1/144 Millennium Falcon by Fine Molds

[Gekko1]

Hi guys, first time here. I found this place looking for pics on the net of the Millennium Falcon builds to give me some idea if I'm on the right track painting-wise with mine. I'm not much of a detailer, more a painter. I love weathering and intend reproducing a very heavily weathered MF. I don't intend on trying to reproduce the paint job on the MF as seen in the movies or replicas, just getting close and practicing my weathering effects to try and get better at it. Any help, advice or comments would be greatly welcomed. Cheers!

1.This was a combination of Tamiya Dark Grey mixed with Tamiya Paint Retarder.


2.Vallejo Black Wash with Vallejo Glaze Medium mixed 1:1. I really liked the result of this. Easy to use, superior to Tamiya Smoke.


3.More Vallejo Black wash and Vallejo Glaze Medium.


4.Tamiya Smoke and Tamiya Paint Retarder.


5.Again, Vallejo Black Wash with Vallejo Glaze Medium, only this time with Vallejo paint thinner added which gave me a bit more control with the medium and the ability to blend away any excess with another brush dipped in water.

Cheers

Richard.

 

[Scratchy]

Nice paint pics and thank you for posting the techniques. Your Falcon is looking pretty good so far. Looking forward to more updates!

 

[sqbiedoo]

Nicely done:thumbsup I'm new to weathering too so this helps alot, thanks.

 

[Mike J.]

Hey, I know you! :lol

Studio Gekko

I started following your blog back when we were all waiting for Prometheus to come out.

Falcon looks great!


-Mike J.

 

[crackerjazz]

Nice job, Gekko1

 

[Gekko1]

Thanks guys!

I'll try and explain how I'm doing my weathering in future posts, and take some shots in progress to help illustrate what I'm doing.

Here are the products I'm using to do the panel line washes, and coloured filters to modify the various panels to slightly different tones of grey.

Cheers

Richard.

 

[Zombie_61]

Under the heading of constructive criticism (and I realize this is a work in progress)--you've done an excellent job of picking out and weathering individual panels, but on the whole it all looks a bit too selective and specific. You'll need to add an overall "dirt and grime" effect to the entire model to make it look more natural and realistic, and tie it all together.

 

[Gekko1]

Thanks Zombie, I'll see what I can do.

Here we see one of the front mandibles getting a selective wash and the deeper paneling getting a filter covering of the same colour, which is Vallejo Black wash mixed with Vallejo Glaze Medium and Vallejo Thinner all mixed one part each. To apply the wash mixture I use the smaller black handle brush and then use the blue handle brush dipped in water to eliminate any of the wash that has gotten anywhere I didn't want it. This can also be done after it has dried, but I use a cut down brush for that because you have to use slight pressure plus water to assist the removal of the dried wash.

This is the cut down brush I was referring to. Used like a mini scrubber I guess.

Here's some of the oil paints I use and my cardboard pallet. I use these oil paints to do all the dirt and grime streaking plus the rust streaks and some of the panel colouring and fading. Any thinning I do I use odorless white spirit thinners.

If you have a look at the hinge area of the stairs/ramp you'll see an example of some of this streaking, also along the crevice of the two corridors leading to the docking rings. The oil paint is very easy to work with and can be completely removed if you make a mistake, and re-applied. So it is a very user friendly medium.

Cheers

Richard.

 

[Gekko1]

A bit more progress.

Cheers

Richard.

 

[Gekko1]

Added a bit more weathering with oils.

Cheers

Richard.

 

[christrom]

Starting to tie in very nicely indeed. One thing I'll add - be careful of your dark tones and colour saturation of these. If you darken/saturate the panels too much it has the effect of miniaturizing the model. Apart from that it is an excellent weathering job in my opinion. If I were you I'd give the model a dusting with the airbrush to neutralise the tone and emphasize the scale of the ship. I don't want you to take any offence as I think generally it is a very well conceived weathering scheme

 

[Ruprekt]

Looking good! It's been a long time once I looked at my FM kit, is this thing really that small? Jeeeezzzzz...... I really want a 32" Falcon!