Wanted: Reviews of some Revell SW kits

[cayman shen]

I've been to several modelling sites, including starshipmodeler, but I've been having a hard time finding reviews of some of the Revell SW kits. I'm curious to know about size, including scale, and detail level generally as compare to the far more inexpensive ERTL versions.

The ships in question:
1) Snowspeeder
2) Y-Wing
3) Slave I
4) X-Wing
5) Vader's TIE

Any help is appreciated!

 

[TheRealMcFly]

+1 on getting a build review on one of these.

I'll throw in what I do know about the Revell kits. I have only seen 2 in person, one was the Falcon and the other the Y. I was hugely disappointed with both. They seem to be improved over the MPC kits as they have better proportions and overall styling is a closer match to reference material. That being said, the Falcon still has massively tall sidewalls. My biggest gripe is that these kits appear to be generated from some sort of cad drawing as all the would be greeblies appear as simplified shapes. This to me is a big problem. Think of it this way. The SW vehicles were made from kitbashed parts. Also, so were the MPC kit masters. For example, I can spot some airplane landing gear on the MPC Falcon back engine area and some gas tanks on the bottom half, etc. The Revell stuff has little perfected geometric shapes all over it instead. I dunno, I guess it feels like a step backwards to me.

 

[cayman shen]

Thanks. I wish they'd publish a scale. I really want to have one or two consistent scales, rather than have ships all over the map--I guess I could find the length of the models and the real ships and do the math...

 

[Bryancd]

I think X-Wing and Y-Wing are in scale with eachother, I believe right around 1/72nd. I think they are the same as the Fine Molds scale size and are modeled after those kits. I like them as they come pre-painted and with some additional weathering look very nice. I have the X,Y, and Falcon. I agree the Falcon still suffers from the issue's with the old MPC kit, but it has a lot of nice detail.

 

[Shingouki28]

The Y-Wing is VERY close to being 1/72 ( I compared it to my Fine Molds). It's a shame they didn't mold some of the details as seperate pieces, because some of the simplified pipework just looks plain awful! However, I think a lot of these kits get an unfair rap. Look at some of the horrors released by AMT over the years. With a bit of hard work and a good paint job, there have been some amazing builds made from them. Proof that in some instances, you CAN polish a turd. I guess these snap kits are aimed at the younger modeler who isn't too fussed about accuracy or scale. An experienced modeler could probably knock out a pretty decent looking bird with one of these Y-Kits. I know for me it's cheaper to cut up one of these then it is to do the same to a FM kit!

The X-Wing looks to be a bit bigger in scale though (Maybe 1/60 ish??) but I am basing that observation on the size of the pilot that comes with it.

I know the pocket snow speeders are amazing little kits for the price, with pretty decent looking pilots and nice crisp parts. I'd say they are almost in scale with the AT-AT (but don't quote me on that. I'm just basing that on what I see on screen) I have a load of them, planned for a Hoth battle diorama).

I guess it all depends on how much work and time you are prepared to put into a model. If you want high accuracy right from the get go, then maybe wait for future FM releases. But if you want a project to really get your teeth stuck into, then I would certainly recommend picking up a few. Re detailing the simplified parts on model kits is half the fun of the build isn't it? I have had all of these kits and I have had no problem with fit, no warpage, minimal flash on what are usually crisp molded parts and the prepainting is pretty good, especially around any canopy/glass frames.