 

 

Worth noting for any future builds, make sure your pilot figures are well and truly seated down as far as possible. My pilot’s helmet is now hard up against the underside of the canopy.

 

The underside is also on. A couple of gaps at the front to be filled, but otherwise the fit here is pretty good:

 

 

The back is another story, there’s some awkward gaps that’ll need filling here:

 

 

Still, given its snap-fix origins, it’s not a bad kit at all. While they still had the sale on I popped back to Hobbycraft and picked up two more of these, plus a regular TIE Fighter, a TIE Interceptor, and Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter. That should keep me topped up with Blitzbuild options for a bit.

 

James

[Hunter Rose]

Cool looking kit, and that's a steal at £4.50!

 

Look forward to seeing more 

[81-er]

A little progress on this. I’ve started to fill the sink marks on the upper surfaces, as well as gluing on the structures that house the airbrakes & the rear of the laser cannon:

 

 

I’ve also cleaned up the port cannon and drilled it out a little. A small but significant improvement:

 

 

James

[81-er]

It’s been a while since I last updated this thread. Real life and a house move have happened in the interim, but I got back to this yesterday.

 

The rear of the guns had some details that looked like they should be tubes, so I drilled those out for a bit of added detail. Here’s a comparison between one yet to be done and one that I had:

 

 

There’s a lot more that I didn’t photograph. I filled the gaps around the canopy as well as some around the rest of the craft, the canopy has been masked & sprayed the interior colour, and the port blaster has been fitted. The starboard one has a nasty sink mark that I’m currently fixing, then that can be attached, and this will be ready for paint.

 

One overall shot to show the current state of things. Apologies for the poor focus, I hadn’t realised it was so fuzzy until I came to upload it:

 

 

Next update, there should be paint.

 

James

[81-er]

Sink mark on the cannon removed, it was time for primer:

 

 

Followed by a mottle coat:

 

 

And time to reveal the colours:

 

 

 

Not the best shots for showing up the deliberately patchy finish, but they do show the colour fairly accurately. I’ve gone for Mr Hobby H302 Green FS-34092 and a custom mix of H79 RLM 79 with a bit of black to darken it up. I’ve gone for Tamiya XF-80 Royal Light Grey for the underside:

 

 

Ignore the circular patch in the middle, it’s because I primed it while it was on the stand (as it’s going to live on that anyway).

 

Next up will be the decals and some weathering.

 

James

[81-er]

As this is a snap-fix kit, it comes with stickers rather than decals. They’re also (unsurprisingly) designed to replicate the speeders used on Hoth and didn’t look right for one used in a swampy/forest type world, which is where I envisioned this one being deployed, so there wasn’t any point in trying to copy them to decal paper. So I did what the builders of the studio miniature would have done and raided the spares box. Most of these are the kit decals from my F-5 build, which I didn’t need as I built it as a Brazilian machine. I’ve also used some from the leftover decals from my Vampire and Hellcat builds.

 

 

 

 

 

They’ve been sealed in with a coat of matt varnish. I’m thinking the next step will be a light spray of well thinned buff paint to help fade the decals some, then only the main weathering. I’m not going to bother with a panel line wash, these are so large anyway they’re more than visible.

 

James

[AdrianMF]

When I saw the green and brown I thought you were going to go 1940 roundels on us there for a minute! Very nice.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[81-er]

Thanks Adrian. It definitely has that air about it, doesn't it? I should really update this thread, I've done some oil weathering and I think this one's almost done

 

James

[81-er]

It’s been a while, but this is finally done! Since I last checked in this has had some oil weathering, followed by final assembly and a matt coat to finish off. There’s an RFI up now, linked after the photo, but I’ll leave this one here to tease you:

 

 

The rest are in the RFI:

 

 

James