by Eric McCrary
Scale: 1/72
These are the Fine Molds Star Wars kits, all in 1/72 scale. The TIEs are painted using acrylics and washes. Nothing too fancy for the paints, I usually use Liquitex or something similar and do all the mixing with a artist's easel. Same with the Falcon and Y-Wing but I added some airbrushing and pastel techniques for the weathering on those.
These are all out of the box builds, built separately over several years.
After they were done, I got kind of bored with the static displays with bases.
So I decided to try my hand a more exciting diorama.
I used acrylic tubes, for supports, on the two TIEs and Y-Wing. The Falcon had to have metal wire supports to hold it in position.
The "Death Star" is all scratch-built from various parts; like printer cartridges, office supplies, a curling iron holder, etc. and spray-painted with Krylon primer. The pieces are set on a wooden base. The unique thing about the diorama is none of the parts are in a completely fixed. I can move the support pieces around and easily re-configure it. The whole scenario could be completely reversed.
I built the Falcon to represent the Empire Strikes Back version, since that is my favorite of the trilogy. You can't see it in the photos but the characters reflect that too. Han, Chewie, Leia and 3-PO are all in the cockpit.
I took three years and two paint jobs to finish the Falcon. I originally built it in 2-3 days. My fingers were red and sore after-wards from all the tiny (300+) pieces. Originally the paint job was done entirely with acrylics and washes. Along the way I acquired an airbrush, and discovered using pastels for weathering effects. Some of the credit goes to this site, its resources (and reader contributions) helped me with techniques that were unkown to me.
Overall I am pleased with it. I do plan to add an Imperial gun emplacement. The Falcon is the showstopper on these piece though. I had an AMT/Ertl kit when I was a kid and Fine Molds blows it away.
Image: Front view
Image: Rear
Image: TIEs
Image: Left/front, low
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