Second part of an article about Darth Vader's Advanced X-1 TIE Fighter:
How I made a contest-winning kit.)
By Ward Shrake [eMail: ward.shrake@worldnet.att.net].
Copyright © 2001.  All Rights Reserved.  No portion of this text may be 
reproduced without express consent of the author.


I would love to be able to say that I just threw some glue and paint into the 
kit’s box, shook it up, and a nice model resulted. But that was not the case. I 
wanted a contest winner. And that meant doing a heck of a lot more work than one 
normally would want to bother with, on any kit. Let alone one that fits badly.

I did a lot of special stuff on this kit. Describing it in detail takes time, so 
this text is quite long. To help you to justify spending your time reading it I 
offer the following summary of how this kit did during its competition days.

In a one year "circuit" of the Southern California model contests (1999 - 2000) 
my build-up of this particular sci-fi kit resulted in six trophies at seven 
model  contests. At three contests, I took home a First Place or a "Gold" award. 
I took a Third Place at three other contests, including "OrangeCon," the IPMS 
Regional contest for Region 8. In contests where this kit was not the overall 
category leader, the few people that routinely "beat me" often made models for 
others on paid commission, taught advanced modeling seminars at the prestigious 
TamiyaCon, and/or generally tended to dominate any category they entered. There 
was only one contest that I entered where I did not get any award; the "Mad 
Model Party" attended by many professionals in the motion picture special 
effects industry. I did pretty well for myself overall, and had a lot of fun.

Furthermore, I frequently got something that I think is just as valuable as a 
contest trophy: appreciative "oohs" and "aahs" and other nice comments from my 
fellow modelers. Like I often tell the young modelers that go with us older guys 
when we attend scale model contests, "that sort of thing definitely counts".

My first draft of this text was so long that I ended up splitting it into more 
than one part for easier, more pleasant reading. I moved any general tips or 
how-to techniques to Starship Modeler’s "Reader’s Tips” section, so they’ll be 
of more general use. I put a "short story" build-up review as the main article, 
with this second text intended as a way to give the truly hardcore more info. 
Some of the info describes ways around various problems with the kit. Other 
parts of the text tell how to really go all-out, to make the kit look its best.



General Tip #1:
As far as assembly tips go, for this individual kit, I’d say to stock up on 
various super glues if you don't already have some handy. You will need them to 
get some of the parts to come even close to fitting well. They also make a 
decent gap-filler if used properly, so they’ll be of double use here.

The two halves of the fuselage, for instance, fit together so poorly that you 
may want to cut all of the locating pins off completely, then use a “stitching” 
technique to attach the halves, gluing maybe half an inch or so at a time.

I just don’t see how ordinary plastic model cements could be used to do this? If 
huge gaps and alignment problems don’t bother you, then use whatever glues you 
want to. But I would not build another of these kits without using super glue.

Am I exaggerating? Perhaps, but I doubt it. I will say this in my own defense; 
the things I had big problems with, other people also had problems with. Simon 
Roykirk’s article, for instance, talks about the awful fit of six of the detail 
parts that attach to the fuselage. He also noted that they were nowhere near the 
right size, to be attached as indicated in the instructions. (For a 3/8th’s inch 
tall box to be 1/8th of an inch off in size is pretty much unforgivable!)


General Tip #2:
Buy yourself a tube of 3M's "Acryl blue" putty. For this kit, that's probably 
the best single bit of advice I can give anyone!

This is an automotive putty. You will not find it in any "normal" modeling or 
toy stores. Find a supplier of automotive paints; some place that sells 
materials to Paint & Body shops. (I’m serious.) I had to special order my tube. 
I waited a few days to get it. The initial cost of $14 may seem steep at first, 
but this is very misleading. The tube weighs well over one pound! (22 ounces.) 
On a per-ounce basis, that makes this putty incredibly cheap compared to those 
tiny tubes of "normal" modeling putty sold at most hobby shops.

Many published articles that compare various filler materials say this stuff is 
some of the best ever. In fact, I bought mine because of a Fine Scale Modeler 
suggestion, followed up by various postings on Usenet’s “rec.models.scale”.

To be honest, I didn't know about this putty till this kit was long over with. I 
think my assembly frustrations would have been far fewer with this putty. I used 
normal modeling putties then, which dried way too fast. (I was even using liquid 
cements to extend the working time.) It just doesn't compare to the overall 
working qualities of the 3M "acryl blue" putty. So buy yourself some!



Specific methods and work-arounds


Fixing those darned fuselage boxes 

The six small boxes that (supposedly) fit into holes in the fuselage (2 up 
front, 4 in the rear) are a royal pain. They just don’t fit, period. Not for me 
and not for other writers, either. (I am discussing parts #11, 12, 14 and 15.)

The boxes are not large enough to fit behind the holes cut in the fuselage, 
without showing one or more of their ragged edges through the hole itself. And 
they are not small enough to fit through the holes, so that their front edges 
will become the outer surface of the fuselage, in that area. They don’t fit.

I can suggest a few fixes to try and at least one method to avoid.

Method #1:
The way I used is the best one to avoid. I glued the boxes in as I was told to 
in the instructions, then I tried to build up the edges using modeling putty. 
Ugh! What a frustrating nightmare that experience was! The reason I say that is 
that modeling putty is generally used in butt joints, and not to sculpt razor 
sharp edges with. It just does not have the tensile strength to do it; it keeps 
chipping and chipping. Every time you get it re-puttied and re-sanded, part of 
the edges come loose again, and you are right back to square one. It’s a vicious 
cycle. If you insist on using this method, do yourself a big favor, and use 
something like “Magic Sculp” or Milliput for your putty, which is made for 
making sculptural details from scratch. I’d still avoid this method myself.

Method #2:
The easiest way I can think of to correct this problem is to just make the holes 
in the fuselage larger and push the boxes through them, gluing them flush with 
the surface. You may still end up with some nasty gaps, and the boxes will not 
be recessed as deeply, but you will not pull all of your hair out, either. It is 
an improvement over both ignoring the gaps, and the method described above.

Method #3:
If I did another one of these kits, I would deal with those recessed boxes in a 
very specific way. The seam-filling and edge recreation hassles they caused me 
were just plain unforgivable. Here is my plan for avoiding that frustration.

Best case, I'd simply throw the kit's recessed boxes away and scratchbuild new 
ones from sheet plastic. I'd intentionally make them deeper than necessary. (You 
could also just extend the leading edges of those recessed boxes forward with 
sheet plastic, after having sanded all of those forward surfaces perfectly flat. 
But this method leaves you with more putty joints than you'd have otherwise.)

I'd putty up the small inner seams on the recessed boxes, while they were still 
easy to access. Get them perfect, while you can reach them. A final sanding on 
these seams would be much easier to do now. This would give me a set of nice 
boxes, with no more putty seams to worry about inside the boxes themselves. 

These box extensions would be made long enough to stick completely outside of 
the fuselage, when first installed. I would do this on purpose. Think of it this 
way; you are making a section of "square tubing" that is going to stick out of a 
flat wall. It may not be easy at first to picture this idea, but please try to.

If you then cut or sand this tubing square with the surface of the surrounding 
wall, the inner wall of the tubing now becomes the desired sharp edge of the 
wall itself, where it makes the hard bend and goes inward. The sheet plastic is 
harder than putty, which is very good. Congratulations, you just got rid of the 
problem of the crumbling putty, on the sharp corners.

The only new problem created by doing this is that you would have to widen the 
holes in the fuselage, so that the boxes would slide in through them. This is 
still far easier than having to deal with the hassles of using the kit's parts?

Furthermore, if you're careful in installing these new boxes, you now have only 
a small seam to get rid of, right where the outer wall of the box part meets the 
surface of the surrounding wall of the fuselage. Putty is ideal for this type of 
a gap; that's what it was made for. Congrats, that's another big hassle solved.

I think you get the idea? I would glue these assembled boxes on from the inside, 
probably using thin super glue for its strength and gap-filling properties. Make 
sure they go in straight, of course, not at an unintended angle. That's another 
good reason to have overly-long boxes to start with; better visual checking.

Next, I'd suggest applying the putty to the outer seams, while the boxes are 
still too long. When the putty dries, cut the boxes to size, relatively flat. 
When you do final sanding, you're killing two birds with one stone; getting the 
tube and the surrounding walls nice and level, and also sanding the seam flat.

I have not tried this, but the theory sounds good. You should have perfectly 
clean, sharp corner edges and no remaining seams to have to hide, where those 
silly little recessed boxes are concerned. (This is very much recommended!)


Re-scribing panel lines

There is not much to say about re-scribing that has not already been covered in 
the FAQ for "rec.models.scale" and/or in just about any printed model magazine. 
If it is a new term for you, basically it means that you are cutting new lines 
into a kit’s surface, wherever they seem necessary. One such area is wherever 
two adjacent panels join along their edges. (Hence called “panel lines”.)

I bought a re-scribing tool from the folks at Bare Metal Foil. A great tool. I 
feel mine is worth every penny I paid for it. I practiced with it, first on the 
panel lines that were already where they were supposed to be, but lacked sharp 
edges due to molding inadequacies. I soon got the hang of how to hold it – by 
that I mean the proper angle and pressure and how fast to try to cut with it.

I did not initially know the trick about using "Dymo" labeling tape as straight 
edge. It works great with a little practice. I used it mostly on the fuselage’s 
rounded surface shapes. I had already re-cut the existing panel lines without 
it, just by being very careful. Dymo tape was used to create brand new lines.

Re-scribing seems to involve a fair amount of "putty it back up and try again". 
I talked to some of my modeling buddies, who all said they have to do that, too.

I did have some luck at correcting badly done lines. (I got plenty of practice!)

I first used modeling putty to fill the line. I then dragged a #11 X-acto blade 
through the putty, while it was still wet and fresh. I found that it helps to 
dip the blade first in an appropriate thinner? (With Tamiya's brand of modeling 
putty, which is what I used on this build-up, Tamiya's liquid cement works well. 
I'd use 3M Acryl Blue, in the future.) Try to do this in only one pass. I just 
ignored the raised trough of putty this creates, sanding it flat later on.


Adding details with sheet plastic

As far as sheet plastic goes, I added and/or corrected some textural bits with 
it. These are most visible on the front slabs of the angled main wing supports.

The build-up pictures show a number of things. When I took these pictures, the 
kit was almost ready for its final paint job. In fact, I had already applied one 
primer coat midway through, mostly so I could see how much more I had to do. I 
had actually begun to paint the kit, but I did not like the way the paint was 
turning out, so I stripped off most of the upper coat and added new detail bits.

If you look beyond those areas, you will see bright white wherever I added some 
sheet plastic parts. Most of the darker straight lines are where I had to add 
putty, to fix my first re-scribing attempts. (Some of which were pretty bad!)

I had finally given up trying to re-scribe around the details molded into the 
kit. They were in my way, causing all sorts of wandering lines. And they looked 
awful to begin with. No sharp edges: all rounded-off blobs. I had a heck of a 
mess on those front surfaces at that point! (Almost more putty and super glue on 
them than bare plastic!) I finally felt I just had to take harsher measures.

I found one really good, clear picture in the "archives" book. That told me what 
the front was supposed to look like. With that info, I could begin the rework.

I shaved off what I could with a hobby knife. Then I sanded the whole front 
panels perfectly flat. On any sharp edges that were not sharp enough, I added 
more super glue as a filler. (Putty tends to crack off and leave awful looking 
edges.) When it was dry I sanded it down, doing it again until it was all sharp.

One tool I did not have then, I made more recently. Looking at a special chisel 
tool’s side view in a Micro-Mark catalog, I used a Dremel tool to grind down a 
small screwdriver shaft. Flat on one side, rounded on the other. It is useful 
for removing molded-in details one does not want to keep. (A nice tool to have; 
I find I use it often now whenever I remove things like raised panel lines.)

I then marked off and cut new panel lines in, using a metal machinist's ruler as 
my straight edge. I largely ignored any cutting mistakes as I went, as long as I 
had one straight line among the mistakes. It looked truly awful at this point!

I sanded it all perfectly flat again. Then I corrected each line, one at a time, 
using the drag-a-hobby-knife-through-wet-putty method. This took time. I didn't 
try to rush it. I sanded it all flat again after ample drying time. I retouched 
any lines that were obviously too wide, again using that "wet putty" method.

Once I had that done, I primed those front surfaces, so I had one consistent 
color over all of it. Then I moved on to the step of re-adding the raised bits.

To do that, I just looked at the reference picture, trying to figure out how 
best to reproduce what they'd done. I cut some plastic bits and glued them on. A 
final sanding to remove any blemishes or glue marks, as needed, came last.

I found that when making tiny bits of detail from plastic strips, it really 
helps to have a tool that will cut the same size parts, over and over, with 
nicely squared edges. I bought a tool called "The Chopper" that is really great 
for this sort of thing, and not overly expensive, either. It is made by 
"Northwest Short Line," a model railroading company. I use mine a lot now, when 
cutting plastic sheets. (Try Micro-Mark if you're looking to buy one.)

I added one other small detail. The two laser cannons have transparent tips, 
tinted orange. The opaque plastic stubs included with the kit would have looked 
awful, I felt, with just a coat of opaque red paint over them. The general shape  
still isn't 100% accurate according to my reference pictures, nor is the color I 
added, but I did improve their looks a bit. I used some of the kit’s clear sprue 
to make up brand new gun tips. I cut the old opaque tips off. I drilled a hole 
down the barrel, like a projectile-firing gun. I painted the insides silver, for 
a subtle reflective quality under the transparent tips. I shaped the new clear 
tips with a knife and files, polished them a bit, then stuck their backsides 
down to an index card with double-sided tape. I then painted them with Tamiya 
"Clear Red" paint. (Their orange would have been better, but everyone expects 
red on laser gun tips, so I went with that color.) I used a drop of Kristal 
Kleer to glue the new tips onto the old barrels, but white glue should work too.



Painting notes (general)

In person, this model's paint finish seems to get lots of attention. Even guys 
that normally want nothing to do with Science Fiction kits seem to like it. I 
have received many nice comments from military armor and aircraft folks. I even 
got a few oohs and aahs from people just spectating at model contests. (All of 
which helped to make these trillion added steps worth it, at least to me!)

Some comments on "value"

Overall, here was my game plan. I wanted to experiment with doing a paint job 
that included one middle tone, two shadows and two highlight tones. I figured 
the variety would look (a) more realistic and (b) more interesting.

I have some training in Fine Arts, which is what got me thinking this way at 
first. But also, I have a buddy that does really well at modeling contests, even 
though he has a touch of color blindness. After some heavy thought, and a lot of 
staring at his models, I figured that abnormal attention to "value" -- which is 
the full range of grays between pure blacks and whites -- was what I wanted.

Most of the models I'd seen at contests use three tones total. Sometimes just 
two: a main tone, plus a darker shade here and there. I really was curious about 
the kind of a reaction I would get, if I added more overall tonal variation? I 
figured it would either be loved or hated, and I was dying to find out which!

Keep in mind that I'm talking about very subtle differences, not a checkerboard 
effect. As long as a person can't easily see where one color or shade starts and 
the next one ends, the overall effect is one that draws the eye, not repels it.

I have to think I'm onto something with this idea? Too many people that saw the 
finished model seemed to like the end results almost instinctively, for me to 
think it is a flawed idea? Granted, it is more work, but I think it is worth it.


Painting the craft's fuselage

The middle three paint tones would be achieved with an airbrush. The deepest 
shadows were added next, with a wash of artist's oil paints. The lightest tones 
were a few highlights, done sparingly with gentle dry-brushing, the idea being 
just to bring out the edges of any raised detailing.

I shot for a statistical "bell curve" in terms of surface area covered. I'd have 
to guess that my initial goal was for roughly 50% of the surface area being done 
in the middle or main tone, 20% each for the shadows and highlights, with around 
5% each being the deepest shadows and the lightest dry-brushed highlights.

For this model, I used acrylic paints by Tamiya sprayed on with an airbrush. I 
learned a trick called pre-shading, from hanging around with some military 
vehicle modelers. I modified the procedure just a bit – adding more values -- 
but it is still basically the same core technique.

(Credit where it is due: I read about this technique in how-to articles printed 
up in "Tamiya Model Magazine". Their editor loves this technique and uses it 
often in his build-ups. I was also lucky enough to see it demo'ed in person by 
Greg Cooper, while I spectated at TamiyaCon during 1998’s annual event.) 

Basically, after priming a kit but before the main coat goes on, you spray on a 
dark color wherever you want a subtle darkening effect to be. You then mix up 
some of the base coat, with maybe twice the normal amount of thinner. If you mix 
it properly, the main coat sprays on in a transparent layer. You keep 
lowering the amount of contrast between the two paints with more layers. If you 
do it correctly you end up with very smooth, subtle blends that add quite a bit 
of visual interest. It is easy to keep going, though, and lose all contrast.

On this kit, I was essentially painting in the shadows first, then the mid-
tones. That much is "normal". Where I did things a bit differently was to add 
one more step. I added even more thinner at that point to a batch of paint that 
was mixed to be substantially lighter than the mid-tone color itself. 

Using caution, so as to keep the new areas covered relatively low, I added a 
few highlights to the center of only the largest of the panels or open areas.

I can't stress enough the need for restraint. You have to leave lots of physical 
space for your mid-tones, between your shadows and highlights. If a space is not 
big enough to be crying out for another tone variation, just leave it alone.

You also should not begin this airbrushed post-highlighting process, until all 
of your kit has been pre-shaded, and then has its mid-tones completed. It is 
very much a matter of judging where and how much, with your eye alone. To do 
this properly, you have to be able to see the two proceeding colors done.

Once I had the three main tones airbrushed in, I let it dry. Next I added the 
shadows with washes, done with Windsor and Newton brand artist's oil paints.

I generally used burnt sienna (a dark brown), but occasionally I used a tiny 
bit of black where it seemed appropriate. I put it on with a brush then wiped 
most of it back off with a soft cloth. Oil paints dry very slowly, so you have 
plenty of time to get a small area the way you want it. Then do another area.

Once the washes were fully dry -- I gave it at least a day -- I dry-brushed over 
the corners and raised edges of any raised, textural detailing. Most of the 
shadows and some highlights were already there, so this step was done quickly.

On some of the tiniest details, which were way too small to highlight earlier 
with my airbrush, I did all my highlighting with two stages of dry-brushing. 
I used the mid-tone color first, to get the main areas. I hit only the tiniest, 
highest details with a very small amount of the lighter highlighting color. Keep 
that bell curve idea in mind; each new color should be used less than the last.


Painting the solar panels

The technique above was used on everything except the solar panel's main 
surfaces. For those, I planned to do something different. These were items that 
represent identical small parts, duplicated over and over, spread across a large 
area. I could not see trying to add shading to it, without hurting the realism.

But I wanted to do something visually interesting, regardless. (I could not see 
just spraying them with a gloss black, and that was it.) To make a long story 
shorter, I experimented with a spare #8438 TIE kit until I had an effect that 
I liked. I based it on my observation that in the actual movies the solar panels 
seemed to change colors when you viewed them at a different angle. It was a very 
subtle thing, but it was there, and I liked it a lot in the original movies. 

I want to note that although I'm describing this backwards, I actually painted 
the kit's solar panels first, then the rest of the ship. It was easier to mask 
off the individual panels later, than to mask everything else. Conceptually, it 
is easier to explain pre-shading with opaque colors first, then with clears.

To reproduce that neat lighting effect, I came up with a specific technique.

I used my airbrush for nearly every step, to keep things smooth and even. The 
last step was adding a coat or two of "Future" for gloss. I hand-brushed that 
coat on. I had better luck with that: my Future-spraying needs lots of work!

One thing I learned from the practice kit... paint "with the grain" for the best 
effect! That is, spray parallel to the lines of molded details. Doing this makes 
a much bigger difference than I would have thought was possible. If you want to 
duplicate the color-changes-with-the-angle effect, follow this religiously!

I first sprayed on a very dark gray color; Tamiya's "German Grey" to be exact. 
That was the only opaque coat. I used it both as a base coat, and to keep light 
from shining through the panels and spoiling the illusion of solidity. (I had 
seen that this could be a problem, with my painting practice TIE fighter kit.)

As you are spraying this color, also spray some random patterns on a white 
sheet of posterboard. Do quite a few. You'll need this sheet in the next step. 

A "chocolate brown" coat came next. This was right out of the bottle, but with 
about twice the amount of thinner you'd normally use to airbrush it with. Add a 
bit more thinner in small increments, until you get a completely transparent 
coat of paint, with just a tinting of brown to it. Spray over the pattern sheet, 
first, until you get the thinner ratio just right. When painting the actual 
panels, you are just adding a vague brown tint to the base coat. You can over-do 
it on purpose, but no more than twice the amount of final tint that you want.

I am still experimenting on this step, so you can skip it if you'd like to. What 
I did on my more recent TIE fighter kits was to do another transparent coat. 
I used Tamiya's "clear blue" this time. Go easy with this particular color, as 
it is less subtle in general, and is closer to the upper coats. (Thin it way 
down, and practice a lot on the posterboard, before spraying your model kit.)

The last paint coat is a misting of Tamiya's "smoke". Again, thinned way down 
and tested on the practice sheet, before spraying it on the kit. What you are 
doing with this particular coat is to make the overall color appear black at 
a glance, since a TIE's solar panels are generally perceived as being black.

Also, you are trying to sort of even out the previous coats, if they appear to 
be blotchy or inconsistent, across a given panel. Transparent coats are less 
forgiving, and they tend to show up any inconsistencies in a person's spraying 
techniques, more than opaque coats generally do. (Hence the need for practice.)

Add the clear Future as a gloss coat, as the final step on the solar panels. 
Future tends to self-level; put it on, then let it alone. Keep the wet panels 
away from dust: put them back in the kit box, with the lid open just a crack.

I will be the first person to admit this all seems like a ludicrous amount of 
work when most people just use a single coat of gloss black, and are then done. 
I can't tell you if it is all going to be worth it. That’s up to you to decide.

But to me, all the extra work was well rewarded. It really pleased me to see 
various people at model contests looking at the kit on a contest table, from all 
sorts of odd angles. It looked to me like they were trying to figure out if they 
just saw what they thought they did, or if is was an optical illusion of some 
sort? I pleased me even more to see this same sort of behavior out of people 
that would normally give the Science Fiction category just a glance in passing!

A few really good modelers in the "serious" categories have really looked the 
kit over carefully. Some asked me how I did it. Most had nice things to say 
about it, and were generally impressed that I'd spend that much effort on it.

All I can say for sure is that these humble photographs don't do the technique 
any justice. To see the intended effect, you have to be able to move around the 
model, to change your point of view. I suspect and hope that people don't notice 
it at all, at first. It was my original intent that as they look around the kit 
to see all the fuselage detailing, they change their viewing angle, and suddenly 
see that the solar panels are a lot more than they appear to be! (Hee-hee.)



Other helpful tips

Airbrush pressures:  I usually use 20 PSI as a baseline. I think part of my 
current trouble with spraying Future well is that I need to drop that particular 
air pressure down? On the other colors, 20 PSI works just fine for me.

For reference: I use a 3/4 HP very noisy shop-type compressor. I only use it to 
fill up a 7-gallon compressed air tank. (125 PSI is about an hour's spraying 
time. It takes 4 minutes to fill it up.) I put quick-disconnect fittings on all 
my hoses. I use a Sears combination air pressure regulator and moisture trap. 
(Walmart sells the air tank and hose fittings at very reasonable prices; around 
$20 and $5 the last time I looked.)  My main airbrush is the Tamiya High Grade, 
which is essentially a re-boxed Iwata airbrush, or so I'm told by others.

Dry-brushing tips: thinned paint generally works best for me. And the shape of 
the brush should ideally be a certain shape. Special brushes do exist, but I 
made due with an older brush that I trimmed by hand to round all of its edges.

If you can find a Beauty Supply store near you, stop in there and look 
around. They sell sanding sticks in various grades, for fingernail uses. These 
sticks are great for shaping dried putty, and zillions of other modeling chores. 
(Hobby shops sell them, but generally at a much higher price.) And I've found a 
lot more choices in terms of grits, at the Beauty Supply place nearby. It may 
not hurt to ask if they have a brush for blending; possible dry-brushing brush?

The "Micro-Mesh" sanding "papers" are great stuff. They have grits up to 12,000 
-- and no, that is not a misprint! (They are sold by Micro-Mark and others.)

Mostly just for the heck of it, I experimented with using pencils in a few small 
areas, to simulate paint wear and chipping. I first used a normal (#2) pencil 
to rough in the outline of the area. I then filled the outline using a silver-
colored artist's pencil. There is not too much of a noticeable difference in 
overall contrast, between the chip and the surrounding paint, with this method. 
The added variation in tonality also helps sell the optical illusion. It also 
looks a lot more like a primer-coat-then-metal or more wear on higher points.

A variation on this theme is to draw the entire chip in, using a #2 pencil. Then 
spray the entire model with a flat coat. Once that is done, retouch all but the 
edges of the chip, using the same pencil. Then draw in only the center of that 
spot, using the artist's silver colored pencil. This simulates gradual wear 
well, as opposed to areas that have been chipped by some sort of sudden impact.

Keep the paint chipping to a minimum on this kit, however. The intended use of 
the "real thing" always has to be kept in mind when modeling things. In this 
case, the space ship was supposed to be a relatively new prototype, made in low 
numbers by a well-financed shop and kept up well by ample maintenance folks. I 
am sure it got worked on; what machine doesn't? But I kept my simulated paint 
chipping to things that looked like electrical junction boxes; things that I 
felt looked like they were probably adjusted constantly. Most of the chipping 
effect is seen on the inner wing surfaces, since that's where those bits are. It 
also gave me an excuse to do it, since reference photos rarely show those areas.



Mistakes and regrets

The most glaring boo-boo I made was to set the upper cockpit hatch aside during 
painting of the main fuselage. I did not notice this until after I had done all 
of the main painting. That would not have been too bad in itself, since I did 
have the brains to bottle and store any colors that I custom mixed; mainly the 
highlight color. But I ran out of the main tone entirely, then noticed the hatch 
was still unpainted. I found out the hard way that some paint brands aren't 100% 
consistent from lot to lot when I went to a different store and bought a jar of 
(supposedly) the same paint. The first bottle had a slightly brown tint to it, 
while the second bottle had a slightly blue tint, instead. The work-around is 
simple enough. At contests, I sat the hatch down on the table instead of just 
leaving it on the model. That lets people see the interior, so it seems natural.

The figure of Darth Vader is just such a bad representation of the character 
that I never finished painting him properly. I just couldn't bring myself to 
spend much time on a figure that looks more like an old elf sitting on a toilet, 
rather than the second-most feared person in a galaxy! This hurt me at least 
twice when I went to model contests, since I had not made a seat to go inside 
the cockpit, during those two contests. (Which is perfectly understandable.) In 
fairness to MPC's original sculptors, it looks like the figure was designed from 
sketchy, early artwork. The figure's face does pretty much match the original 
MPC box art, so I presume that's about the best picture reference they had. I 
sort of doubt they had anything like stills from the movie, or Vader's costume. 
You have to also figure the limits of the molding process into the equation.

I did eventually scratch-build up a proper seat. I also built a control stick. I 
used the Star Wars cutaway book as my main reference source, since there are 
glaring consistency problems with the film's model versus the actual cockpit set 
used during filming. The seat and stick both look like they belong in there, 
even if a person could argue with the overall accuracy of any TIE's interior.

The window glass on this kit is hopelessly out of scale, in terms of thickness. 
If I ever make myself a good vacu-form'ing machine, I'll make up some better 
clear parts for the front of the ship and the upper hatch. For now, I just left 
the glass off entirely. The real studio models never had glass there, anyway.

There are still some tiny-but-visible putty lines, mostly in hard-to-reach 
places. This is generally just one of those "I know it is there" sort of 
problems. I just got tired of filling and sanding the same gaps, over and over. 

In one spot in particular a super-glued seam popped open after painting. If I 
did another of these kits, I would concentrate more on certain areas, possibly 
even casting up resin parts to solve specific problems. (The seam was inside one 
of the small rectangular slots or openings in the fuselage's rear cape area.) 
There are a number of areas where the kit has to physically be bent to fit, and 
the pressure of wanting to pop back into its original shape, may be excessive.

The cockpit interior is apparently designed to be assembled as a unit, then 
placed inside the upper and lower fuselage halves. The same type of parts fit 
problems that caused the small seam above to pop open again, also caused the 
interior to break loose after it was glued in. I found that I have to reach 
inside the kit to rotate the interior back into position after transporting the 
kit someplace. It certainly seems lame to have to do it, but as long as I don't 
forget to do it before a contest starts, it is not much more than an annoyance.

One problem that I minimized but never fully cured, is that the left and right 
wing panels are not aligned properly. They are parallel from front to back, but 
a small misalignment still exists, so that the kit does not sit perfectly level. 
The left wing's rear edge sits maybe 1/8th inch off the surface of anything 
level. (A contest table is rarely perfectly level anyway, but I know the problem 
exists.) I suspect this is just poor kit design, but it could be my fault too. 
The inner wing panels are separate parts. I could have mis-aligned those, since 
there were no alignment pins. You apparently can't trust the outer edges of the 
solar panels for visual alignment purposes since they are nowhere near straight 
or level themselves. If I built another kit, I would spend more time trying to 
insure everything was aligned well, at each step of the assembly process.



Summary

Whether this kit is good or bad depends largely on one's own expectations. I 
have never had my opinion of a kit change so radically, from start to finish. I 
thought the kit was pretty lame at first. Halfway through, that opinion grew 
less strong. I now think the kit might be considered a diamond in the rough, 
especially since I've won half a dozen contest trophies with it as a result.

Once I quit expecting perfect parts fit, and I began thinking of the kit as if 
it were a fan-made garage kit, I began enjoying the assembly process instead of 
being frustrated by it. It became a challenge rather than a chore to find 
solutions. That small change in my expectations made a world of difference!

The relatively large, flat surface areas looked plain or boring before paint. 
Then I began to see this as an opportunity, rather than a problem. Those big 
areas were just begging for a creative paint job, and I tried to give it one.

As long as a person knew what they were getting themselves into up front, and 
did not mind doing some extra work, I could heartily recommend this kit to other 
sci-fi modelers. A lot of us are used to imperfect kits now, so if the subject 
matter appeals to you, by all means pick up a copy of this particular kit.


[end of article]