The background is that I subscribed to the magazine on a whim thinking I'd have plenty of time between issues to get back into the hobby. I had no idea that the model would be so huge and then we went to live abroad for most of the year so the issues kept piling up at home and I came back to a mountain of them.

I've seen the exquisite builds here with people who know how to do fibre optics and stuff...and I'm seriously not in that league.

So, I've got myself an airbrush (never airbrushed before) I've been spending the last month looking at pre-shading and weathering tutorials on you tube and I made a start.

I'm at Issue 56, I've got the lower hull built and I'm going through painting angst. I haven't painted a model for over 25 years.

I'm going to make this model my own, it's not going to be the Milly F. It's going to be a standard YT-1300f light freighter used by someone else. So I went onto the web and looked at alternative paint jobs. I've come up with my own after a bit of research. The Aratech Repulsor Company (which I'm told built the G0-T0 and the speeder bike had a decent logo and colour scheme and they were Imperial friendly - so the opposite of the Milly: Corporate and Imperial. I did a paintjob in photoshop on some images of the craft and came up with the picture below.

Questions to you experts:

Do you think it's horrible?
Should I preshade the model first and then put on the livery? I understand this is the thing to do, but I'm afraid that the colours will occlude the shading.

I'll post some pictures of my first time build when I have the courage to take the airbrush out of the box.

Wow, that's different. I will watch this one with interest.
Graeme

Thanks for all the kind comments and suggestions everyone.

@greyhawk - by stripes did you mean something like the attached image?

@gedmac - The pictures I used to visualise the paintjob were just top and bottom views I pinched from the web. I'm not really sure what 'special modifications' Landau and Han made to the Milly - from what I can see on the web most of it was internal except for the guns which were souped up and an extra gun added to the ventral side of the ship - so I might get rid of that one. Also from what I read on the web this ship was initially designed to be used as a tug and/or light freighter - 'light' is right, the cargo hold is tiny. I guess I'm going to have to remodel the cargo hold into something that looks like one which means getting rid of the chess table (sob) and the bench seating - I might have a look at the cargo hold of Serenity to see if I can get any ideas. If she was a tug, then maybe I can fashion some really large hooks or something to put on the ventral side to make it more interesting and different. I'll have to give that more thought.

Anyway, here is the Pre-shading of the bottom hull. This is the first time I've ever used an airbrush and the results (say compared to MBL's pre-shading) are suitably horrific. From what I can see on youtube, pre-shading is a pretty forgiving process so I'm hoping that it won't look too bad once the main colours go on - but I think that is going to have to wait until the mandibles are in place for the front.

I think I need to build the top half and the mandibles to really start on the paint job properly.

Does anyone have any good idea about how to paint curves with an airbrush? Masking tape is straight so I guess that's out. I'm thinking masking fluid? Does that work in this medium?

best

Ravi

Hi Gedmac - thanks for the tip! I'll take a look at Masking Frisk. As you say, it's the fact the surfaces are not flat which may be a problem, but I'll fall over that bridge when I come to it.

For now I've been working on just building the large parts of the exterior shell and skipping over insets, plants and electronic bits. I'm kind of hoping that this way I can get the main paint job done (and save paint) and I can do the insets together as a set which will help with consistency.

+++

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Fantasy

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Professional modeller: You have built a model before. Your model is made 'Desert Fashion'. Who told you how to do that?

Me: No one. It seemed the proper way.

Professional modeller: That it is. (thinks) He shall know your ways as if born to them.

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Reality

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Professional modeller: Buffoon! You've just added 20 hours to your build.

Me: Eeep!

++++

I'm also turning my mind to making this a civilian ship - out go the guns and the big radar dish (which I've read is one of Han's 'special modifications'. I'll have to cobble some stuff together to replace them. I'm thinking of some sort of optical unit instead of the gun to help align the ship when it's used as a tug (this would also give the ventral and dorsal seating a function). Putting on big spindles of wire for pulling stuff (although how to stop it crashing into you when you stop?). Huge electro-magnets? I'm going to milliput the pre-made blast damage holes before I spray paint the shell.

I hope I am going in the right direction - I'm flying by the seat of my pants - but it is fun.

I also have to time my 'big builds' for when my wife is abroad on business trips, so I can take over the dining room table. I think I've got the timing right as I can do the insets while I'm waiting for her to go on her next business trip and then I can do the whole shell.

I've posted pictures of the four most useful tools in putting together the physical build: Sprue cutters from Citadel, a pair of reverse tweezers a molybdenum magnet to recharge the screwdriver which I got from Homebase - it's made by Phillips, I think, the set is called 'Kinchrome' and the one pictured (#0)has made it a breeze to do the screwing jobs. I found the one that was supplied by D'Agostini didn't quite have the grip I was looking for.

Question for you guys: Two of the tiny pins which hold the landing ramp in place fell out and by some miracle I found them. Is there a way to secure them more reliably?

Many thanks!

Ravs

Well, I've finally finished her except for one part (more about which later).

Here she is, the YT-1300 'Apsara's Dragon' (Apsara being my daughter). She's part of the Imperial Logistics Fleet. Making this model really felt like climbing Everest, but in a good way. It's the first model I've built since I was in my early teens making airfix kits.

I dialled back on the paintword I had initially envisaged (I felt it was a bit too much).

Sadly my wife objected to her being displayed on a table in the living room, so she's in my study now. Pictures follow.

I have a question. In issue 19, page 11 there is a part which is circled to be used later in the build. For the life of me I cannot find any reference to it in the later issues. Can anyone help?

Thanks for all the inspiration from the community. I had such a good time building this.

The piece in question goes on the part BP1, on the underside. Great pictures.

Mark

G'day ravells ,

Just caught up with your build . She looks terrific , and the paint scheme you ended up with is pretty cool 😎.
Though the images you've shared of her ( various scenarios ) are very interesting , any chance of just putting some closeup shots of her up ?

Congratulations Ged .