MPC 1:72 Millennium Falcon / Stellar Envoy (Part 6)

 This is the part of the build where I stop, look around and ask myself "Why are you doing this?" Now I could have easily at this stage with the model painted Insignia White, been satisfied enough to just add the decals and do some weathering and have a really nice looking Millennium Falcon. I could have kept it simple, but those blue panels with those complicated curves were too enticing. Maybe, someday I'll learn to keep it simple, but it's not going to happen this time!

As you will see throughout this week's progress it has been worth the effort, but it is also going to be a bit more time consuming than I had originally anticipated. However, I'm going to show you a few things I did to cut down the work time. 

Around the same time that I started this project, Tamiya had released their new Chipping Liquid, and I thought that this would be the perfect project to test this out on. I painted a test spoon with some Insignia White and taped off a space where I could test the Chipping Liquid.

Tamiya was a bit vague with the directions on the bottle, so I decided to test if I could airbrush it onto the spoon. I thinned the Chipping Liquid with Water as per the directions, and as I sprayed it on I couldn't get it to level out, instead it pooled into small droplets.

This was my own fault as the directions clearly stated to be used on a Flat/Matte surface. However, it would be a lot of work to spray the Envoy with a flat coat, only to add a gloss for weathering, and then once more flat coat the model once it was completed. So this was a test to see if I could get away with using a glossy surface.

It's difficult to see in this picture, especially against the Insignia White, but you can see how the Chipping Liquid has formed small droplets.

I sprayed on a flat coat from Mr. Color, and I decided to try brushing on the Liquid Chipping. 

The first coat was thin and it made thin droplets like before, but not as many and I had better coverage. It took 3 applications to build up a nice looking layer. Then I left the sample to dry overnight.

When I came back I masked over the one side so that I could test spray one of the blues I had planned to use, but when I lifted the tape most of the Chipping Liquid came with it. The rest came off when I removed the tape from the border. 

I was very frustrated at this point, as I couldn't figure out how to exactly use this product, and it had cost me a few days that I could have used masking and painting. 

So I decided to give up on using the Tamiya Chipping Liquid, and in the future, I'll test it some more, and properly figure out how to use it, and give a report on it then.

 

I tested my blue paints to see which one I liked better. On the Left is the new Mr. Hobby Aqueous HUG 107 Freedom Blue from Gundam Seed. This is a really bright and bold blue that I like a lot. On the Right is Tamiya XF-8 Flat Blue. This is quite a darker blue compared to Freedom Blue, but it feels more like a prequel era Star Wars color, so I decided to use this one.

To create the curved edges I started with a drawing compass. I measured the distance I wanted and then I took the pointed end of the compass and drew a faint line on the other side. 

I then masked off the section with Tamiya 1.0mm tape. Using this thin tape I was able to easily follow along with the curve that I had traced.  I've used Tamiya 1.0mm and 3.0mm tape, and they have been invaluable during this process. I used to cut thin strips of tape but using these makes things easier and I can work faster. I highly recommend adding these to your shopping cart.

Next, I placed more modeling tape around the area, doing my best to press down the tape to cover up the pipes and other raised details. I'm going to try my best, but given all of the details on the surface I think I'm going to have to deal with quite a bit of paint bleeding. 

I bought some sea sponge for this project that I could cut up into little chunks. I dipped the sponge into Mr. Hobby Masking Sol NEO to create some chipping in the paint. I'm not the best at using sponges, so this project will be great practice for me, but I was really impressed with how tiny I could get the chipping to be using the sponge versus my previous attempts with a paintbrush.  

I painted on the XF-8 Flat Blue, mixing it with Mr. Levelling Thinner at about a 50-50 ratio. I painted it on in a splotchy pattern to create some fading in the blue paint, helping add to the illusion that this is a well used spacecraft.

Usually, I'll use a soft eraser to rub off and remove the Mr. Masking Sol NEO, but I painted on the Flat Blue so thin that I was able to easily brush it off by just using my finger. 

I'm really pleased with the results of the chipped paint, and it looks even better with the light and dark tones in the paint. I think I might have overdone it in a few places, but I've got a lot more of the model to paint and practice on.

Sadly, because of my testing with the Tamiya Chipping Liquid, I didn't get as much done as I had planned. Fussing with that stuff was really frustrating but I'm going to try it again in the future once the envoy is complete. Thankfully I've still got Mr. Masking Sol NEO which has been my go to for creating chipping for a long while now. 

I'm going to spend the next week here masking and painting, and that's going to take a lot of time. It would have been a lot easier to build the Falcon, but once I started sponging on the masking agent and painting the blue I've had a lot of fun and I'm much more motivated to keep on with this painting than I was at the beginning of the week.

I've been masking all of these areas in small sections and then painting them. This makes it easier for me to handle the model, and also because of the dry climate right now the tape will lift quickly. I don't want to finish taping this model and then find out most of the paint bled through the tape.

To be continued...

MPC 1:72 Millennium Falcon / Stellar Envoy (Part 5)

 I'm very excited that I'm finally at the painting stage of this model. I've been looking forward to this part of the build ever since I opened up and looked at the kit. However, I still had a few smaller parts to build first, and the biggest challenge of all was getting the lower section of the cockpit tunnel to fit. In my previous posting, I mentioned parts warping, and that was going to be a big challenge to fix, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Since I replaced the laser canons on the turrets, I had contemplated replacing the dish with something scratch built, but I just couldn't pass on the new tooled dish. The details are impressive and even just test fitting it to the model it looks really great. The dish is designed to rotate but I decided that I'd just glue this to the hull when it was completed.  

Now I'm going to glue the cockpit tunnel. Because this piece is so warped and out of shape I'm going to be adding this in stages which will slow down the building time, but it will allow a much tighter fit in the end.  

I also want to add that this warping might simply be an issue with my kit.

If you look closely you can see that where the tunnel bends towards the hull it's a bit short. I could have this side flush, but then I'd have to add more to the front of the cockpit section. So I decided that having it flush with the front would be easier in the long run.

I fused this section together with some Mr. Cement SP, and I held the parts together while the glue dried.

Once the cement had dried I clamped the tunnel together and added more Mr. Cement SP to the inside of the tunnel. Things were looking good as the clamp kept everything tight. However, as the glue dried the pressure from the clamp caused the upper side of the tunnel to slide forward. Thankfully I caught this before the cement had hardened all the way.

My solution was to add a small strip of styrene glued to the lower section of the tunnel. Once that had properly dried I then glued it to the upper section of the tunnel. I then added more cement to the seam.

This worked out really well in the end, and you can see a gap on the inside of the tunnel behind the styrene patch, but this isn't seen from the outside of the model.

There was quite a large gap where the tunnel met with the lower hull section. My apologies for now having a better picture for this, but it would have been very difficult to photograph. I flipped the Envoy around took a lighter and carefully heated the plastic where the tunnel angles to the main hull.

This method took two tries, but I was successful in having it meet with the hull. Slightly melting the plastic meant that I could now add some more cement to the area providing a stronger join, and I could add a bit of putty to fill it in, instead of adding and sanding down a lot.

To fill in the gap I used Vallejo Acrylic Putty. This putty is great when you want to fill in an area quickly. I first spread the putty around the gap, and then I dipped my Tamiya Paint Stirrer in some water and carefully pushed the putty to form a solid join. And after it dried for a few hours it would be ready for a coat of primer. 

Lastly, I hid the gap in the back of the tunnel, by adding pieces of styrene, similar to what I did on the underside to hide the gaps with the battery cover.  This was a lot quicker than filling it in with putty or sculpting epoxy, and it blends in quite well with the rest of the model.

I bought a new Tamiya Engraver, and I decided to test it out on the underside of the cockpit section adding in a few missing panel lines that are on the studio model. I'm going to do a proper full review of this engraver later on, but it took some time to get the hang of it, and I really like the panels that it created.

To block off the tunnel from getting paint inside, I stuffed it with a tissue, and then I brushed on a layer of Mr. Masking Sol NEO to prevent it from moving. 

Now I was finally able to prime the model. I used Tamiya Liquid Surface Primer G, and this was my first time priming an entire model with this product. I usually used it only for filling in small gaps. It took a bit of trial and error to get it right, but it's a very hard primer that bites into the plastic.

I started by priming all of the exposed sections. Priming these areas first allowed me to get my airbrush into all of the corners which was easier in the long run. 

Next, I primed all of the side walls, these parts were especially fun to prime as I was able to really appreciate the new details with these parts. It's going to look even better when a wash is added. 

Once the side walls had dried I primed the underside of the hull and then the upper side. By following these steps of priming it was easier for me to work and make sure that everything was painted. It also allowed sections to dry and prevented me from adding my fingerprints to the model.

There were some bits of plastic that I didn't see until I primed the model. This was an easy fix, I took some 1500 Tamiya Sanding Sponge and lightly sanded the primer. This removed the debris and smoothed out the primer for the paint.

Following the same steps as I did for priming I painted the Envoy with Mr. Color 316 Insignia White. This took longer to paint than the primer as I had to apply 2 coats. Mr. Color Insignia White for some reason is a gloss paint, and this required 2-3 light layers of paint. Though it took longer to paint, it's a really beautiful finish, and I'm eager to see it later on with the blue patches.

We don't know with 100% certainty what exact paint was used on the A New Hope Falcon studio model, but most modelers consider Insignia White to be the closest color straight out of the bottle. It took me 2 bottles to cover the entire model and it looks pretty great. Next, I'll have to mask the vents so that I can apply the blue. This is going to be tricky with all of those raised details.

Lastly, I just wanted to show the underside aft section. This is where I covered the large gaps in the landing gear doors and the battery cover. I'm really pleased with how well all of the parts I added have blended together.

This was a lot of work, and what made it even more time consuming was having to deal with the correct mixtures for the Primer and Insignia White. I'm not sure why the Mr. Color Insignia White gave me so much fuss, but next time I build a Falcon, I might try an AK Interactive, Mr. Hobby Aqueous, or Tamiya spray paint.

But it's now all painted, and now I need to figure out how I'm going to add the blue, or better yet which blue I'm going to use. But that will have to wait until next time!

To be continued...