My first build (deago ESB SS Falcon!)

[Ktaylor]

First off this is an awesome site, such cool and inspiring stuff! So much I decided I was gonna scratch build a MF! Then all of a sudden the Deagostini midel came out and I thought hey maybe I should just build this and mod it along the way instead of just doing it all from scratch lol. Glad I did, this is an awesome model and tracking down all the little discrepancies to the original ESB Studio model is REALLY fun So I thought I would start a thread to share my progress and keep track of what I'm doing for myself as well! My hope is to share my work and get some Pro tips from some you more seasoned model masters! So keep in mind that I'm making this up as I go along and if you see something that looks like "the long way around" or maybe could be done in a better more accurate/efficient manner please let me know!!!

First off... that turret window, wow okay for such a detailed kit with so much ref back to the studio model I'm surprised that its glued in the wrong way, seems like prolly a communications issue with the factory that creates the parts maybe,... but its like that on the blueprint as well, oh well lets fix it!!

I decided to sand off all the little bar details and just redo it all to be a bit more accurate to the original since I had it out not perfect but closer for sure...

Removed all the existing details



I sanded down the thickness and added this styrene strip around the top to create a second edge ring that more closely resembles the Original, since I sanded down the thickness of the piece first I am more or less back to the original pieces thickness, at least that is my intent. Will sand this added pieces thickness down as well to bring it down a bit.
*the first time I tried this it completely failed, I then pre wrapped my strip of styrene around a magic marker and taped it there in place for about 10 mins, when I unraveled it from the marker it had a perfectly curved radius to it which was MUCH easier to line up glue around the edge keeping the inside track flush with the original.


Next I cut out little notches and fed the bars through, which really helped hold them in place while I glued them down, I also found that leaving them longer than needed REALLY helped as well as it gave me little handles to hold them with which could be snipped off later with the exacto-


Then I just bent the long pieces over the top, glued them down with a bit of super glue and cut the final angle at each edge with my exacto knife.


SUPER excited about the final look, feels way closer to the movie prop and i am COMPLETELY addicted to modding these pieces now !!! haha


While I was at it and feeling like a styrene master I decided to start looking around and found a bunch of little panels that are missing from the turret!!



ah much better!

Really excited to prime this all and see how the added detail blends in!!

Hit it with Tamiay Grey fine Primer (rattlecan) seems to work just fine, although I got a kinda fuzzy feel in a couple places I had to knock down with some 1200 grit paper, anyone know if I did something wrong or is this just something that can occur? I almost feel like its overspray drying before it hits the surface or something? Not sure, anyways buffs right down so not gonna worry about it too much...

Looks awesome! I love how all the added detail blends in and really adds alot to the over all look of the piece!! okay if I didn't mention it before I'm WAY hooked on this!!



-Kris

 

[Ktaylor]

Okay next up, even though it isn't accurate to the original model I simply cant stand having guns with no holes in the ends of the barrels...so gonna sort that out!

My first thought was to drill little holes in the metal, but I was worried about how clean/precisely in the center it would all look, so I found some 3/32 round styrene at the local hobby shop and decided to try and use that instead.

Rather than cut off little pieces and try to line them up on the barrel I thought it would be much easier to glue 2 pieces of the styrene together before cutting, that way with one cut I would get both holes at the same height for each barrel and it was much easier to fit the larger piece with both barrel tips on rather than one at a time!

Glued up all the ends, turns out each barrel end is 3/32 as well so they fit perfectly!


and finally Primed to see the final effect!
looks really cool!



All the pieces primed and put together, really starting to look cool, this model is really gonna be fun to build and be really impressing, the size alone is amazing!



Kris

 

[Jaitea]

You're doing a great job,....It looks better with primer,.....love the improvements

J

 

[Jedi Dade]

Smokin'

Jedi Dade

 

[Ktaylor]

Thanks guys! yeah I never really know how its gonna feel till I get the primer on and then it seems to really fill in any edges and unify it all together really well!

 

[Ktaylor]

My first build - DeAgostini ESB Falcon!

The next mod I have decided to do was a really big one for me, I wasn't really sure if I would be able to pull it off but I am super happy with the results have a lot more confidence to do larger more extreme mods now!!

As you all know by now that hull plating on the escape pods tubes is really not on there correctly, it is flush with the top of the surface when it should really look like plating attached to the sides of the surface. Seems like not that big a deal but it's one of those things that just takes away from the complexity and detail of the original model. So I have decided to just remove all the detail and build it back from scratch, it seems extreme but I couldn't really figure out a better way with the tools I have soooooo

problem..
there should be an extra top edge on each plate so it looks like they have been attached to the existing sub shape, but instead they are just flush with the top making it look like, well not sure, but not "right"


so I used a woodworking chisel and took off the big pieces


then put it on a block and sanded the rest of the panels off till I had a nice flat surface, whew okay so far so good wasnt sure how that was gonna turn out!



I transferred the shape onto some .02" thick sheet styrene which I found to be the same thickness as the rest of the hull plating detail. Then started cutting out the notches and plate lines.


Glued them on then made the vertical bar pieces to replace, much like the gun turret details I added earlier.
Final rebuild! Couldn't be happier with the results!!! The Hull plating clearly are their own individual pieces now!! and the texture/detail it creates looks really cool!


Onto the other piece!


This has some extra detail at the end that needs to be added back, it's pretty basic though so not to hard to build up!


Final rebuild of all the hull plating and details on both sides, and primed!


Really excited about this Mod, and couldn't be more stoked about how it turned out!!!

Kris

 

[Ktaylor]

Scratch built a "falcon looking" test piece out of styrene to practice painting/weathering techniques on.



Did a wash, never done one before so I wasn't sure what to expect, i did how ever think I would be able to wipe away from areas I didnt want it, but it seemed to stick everywhere, I think maybe I should have sealed the base coat first? any suggestions?


added a red and grey panel to try the paint chip using hairspray before the colors are applied, used a wet q tip to get the chips to come off, this worked better than I expected, I like how I have controll enough to do specific chips with my toothpick, or just rub it with a big wet q-tip randomly and get nice big pieces peeling away! this was fun and very addicting and Since you are peeling paint off you get a nice layered 3d effect to the chips which doesn't really show very well in the pics but to the eye it looks great!!


Also used some Tamiya "smoke" to lay down some discoloration, then used one of the Tamiya weathering pastel sets and really like that, just adding some dust on the sufrace and pulling it down with a brush made some great "star wars" looking streak marks! added some yellows and green in to kinda add some subtle color which I feel like I have noticed on lots of the achive pics of SW ship pics, need to look at the actual Falcon ref images and try to figure out where all these places are, which is REALLY hard looking at pics that aren't white balanced lol

One question, I assume I need to seal all of this once I'm done so that the pastels dont get rubbed off or smeared, what is a good product for this? I/m using Tamiya Acrylic paints and pastel sets.

think I'm gonna wash this off with warm water, re prime it and start all over trying out more stuff and practicing these techniques some more, prolly build out a larger area and glue this on so I have larger area to practice on, plus scratching this stuff together is a lot of fun, I really want to try out a full scratch build soon!

Kris

 

[Lee S]

REALLY good stuff there! I'll be doing basically the same thing to mine, so please keep posting so I can steal you ideas

 

[Ktaylor]

Okay time to try and sort out the cockpit window framing, the pieces come with this big thick bars that don't taper like they do on the original studio model, also from the molding process they have these slopes to the sides of them so they could be pulled from the molds presumable, okay I get mass production molding issues so not a big deal really, but the frames are just laid out wrong so I'm gonna try my best to just remove them and rebuild them back more accuratley ;D here goes!

first step cut them out on one side and file down the frame so it's nice and clean and ready for new frames


Next I built up that bottom frame a bit as it needs to be higher up and not on the same level as the front windows bottom edge, also added my new tapered frames, they dont look it in this shot based on angle and lens perspective but they are



next up the super tedious process of outlining each of the frames with this little raised bit of .03x.03" styrene strips....uhhhhg this is the most time consuming part by fart but really looks nice when you get them all lined up..I added the little cross frame pieces as well that turned out nice and tucks into the frame supports...



okay I'm half way there! now time to do the other side and center trim pieces

hmmm I'm thinking the trim I am using is a bit too thick, at least on the lead edge up front by the nose cone, I'm gonna try to trim it back a bit with my exacto so its not so thick on that lead edge shown here and see how it all looks...

if it still looks to thick everywhere I guess I'm gonna pull all that off and rebuild it with the next size down which would be .02x.02" square strips, dang, I really don't want to have to do that all over again...but has to be right, and It really looks like these are too thick ;(

Also looking at the ref there is a nice panel that will cover all the seams up I have created by adding the wall height and the seam of the 2 pieces being glued together now just have to fill that front seam and make those front bars a bit thinner, will try to file them down bit first before replacing them all together.



looking at this ref again I might be okay or at least close enough with the trim thickness, that lead edge looks thinner than the rest for sure which is an easy fix to what I have

 

[Ktaylor]

Man looking at it again I realize the piece in the front is too thick also, dang it!! gonna just take it all out and start over hahah need to thin that down for sure!



on the right is how it comes, need to file down the yellow part I drew to be more like the final PS'ed thickness on the right..sigh, so yeah complete redo...good thing this is supposed to take 2 years to build!!

 

[Ktaylor]

Finished up all the little trim pieces around the windows and added the new panel below the new higher side frames, pretty happy with the results, I used putty on all the seams and it looks like they are gone, need to add the panel to the other side then prime it and see how all the seam filling went

you can see here below the window frames where the seam line for the 2 halves is as well as the seam from the window raising piece was added, I filed down the old panel below it as best I could with sanding sticks which was a tricky because of the curved surface, but it will be covered up with a panel so I wasn't too concerned with making it smooth, just recessed so the new panel doesn't stick out further than the ones around it.



some other shots of the window framing from different angles, its a bit too thick but I can live with it, I REALLY didnt want to rip it all off and go with thinner framing, and if I really don't like the final look I can always do it later as nothing is dependent on them structurally.



The final starboard side with added panel and notching to the panel below. I'm happy with this turned out, I really wasn't sure how I was gonna do all this when I originally cut the panels out, and I think once primed it will look really nice. I;m much happier with this final look than the original cast part. All the rings and panels don't resolve the same as they do on the original model it would take WAY more reworking than I'm willing to do but this "feels" much closer to me and I will do a few little things once I permenantly attach the cone to the tube.


-on a side note when looking at the 32" studio model pics, since it wasn't pulled from a mold it has that "Built look" which I really like, some of the little panels aren't glued down on all the edges so an edge might be lifted a bit with some under cuts here and there. I really just think it makes a model like this which isn't supposed to be factory perfect that much more convincing, so I will plan to do a bit of that here and there on purpose so this has some of that hand built feel to it in the right places.

 

[Zenwalker]

Great job there!

I am too lazy. I think I will just buy an aftermarket canopy from shapeways.

I think they are pretty accurate.

 

[Ktaylor]

Yeah the Shapeways cone looks great, I would have bought it but trying to learn to scratch build and this seemed like a nice part to practice with.

 

[Ktaylor]

re sculpted the cockput tube blasting with some milliput, didn't really like the crater looking ones, this feels closer to the studio model detail to me and looks a bit more like a blast bolt ripped into the hull, will probably round some of the edges in so its not as crisp around the outside and looks more line bent in metal when I sand it down and blend it in.

 

[Ktaylor]

Finished up the cockpit window framing and new raised panels!



Also started working down the cockpit tube adding some of the plating notches missed in the original piece, you can see a before and after here with the added/improved side panels as well...I photoshoped out the tube seam to get a better idea of how the final piece will look since we cant glue it up just yet!



Ref image i'm using for this area



started playing with some of the Metalizer paints for the interior as well, buffs out to a nice reflective surface.
Sprays on dull like this


Buffs out with a soft cotton cloth to this, going to look really cool reflecting all the lighting I plan on doing in here!

 

[Zenwalker]

How did you add the notches?

Dremel?

 

[Ktaylor]

Nah I use this guy, works really well, great for cleaning up some of the ones on the side walls that are kinda soft looking from the mold pulls as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Tools-Marples...d=1430259444&sr=8-1&keywords=1/8+erwin+chisel

 

[Ktaylor]

Fun with Lights! Tried a couple different things out

Fiber with Mushroomed tips (holding a lighter to the end of the fiber to flare it out so it doesn't slip through the hole)
works okay, but hard to keep the shape and size consistent as you can see here looks like holes are miss aligned but its due to the randomness of the flare at the end...


just keeping the tip of the fiber flush with the surface and gluing it in so it doesn't fall out. This seems to work the best so far IMNO (lol a new one In My Novice Option!)
but its clear you get nice clean round lights and they would all line up nicely!


This is by far the easiest method, using clear plastic parts ( this Nav Computer from Shapways) just paint/prime the model and scrape the paint off and place an LED light behind it, this also allows for square and other non round light shapes which is usefull. I think mixing these 2 will produce great results!

Using some Clear Tamiya paint it was really easy to add color to the lights...



-Kris

 

[MKWJTC]

Nice.
Which of the methods will be easiest as for hiding the cables (or the fibers) in walls?

 

[Ktaylor]

No idea! This is my first time for all of this, what I hope is to be able to run really long fiber that is bundled together in color groups via heat shrink tubing and find a way to run it behind/under stuff and out the bottom of the ship through a hollow display tube/mount that way I can feed it through the bottom of the display case I want to build and access/service all the labeled Fiber bundles from underneath( I plan on using clear fiber so I can adjust/change the color via the LEDs I use to light them with), THATS a lot of "hope to" though haha gotta kinda feel it out as I go since I'm sure this won't go according to plan-

For instance I'm really counting on a hollow tube mounting this from below like the SS model-no idea if that will be possible haha