Star Wars has been a big part of my life, with the first movie coming out when I was 9 years old. When I first saw the initial movie, the first thing I did upon returning home was to scrounge for all the cardboard I could find so that I could build little X-Wings and TIE Fighters.
Then of course, MPC put out an X-Wing, Darth Vader's TIE Fighter, R2-D2, and C-3P0 - all of which I built (I had an entire squadron of X-Wings). Then came the big Millennium Falcon that came with lights. Built that one too.
So when the prequels came out, and an unknown (to me) company started releasing a series of Star Wars kits, I grabbed them upon release. I believe I have every one of their releases in my stash with the exception of the 48th scale X-Wing and TIE Fighter. Now with the pending release of the last of the Skywalker saga later this year, I decided this was a good time to crack open one of these Fine Molds kits. I started with the one that would be the oldest per the timeline of the movies - Obi-Wan Kenobi's Jedi starfighter.
When I opened the box with the intent of building it, I was struck by just how tiny this thing is. The starfighter measures about 3" long. I'm not sure why Fine Molds decided on the 72nd scale; their snowspeeder is in 48th (which still is going to be pretty small).
But remember what Yoda says in The Empire Strikes Back: Size matters not. Judge me by my size, do you? And where you should not.
This kit is good. It goes together problem free. But where Yoda's quote becomes quite relevant is when you turn your attention to the TWO decal shets. All of the maroon and light green markings are decals. There are a lot of them. Coupled with the diminutive size of this kit, the decals are actually quite difficult to work with. I used copious amounts of Mr. Mark Softer decal solution to get these decals to - mostly - lay down over all these curved surfaces and around all the various panels.
The kit is molded in white plastic. The plastic is of good quality. I made a bit of a mistake, though, when I opted to not put down a coat of primer and just let the white plastic be its exterior. That became a bit of an issue later. The issue revealed itself after I applied all these decals; some of the decals refused to set down properly and broke apart. That required some touch-up painting with colors that I knew were never going to exactly match the color register of the decals; no paint lays down well over white plastic. I knew this and should have anticipated the decal issue, but lessons learned (or actually, re-learned).
In the end, I think the color mis-match is actually appropriate for this subject. In the movie Attack of the Clones, the hyperspace ring is presented as a work-horse tool of getting non-hyperspace-capable craft to distant planets. It seems reasonable that such a craft would see a lot of action and resulting "weathering", so some touch-up painting by Republic maintenance crews would be in order. And like in WWII, often times the paint is just not going to be exactly the same shade. I used a maroon tempera paint that I had for non-modeling work for the maroon areas, and RAF interior green for the light green areas. I think when combined with the Flory dark dirt wash, this painting effort looks pretty good.
The Jedi Starfighter:
The Hyperspace Ring:
Both:
