Vintage MPC Snowspeeder Weekend Build (completed)

skahtul

skahtul

Sr Member
RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
I have really been enjoying these old MPC kits. I have been able to pick up a few of these for good prices by really keeping a close eye on Ebay. While the accuracy and detail is not even in the same league as the Bandai kits, I really like this size. Since my only purpose in building these is to improve my airbrush and weathering techniques the lack of details does not make any difference to me.

Just a side note, I have some of the new MPC kits that have recently been re-released (with "new tooling"...) and they are almost exactly the same. There are some minor differences and some very, very small upgrades in details but by and large, they are untouched and just okay. The Revell Star Wars kits that have been released so far are much better kits.

Anyway, onto the build!

The purpose of this build was to do a quick weekend build. Work has been pretty crazy so I wanted to just hang out in the office and work on something to decompress a bit. While I did start building this during the week, I finished up the kit on Friday so I could get some primer down. Then I spent a good part of Saturday doing the paint and finally finished it off on Sunday with the acrylic stand. That's pretty quick, at least for me :)

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Just a few minor fitment issues, nothing a few clamps can't help persuade :)

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My plan was to have one of the flaps up for the final build and I thought it was lacking detail so I threw in a few extra from some Bandai Falcon kits and wire.

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Took some files and damaged the edges as this seems to be a pretty common technique for this model:

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Once the primer was fully set, it was time to take out the Archive X paints which have become my only paint for finishing my star wars builds. Try as I might they are still a bit frustrating to work with so I swap them for Tamiya on all my other kits, but for these, it's hard to beat them.

Below is a shot of it with the Tamiya Fine Primer and ready for its first coat of paint. While I typically do not like finishing cockpits (I am just not any good at it) I actually did intend to paint up this cockpit as it's not half bad. However, I glued the entire kit together and it was at this point I realized I had messed up... I forgot to install the mount before I did the final assembly, so I had to epoxy it in as shown below... Oh well, looks like another black canopy.

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After putting down the SP Lettering Grey:

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After that was dry it was time to throw down the red/orange color, mask it off and prep it for paint chipping with some liquid latex.

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I did a little bit of 'research' and it seems that the stripes were actually a bit less orange than I thought so I mixed up a bit of the Reefer Orange and the Caboose Red to get a bit more of a "scarlet" color and that ended up getting me where I wanted.

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This was followed by some Reefer White to accent some of the panels. I was not really going for any one particular ship so I just took some from a few different references, mixed them up, and came up with my own:

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At this point, my hands were not feeling awesome so I put on the grey and white with a brush, these paints are not quite as 'hot' as the Tamiya so they do go down pretty easy with a brush.

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After that, it was time to weather it up and get it mounted. This was the basic process I used to finish this up:
  1. Airbrushed Grimmy Black and Dark Reefer Grey via the airbrush.
  2. Added some chipping with Grimy Black, Lark Grey, and Reefer White.
  3. Dusted it with the base coat followed by a bit of Light Earth (this gets added to all my builds).
  4. Used the Tamiya weathering masters to add a bit more highlights.
  5. Finished it with just a touch of AK washes in a few areas.
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division 6 said:
Well done.

I took apart my vintage kit and sanded it smooth then scribed in new panel lines.
Still have to reassemble it.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I heard there were some cool upgrades for this kit so I might get another one and really detail it out.

And I can see why you would scribe them on this kit... they are far from accurate for sure.
 
Of all those early kits, I really love that one. Don't like the monkeys, but that's it. I recently sold a bunch of stuff on e-bay, and when I saw that this kit was not getting collector prices (sorry, I'm broke and it was all about money), I didn't sell any--I'll just keep them. Even when you get into the FM and Bandai kits, you kinda gotta wrestle with the scale, etc.
 
Awesome!

My son was asking and I just dug mine out (assembled and painted a couple decades ago) along with my (award wining!) Darth Vader Tie fighter.

He's done a good job of destroying it, but I got this shot before too many parts went missing...
Snow Speeder.jpg


I sprayed on the red stripes (watched the movie to get placement and sizing- it varied) and then sanded the edges with 1500 or something to "fade" them. Panel lines filled and a bit of sloppy dry brushing.

On the other side, I did some staining around the engine "door" to simulate where work was done.

I like this ship better than an X-wing!
 
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