Millenium Falcon (New Hasbro 29") Paint WIP

I didnt want to clog up the other thread so I thought I would start a WIP on my little BMF. Ill list all the paints and products I used at the end. So.....

This is made out of a type of plastic called Poly-something. Problem is you have to do some prep work to get paint to stick. Here is what I did.

Wash it in the bath tub with Dawn dish soap and a scotch brite pad. Not to vigorous, but enough to get the mold release off. I then wiped down the hull with 91+ denatured alcohol and a lint free cloth. Next I used some spray on adhesion promoter (goes on like thin clear coat). Let sit for about 10 minutes. Then hit it with a quality automotive primer. Here is the hard part......I let it sit for 3 days to harden. The first pic is it in primer next to the Hasbro Legacy . Its hard to tell but the primer is a light grey, it looks like a dirty white which is a good thing.

Just primer:


I next mixed up some Tamya flat black mixed with some smoke. I shot all the panel lines on top of the primer and various recessed areas. Theory being that the hard to get to places will gunk up more in space.



Here she is with all the panel lines air brushed over with the black/smoke mix on top of the primer.


Next I mixed up some Deck Tan/Flat White/with a touch of Flat Black. This is going to be the top coat color. I started applying paint to the center of a panel and worked my out so that the recessed black could still leak though. Its starting to look like a BMF!



Another close up shot of this stage.



I used the supplied stickers to get an idea of what color goes where. Mind you, they probably will not line up with a MR falcon or the five footer. I found panel lines that do not match up. This is a $60 compromise so please judge accordingly.


And more panels being painted (notice the stickers laid on for a visual reference.



Once the panel painting was done, I went over the entire model with some flat black to fill in dirt and grime, soften the reds/greys/ and to weather the entire model. There are a lot of streaks from asteroids, lasers etc. Let your artistic ability flow Luke! I also used some Light grey for paint chips and charcoal for finer weathering etc. Final paint step was adding some rust and various Blacks and grey through the airbrush to tone down mono chromatic panels. This is a ship that is in a constant state of repair. Some panels are 'new' while most have seen some action.

I have about 10 hours into it at this point: First shot is in direct sunlight......


Indoor light


The plan was to leave it on a table in my office for a while. But since I had to fix a sprinkler today.........I decided to move on to the next step: Internal mounting device.

I made a 'H' structure with 1/2 sprinkler pipe and cut a hole in the center of the bottom of the MF. I put the internal support inside of a garbage bag and filled it with expanding foam.




I squished the foam out as best I could and pulled the bag through the opening in the bottom of the MF. I put the screws back in around the outer hull to keep it from expanding in places where it should not. Its been an hour since this last picture.......wish me luck.


Thats where Im as to far. I really hope the foam doesnt cause a big mess over night. But if all goes according to plan, I will be able to open it back up and the foan will be contained within the garbage bag. Then I can run wires for lights etc. Sounds good in theory but I already have a gusher out of a screw hole. So this might be a little bit of a struggle to open back up hahah.

More to come!!!

It looks insane! I'm glad you posted more pics because I was just about to ask you of you used your airbrush to pre shade those panel lines. It looks great

RObert

Awesome stuff!

Very nice I really like it//

Hope all goes as planned!!! :thumbsup

Looks great so far.No more paint issues?

Ok.....so it has been 8 hours and thats how long the can of expandable foam says it need to dry. Lie. I pulled the big piece of PVC pipe to peek inside and its still cooking. But its dry enough inside that it moves as one piece while holding the PVC pipe like a big cake topper. Ill open it up in the AM.

32buds, there were two spots that were leaking foam like hooker on Hollywood Blvd. They were screw holes on the bottom near the mounting point on the bottom. To answer your question, I was pulling dried foam off the hull and the paint stayed intact in most parts until I started sanding with 500 grit to get the residual off. Im gonna have to sand two panels and repaint but the paint sticks better than expected from the intel in the other thread. I set it on its top for the first few hours. When I saw foam coming out of the 2 screw holes I flipped it over right side up so that the screw holes would drip foam on the ground. It looked like little stalagmites forming out of the holes. (or stalactites....you figger it out)

Im no expert and I was expecting the worst with this polycrap. But so far so good. Prep is the key with most paint jobs. This has been no exception.

Can I ask, why the foam interior? Is this for support/strengthening? Looking great so far. Just took apart, washed and sprayed mine with a base coat of plastic primer yesterday.

Nice work, could you show a pic of the bag/support with the top removed?

Yes, please add pics.. love what you are doing so far!!!

spacebob said:

Nice work, could you show a pic of the bag/support with the top removed?

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Im calling this little experiment a success....with some words of caution. Like I said earlier, I used an entire can of spray foam. That was just the right amount. There was still some wet foam inside the bag towards the mandibles 16 hours later. I poked some holes in the bag to let it expand/dry and put it back together (Im out of town for the week and we will see if the foam sticks to the bare polystyrene when I get back). But the garbage bag did its job by containing the foam and letting it conform to the inner shape of the hull. With that said, the foam is pressing on the top and bottom of the hull. With the screws back in, the hulls compress the foam a little. Ill shave off a MM here and there to get it perfect. I want it to be snug without putting any stress on the hulls causing deformation.

If you have never worked with expanding foam, here are the words of caution: It messy, sticky and is a bear to clean when wet. Acetone will be your friend if you make a mess. The alternative is to let it dry and pick it off. If you chose to follow in my footsteps, make sure you plan accordingly and make sure your garbage bag doest have any holes. I also do not know if foam will eat different types of garbage bags. Another note: The internal alignment rods and/or screw towers might puncture the bag causing chaos. While drying, I only replaced the screws along the outer edge of the hull. And even then, I used a screw driver to push the garbage bag inside enough to clear the outer screw towers. When the foam was expanding, it still found egress points in two places (inner screw hole by the docking ramp and the screw hole just forward of the lower quad laser window). My recommendation would be to let it dry right side up so that the screw holes are facing down. That way if there is a an internal breech, the foam will expand out the screw holes straight down instead of bubbling on top of your model. I cant stress this enough.....Wet foam might ruin this model. I dont know if sticks to bare Poly. Ill find out on Friday. But it did stick to the painted hull. I have 2 dime size panels that will need touch up.

Here is what it looked like when I pulled the top hull off. You can see the main support rod sticking out from below and the foam inside the bag which is now in the shape of the inner hulls:



Another view looking down on the foam bag support:



I purposely canted the internal frame (while the foam was wet) so that the MF would have a slightly nose up and port side leaning left like its in a climbing left turn. This is a picture of a little test. I just placed the main support pipe on a paper towel holder. Its perfectly balanced with a slight nose up, port side down pose. Someone asked why the foam.....I didnt want the internal frame to be floating around inside the hull. I wanted it to be nice and snug.....and it is! I was flying it by the main support rod and its solid. Speaking of main support rod.....You may want to block off the inner portion of the main support rod. Mine filled up with expanding foam and was a bear to get off. I had to use a big pair or channel lock pliers to twist it off.



So thats it for now, dont cry to me if you ruin your $60 toy with foam hahaha. But this is how I did it. Im sure some other talented member will come up with a better solution. But for me, it only cost me a can of foam, $1.50 of PVC pipe and 20 minutes of prep.

Home Depot sells a blue and white can of latex-based expanding foam. Far easier to work with, and offers water clean-up. But not as solid and resilient as the nasty, highly aggressive, red, yellow, and blue canned stuff they also sell (which I presume is what you used, Christian).

Rob...I did not know that. I used the yellow can because it was on an island in the PVC section at HD. But yes it is solid.

Ok here is all the materials I used sans charcoal and a small brush....I think you know what they look like. The far right jar of paint is the leftover custom mix for the hull thus it has no label. I threw out the little bottle of smoke but smoke is just a diluted black. Use what you want or take the decal sheet to the hobby shop and color match with your eye. I searched the internet trying to find definitive answers to what colors were used. One site would say X and the other Y. In the end I jst went with what was correct for me. I liked the Master Replicas feel and tried to replicate their look with a little more detail.

Ill order a light kit and once its installed, do some touch up paint. Im sure ill find some things I want to redo while sitting in my hotel in NYC this week surfing the interweb. So Ill get back to work on her later next week. EDIT: In the spirit of trying to do this on the cheap.....I just bought a set of Legacy falcon electronics including speaker on Ebay for $16. So I guess my little girl will have lights AND sounds.

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Thanks for sharing! Looks awesome!!!!!

Wow that did work well.
I was worried that doing it all in one would push it out the hull but it looks perfect to me
Will the bag come off so you can shave bits if need be when you get back or is it stuck?.

Looks awesome. I will be copying some of your methods on my Falcon model. Thanks!

What do you guys think about using Flex paint on this? Like the kind you use on RC cars? Wouldn't that have a better chance of not coming off? I mean the thing is so damn mushy(the plastic of the falcon)..or does it not matter with the adhesive promoter you use? (never used that)

That's funny, someone was talking to me about special paint for rc cars today. I'd always thought that the rc shells were polystyrene but I now know there are softer shells that don't crack so easy. Live and learn

spacebob said:

That's funny, someone was talking to me about special paint for rc cars today. I'd always thought that the rc shells were polystyrene but I now know there are softer shells that don't crack so easy. Live and learn

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Yeah not to mention your smashing your rc car into walls and people all day long. So the paint has to give. Seeing that the falcon body is very very flexible..it made me think..RC CARS....then RC CAR PAINT

TronGod said:

Yeah not to mention your smashing your rc car into walls and people all day long. So the paint has to give. Seeing that the falcon body is very very flexible..it made me think..RC CARS....then RC CAR PAINT

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Certainly worth a try!