I want to make a realistic, lived on, slightly abused, but thoroughly loved looking Falcon. I won't be following the Dymszo method for painting and detailing the exterior. While some may value recreating the studio prop exactly, I'm more interested in not cutting as many corners as ILM did and making a more lifelike ship.

Also not following the traditional build diary video format. It's essentially a collection of stills taken during the build and at several points upon completion of the Packs. The plus side is you get to see how it looks at various stages of painting and assembly. The down side is you don't get to see me fumble the really small parts and listen to me talk to myself for 15-20 minutes. Oh wait, that's another plus.

Part 1 (packs 1-6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK-OMomFoYw

Part 2 (packs 7-9) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=249UCuE0VJE

*updated*
Part 3 (packs 10-13) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnVTPxD5DIQ

A teaser from pack 10 until I get packs 11 and 12 in and done.

Looking good! I have question though. How does that ramp work? The end piece; do you have fold that up before the motor lifts the ramp?

Had a thought when putting the detachable landing gear covers on the bottom this week:

With as many layers of primer, preshading, base color as I'll spraying on soon, what should I do to avoid having the panels being sealed to the hull?

Should I just take them off and paint them alongside it until I'm ready to do the washes? Put some laytex masking medium on the inside of the panels? What did those of you who've already painted the bottom do for this?

Posted a completed build of the Bandai Falcon to show the paint, damage, and weathering techniques I plan to use.

Bandai 1:144 completed.

It's time to talk about damage. I don't mean what the post office does to your packs. I mean the damage that's visible on the hull of the Falcon. I know a lot of builders heave been turned off by the idea of altering the hull and will be attempting to do as much as they can with a detailed paint job. My suggestion is before you start painting this monster, you do a little work on improving the damaged panels. The small rounded depressions that approximate the shape of the damaged areas just don't look right when you start detailing this build.

I can't complain about it because the kind of effects I am looking to achieve isn't remotely practical as something to expect out of the box.

So here's a small preview of where I'm at and what to expect in my next build video.

I started by filling in the existing damage with modeling putty and giving it plenty of time to dry before sanding it down flush with the hull.

I then used a Dremel and hand drill to replicate the damage as closely as possible to reference pictures (that I can't show here for comparison due to odd forum rules).

Shows off the depth and overhang a bit better. I won't be able to replicate the length of the hull breech due to framework sitting directly under this section. I won't be using this location for the external power supply due to its location from the angle I'll want to have displayed. I'll probably be relocating that to somewhere on the port side panels if I end up having one at all.

More accurate representation of the forward port section damage.

I'll have more when I sit down to edit and look at what I've got. I know this all looks horrible and tacky at the moment, but after it gets primer on it and more so when the detailing is finished, the improvement should be obvious.

What's this garbage?

Remember when I did decent looking work? Yeah, I know. Looks like trash. But it serves a purpose. Some of you guys build with styrene, I use sprues made of the same plastic as the rest of the model. It let me add some depth for making the battle damage show some piping, and frayed wire / conduit.

Thoughts? Perhaps I should hold off on posting things like this until it's painted?

Hey Levi... you do realize that hole is where the outside power source is suppose to go right? :) Would hate to think you put all this effort into this so far only to realize you covered up the hole so much you couldn't fit the power plug into the hole anymore! :)

Thanks. My plan for tonight is to at least get it primed.

Nice work with the battle damage, I like the detail inside what should be the power switch. If you don't mind I might copy this. Keep us posted.