| Ah, the Millennium Falcon... The ship of mysteries... At least, according to some people. Not much of a mystery as far as the kit goes made by AMT/ERTL. They created this kit kind of without all the rich details that are on the Fine Molds version. On the other hand, this left me with an extensive job of adding back those detailed parts that were left out. |  |
| Using one of the many aftermarket kits, I first created the landing gear. The parts were obtained through Starshipmodeler.biz who in turn got them supplied by Blue Moon (Alfred Wong). |  |
| Piecing the parts together was fun, but quite some work, since I wanted to use the Photo-etched Grill set as well on this model. The Grill set is from Millennia Models and was actually meant to replace some parts on the already detailed Fine Molds Falcon. Once the Blue Moon and the Millennia Models kits were put together and painted, the results looked good. |  |
| Detailing the Falcon was the fun part of the build-up. Adding all those small details to the hull really got me going. I added the exhaust fans, some cable lines and the landing gear bays. I also added small details to the cockpit. |
|
     |
|
| I airbrushed the hulls a Flat Gull Grey and started taping off the panels that I thought needed to be painted a Light Grey colour. I say light grey and you might wonder why I did not say dark grey... Well, the light grey colour by Tamiya actually turns the exact colour if sprayed over a flat gull grey colour. I used the studio scale Falcon as reference. |  |
| The next step was to build the gun turret and wells and the turbo laser blaster. I got all these kits from Triliance. All the parts are hand-painted, because all the little coloured pieces were too small to airbrush.
The gun well will be lit up using a small blue LED, plus I will use 13 fibre optic cables to add small red lit up buttons. |
|
    |
|
| I mixed a flat red with a flat black colour (2:1) to get the deep red shade I needed. Having spent almost half a day taping off the panels, I now was able to spray paint them. Again, I used the studio scale Falcon as reference. |  |
| Having partly finished painting the gun platform, I tried out a little weathering. I have yet to decide whether or not to use the chipped paint technique on the red panels. I have to compare my platform with the studio scale model to find out. |  |
| I plan to light the cockpit dashboard using fiber optics. Two colours, red and white, will make their way into the dashboard. I have yet to mount the dashboard onto the console and place the whole lot into the cockpit tube. But this can only be done after I painted and placed the side panels onto the ship. |  |
Today I spent almost two hours soldering the appropriate resistors to the leds. I will use a total of 45 leds for this ship!
The LEDs will be placed according to Mark Koziks engine lights plan. |  |
| Here are the parts that came in from Starshipmodeler.biz. It is the Millennium Falcon Upgrade Set. I almost immediately unpacked, cut and sanded the parts for I couldn't wait to get started with this lot!
I added the side panels to the lower hull, the raised detail to the engine exhaust deck and the little "fins" to both the hulls. |
|
    |
|
| To light the main engine at the back of the Falcon, I used the clear strip that came with the Millennium Falcon Upgrade Set. I built a raised panel which I will attach to the inside of the lower hull. I added some aluminum foil to the raised panel in order to reflect the light even better.
I used seven blue LEDs for the engine. |  |
| Not being able to control myself, I placed my raised panel inside the lower hull and loosely put the upper hull on top of it. I then attached the wires to my power source and turned it on... Magnificent! |  |
| Today I have added the back part of the lights. It was quite a job attaching all the LEDs and wires to the lower hull, but I think the results are looking good! And yes, I did of course hook it up for a test run... |  |
| I finished the gun well some time ago, but haven't had a chance to light it up. Here you can see it all lit up using one blue LED and thirteen fibre optic cables attached to a single red LED. |  |
| Today I finally got to glueing both hull halves together. Of course, there were a few points where the hulls did not fit together. I had to sand off quite a few supporting points to get the fit I wanted. |  |
| Having just added the landing gear to the lower hull, I lit up the Falcon and took a photo of it. You can see her here in all her lit-up-glory! |  |
