Hello all,

I recently subscribed to the kit and can't wait to get building. I'm eagerly awaiting my third instalment to ship. I am not going to begin building until I have a couple of more months collected. I plan to customize my build with a combination of scratch built parts, some PE, and some 3D stuff from shapeways and custom lighting. This is going to be my Ultimate Millennium Falcon. Ill be sure to share plenty of pics of my build when I get going.

For fun I thought I would share some pics of the first Falcon I built. It's the AMT cut-away kit. I built it 10 years ago and it represents a big step in my modelling career as it was the first time I just let myself go and tried to customize a kit. This was the first kit where I tried weathering a model. It's also the first time I tried modifying and adding battle damage. The cockpit interior is completely custom as the original kit only came with chairs. The rest of the the cockpit was totally empty. The plate covering the interior doesn't fit well, there is a huge gap down the centre of the ship. That is because the part warped and I didn't have the skill/knowledge to fix that at the time. I've left it that way as it represents my abilities at the time.

Welcome to the forum

As dwayne said you weathering wasn't bad at all, look forward to seeing what you do with this Falcon

Thank you guys for the warm welcome and kind words.

Weathering used to be the most intimidating part of modelling for me. Now it's the most fun and enjoyable part of the building process. I was a horrible painter when I first began in the hobby mostly due to a few factors; inexperience, impatience, and doing all my paint jobs with a brush. When I returned to the hobby as an adult, starting with replica props, it was inevitable that I would drift back into models. Through various artist friends I met over the years I had gained new knowledge and wanted to test it out. I kicked things off with an old Batwing model from the '89 Batman movie and this Falcon. That was when I discovered spray cans for base coats and I've never looked back. That's how I got some of the variations in the hull colours.

I put down a solid base coat of Tamiya grey primer then used Krylon flat white for the main colour, but I didn't apply it in an even coat. I blended it in in some places letting the grey primer show through to look like grime build up in the mandibles in front and such. I then used Krylon Flat Black to do the soot from the engines (and other shadows). Spraying in one direction with the back and re-cutting the 'wedges' with white by spraying in the opposite direction. The rest of the details and weathering were all done with a brush and Citadel acrylic paints.

Now I have an airbrush can't wait to get started on this new Falcon..