BoontaModelling
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»The ‘Pacific 4023’ was the gem of the Royal Naboo Racing Team, scoring countless victories in the various racing tournaments that took place in the Chommel Sector around Naboo. Originally commissioned for the Royal Parade Squadron, it was later handed to a group of young and promising Theed University students for the purpose of ‘increased propulsion studies’. They later became the founding fathers of the Royal Naboo Racing Team.
Rumor has it that the entire crew tragically died in the Battle of Naboo when capturing a Trade Federation Tank badly backfired in an unforeseen friendly fire accident. The ship was found in a remote barn decades later.
This build is in honour of them.«
Welcome to this build. The idea for this crossover between a classic 60’s racing barn find and a Naboo N1 Starfighter crossed my mind a couple of months ago after watching that episode of the Book of Boba Fett.
I enjoy taking kits and turning them into something different a lot, and I was looking for a quick relief project after an excessive Podracer scratch building project that took several months before. This one wasn’t so quick after all.
The base of this model is the Revell 1:24 Mandalorian Naboo Fighter. I have built almost all of the Bandai Star Wars kits and a couple of the Revell kits, and I must say this is definitely one of the better Revell kits. Not as perfect or well engineered as a Bandai kit, but a good start for what I had in mind.
THE COCKPIT
I find that the nice thing about modifying an existing, not so nice kit is that there is a lot of room for improvement.
I first started out with the cockpit and added a fair bit of detail made from styrene, wires and PE parts. Adding the small stuff like an open maintenance door with a loose wiring harness really was fun to do and, I think, is a nice visualisation of the “we just forgot about this thing” theme. Seatbelts and additional control units in the cockpit further added to the idea.
UNDER THE HOOD
Next up was the technical detail under the hood. I felt this idea really needs some more detail of the inner workings so I cut the “hood” and scratch built somewhat of an engine block that is attached to the cockpit insert. This is mainly scratch built of styrene, some marker caps, wires and a little bit of kit bashing. The kit itself has a lot of missing panes and details underneath already, which again worked perfectly for the barn find theme.
THE ENGINES
I originally planned on just adding detail to the existing engine inserts of the kit. But when I learned about the excellent 3D printed engine inserts for this kit by a fellow modeller on Instagram, I thought why not give these a shot. I was not disappointed.
FURTHER MODIFICATIONS
I never really liked the look of the third engine underneath the body of the Mando ship and I also wanted to remove this build from the design of that ship. I used epoxy clay to fill in the gaps in the body for that engine and sanded everything smooth.
More PE parts and a little bit of kit bashing added some more details in certain areas and I also drilled rivet holes around some panels to add more detail and suggest a 60’s racing aesthetic.
PAINTING AND DECALS
The model was painted with Tamiya and Vallejo acrylics. Chipping fluid allowed for some mild wear of the paintjob and I sealed everything off with Tamiya Clear Gloss, which I hand polished to a nicely aged semi-gloss.
I originally planned on adding lore correct Naboo markings and decals but also played around with the idea of just “bashing” decals from other kits and pulling this a little more into the real world racing theme. I just ran with this idea and even though the result is nothing you would really see “in canon” I consider it to be a really nice mashup of familiar ideas.
An oil wash, streaking, some matte paint splatters and additional dry brushing further added detail to this lost ship.
DISPLAY AND TARPS
To make this clash of themes even more pronounced, I didn’t want this ship to be found in a futuristic Naboo hangar but rather an old, dirty wooden barn. The display base was made from 3x8mm wood profiles, dirt and some diorama material to add typical barn dirt.
The ship itself is partly covered in large tarps, like it was just found, uncovered and the first layer of dust blown off. After putting so much work in the model, let me tell you it was very hard deciding which areas of the ship should be covered by the tarp and it took me four tries to finally get something I liked.
All was mounted inside a quality picture frame so this can either be displayed sitting on a desk or hanging on the wall.
This build was so much fun! There is just something about taking an ordinary mid-quality kit and making it your own.
Thanks very much for reading this far - much appreciated.
Been reading the RPF silently for a long time! So excited to finally show some of my work, as well.
Thanks guys! Keep doing the thing!
- Boonta
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