Star Wars GB

dmk wrote:

Glamdring wrote: An excellent question, the kit doesn't say the scale, at least anywhere I can find it, but I believe it is larger than 1/20 but smaller than 1/16.   So 1/18?    I like the look of the cockpit, adding odds and ends to it really makes it look sharp! Thanks! It kind of started out out as desperation to do something,.. anything.. to improve the terrible cockpit.  Now it's probably more "Hardware Wars" than Star Wars!     ...  Anyone get the obscure "Hardware Wars" reference?

Yuk Yuk Yuk. Ahhhh... no. <You hear the sound of crickets chirping>

dmk wrote:

Boba Fett wrote: Old credit cards, always works! Looks nice so far! Will you detail a pilot? Or is he going outta the window?  Yea, the pilot is giving me fits. His suit is all wrong. But I need a pilot in there because I'm building it in flight mode. I'm still not sure what to do with him. I'm not good at all with figures. I may just reposition his arms, paint him as best I can and justify the odd suit as his personal preference.   Actually, I hate the orange suit they use in the movies anyway. I figure they would want camo or something fairly subdued in case they crash landed and had to escape and evade.

Corran Horn wore a standard Cor-Sec green jumpsuit. So, yes, you can play around with the colors a little.

Boba Fett wrote:

dmk wrote: ...  Anyone get the obscure "Hardware Wars" reference?  Yuk Yuk Yuk. Ahhhh... no. <You hear the sound of crickets chirping>

There was a spoof of a Star Wars trailer released somewhere between "A New Hope" and "Empire Strikes back". All the space ships where random household hardware, the storm troopers were garbage cans, the guns were electric drills, "Han Solo" was "Ham Salad", Chebacca was a puppet that looked like Grover from Seseme Street, he was called the "Wookie Monster" and whenever Darth Vader talked, everyone would be like "We can't understand you", "What's he saying?". Really cheesy,but funny.

 Ah, google actually turned up some links:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hardware_Wars

Video Part 1

Video Part 2

 How about "Troops", anyone ever see that one?

Edit: That first video was broken, these are better 

Boba Fett wrote:

Wait, I did see a few clips. <yuk yuk yuk> I guess they were ok. But Star Wars Cops is another matter!

Even had me in the beginning credits!

Sorry that the pics of my Y-wing arn't up yet. I've had like zero time to do so. I might have some later this evening. Keep on building guys! I like what I see so far!

dmk wrote:

terry35 wrote: If that s the X-Wing from about the time of the first movie then dont kill yourself trying to detail it, there are some major issues with that kit. Check out Starshipmodeller first. If its the one that came with the electronics kit then it shouldn't be too bad, its a bit better. But the most important, if your just building for fun, then carry on regardless, becaus it looks fun to be bashing away at. Graaham, going back to work, will post ASAP. with more shots. Terry  Yea, it is the old one. I'm not going for accuracy or anything, just having fun with the imagination. Anyway, I did some screen shots from the movie for ideas and it seems that there are some real differences between the 1/1 mockups, the scale models and the CGI models they used. They were wildly inconsistent when you look critically at them.  I'm actually having fun with this sci-fi stuff. It's a lot less stressful than trying to match up a model to some blurry, black and white refs.  Thanks for starting this GB Graham/"Boba Fett"!

Thats cool, hope you enjoy it.

If you never seen the electronic one try this

http://www.starshipmodeler.com/starwars/cz_xwing.htm

All the Best

Terry.

Just an update, almost finished, Washes I consider done, I was going to give it a final dry-brush but decided against it.

I will go at it again with chalks, just  to scorch certain areas.

THe build is also logged over on Sci-Fi

 /forums/1067346/ShowPost.aspx

Heres the pic's...

Ouch.

Terry.

Here are the pics of my Y-wing. Only took me 1.5 hours to finish! Enjoy! (However, this has nothing on your's Terry! Great Job! )

(The last one I used my dad to get the blur effect)

I seem to remember actually watching a "full length" hardware wars.  It was like 45-60 minutes.

Cheesy?  Yes.

However, cheesier was the Star Wars Holiday Special which to this day Lucas says does NOT exist and NEVER has existed, he tried to get all copies that were released, but I have a friend who has an original VHS copy.  The thing DID exist.  I managed get a copy of it, and watch it and it was SUPER lame.  I can understand why Lucas doesn't want his name attached to it.  I would have shot myself over such tripe.

Glamdring wrote:

I am thoroughly impressed with both Y-Wings.  Great job guys!

Yea, great job guys. Y'all are making me wish I had a Y-wing. I may have to pick one up somewhere.

fantacmet wrote:

I seem to remember actually watching a "full length" hardware wars.  It was like 45-60 minutes. Cheesy?  Yes. However, cheesier was the Star Wars Holiday Special which to this day Lucas says does NOT exist and NEVER has existed, he tried to get all copies that were released, but I have a friend who has an original VHS copy.  The thing DID exist.  I managed get a copy of it, and watch it and it was SUPER lame.  I can understand why Lucas doesn't want his name attached to it.  I would have shot myself over such tripe.

CLips are on Youtube. I think Lucas will try to axe that entire site to erase that... I almost went blind!

 I don't think I even want to watch that. Hardware Wars was corny enough for me.

 I had to watch Troops again though. I love how it answers all those little questions you had when watching Episode IV.

Graham, very nice work, just try scorching, your washes have come out excellently. Brilliant work there. love the final inflight shot.

I think you will agre with me when I san that "I think that for the price its a damn good model with no real issues going on at all".

Good to see the work, nice weathering on the cockpit.

Terry.

Don't worry. All of those AMT ships had cruddy figs. The Slave 1 had a nice Fett in there though. I think the X-wing has the worst. Looks more like an astronaut with a head that spent too much time under an anvil.

(double celebration today for me! First, I got my braces off after 2 years of torture, and now I hit 500 posts!)

Agreed. I gotta go buy one for myself now...

Good job guys.

TD4438 wrote:

I started an AMT Snowspeeder today.When I saw how bad the pilots are,I wanted to puke.

Boba Fett wrote:

I got my braces off after 2 years of torture, and now I hit 500 posts!)

dmk wrote:

Boba Fett wrote: I got my braces off after 2 years of torture, and now I hit 500 posts!) Congrats on both counts!

Thank you! I think sci fi stuff is usually lower on detail because there is no (usually) 1/1 scale items to copy and the manufacturer thinks that they can get away with lower standerds without anyone really noticeing. Sw is the worst, 'cause most people building the kits are kids like me. Normal kids (definately not me) just want something that looks like an X-wing or TIE fighter. At least that's my take on it.

Boba Fett wrote:

Sw is the worst, 'cause most people building the kits are kids like me. Normal kids (definately not me) just want something that looks like an X-wing or TIE fighter. At least that's my take on it.

 I suppose I take my Sci-fi models a lot less seriously too. The main reason I joined this GB was so I could just relax and build a kit just however I felt like, with liberal amounts of "artist liberty". I looked at references more for creative ideas rather than trying to emulate anything. I don't know if this is common in this genre or not.

I don't think the lack of detail is something related to lack of a 1:1 subject, lack of detail doesn't seem to be that much of an issue.  It's the childlike features, and the poor fit.  I had the old AMT Imperial Shuttle, I found it to be reasonably detailed with surprisngly good fit for what it was.  I looked at the box sides of the new revell offering as I was considering it, but no way.  The shuttle interior is WAY WAY WAY overscale, and looks like crap.  The exterior detail seems to be softened as well.  If i can find an AMT kit of something I want at a decent price on ebay I'll probably join the GB, but if not then I won't.

The nice thing about Star Wars is if you pay attention to the story you can take ALOT of artistic liberty with it.  It's apprent alot of things were cobbled together for the rebels.  Look at the Y-Wing.  It was obvious it was supposed to be a sleek fighter, but had to be pressed into service before it was complete.  Hence it's lack of body panels throughout most of it, yet the ultra sleek front end.  Perhaps someone could scratchbuild the panels for it?  I'm not much of a scratchbuilder so I'm not volunteering.

Star Trek is much the same way, there are enough tech manuals and such to make it open ended.  Especially around the time of the Dominion War(I have the DS9 tech manual), and the federation did alot(story wise that is) of cobbling together from whatever they had on hand.  Ancient hulls, showed up with newer warp nacelles, etc.  It's reasonable to assume that at least in some respects, things were done like that in the Star Wars universe as well.  Especially by lone wolfs who were rebel supporters, maybe somewhat similar to Han Solo.  Maybe they built a hybrid ship of sorts. 

We have a guy in the club who builds nothing but scratchbuilt sci-fi from everything he can get his hands on.  I'll have to see if I can get some pictures from him and post them up.

fantacmet wrote:

The nice thing about Star Wars is if you pay attention to the story you can take ALOT of artistic liberty with it.  ... Star Trek is much the same way, there are enough tech manuals and such to make it open ended.  Especially around the time of the Dominion War(I have the DS9 tech manual), and the federation did alot(story wise that is) of cobbling together from whatever they had on hand.  Ancient hulls, showed up with newer warp nacelles, etc.  It's reasonable to assume that at least in some respects, things were done like that in the Star Wars universe as well.  Especially by lone wolfs who were rebel supporters, maybe somewhat similar to Han Solo.  Maybe they built a hybrid ship of sorts.

 That's probably true with most sci-fi because you can always explore some area that wasn't in the books or movies. Who's to say it couldn't have happened? It's all fiction. The book writers do this all the time. They'll create whole sub-universes in parallel with the main theme. It's a really cool thing.

We have a guy in the club who builds nothing but scratchbuilt sci-fi from everything he can get his hands on.  I'll have to see if I can get some pictures from him and post them up.

bump bump bump

O and by the way the clone Y-wing will not be a Revel kit. 

Boba Fett wrote:

Thank you! I think sci fi stuff is usually lower on detail because there is no (usually) 1/1 scale items to copy and the manufacturer thinks that they can get away with lower standerds without anyone really noticeing. Sw is the worst, 'cause most people building the kits are kids like me. Normal kids (definately not me) just want something that looks like an X-wing or TIE fighter. At least that's my take on it.

One of the problems kitmakers have is that they sell far fewer sci-fi kits than kits of "real" subjects. They have to sacrifice some quality to keep the cost of the molds down.

There are some exceptions of course. Bandai sells a ton of Gundams in Japan and elsewhere for instance, and Hasegawa's Macross kits have some crossover appeal.

Its a bit of a vicious circle. Sci-fi kits move less product, so the moldings are poor to keep costs down. Given a choice, most modelers will usually buy the kits w/ better moldings, meaning that sci-fi sales go down further. Round and round.

The quality of the molds has a huge effect on what I buy. I'd rather have a Tamiya Corsair than a Revell Colonial Viper, because I know that the Tamiya kit will give me less hassle during construction and look nicer when completed. However, if Revell made a viper of the same price and quality as Tamiya's Corsair, I'd waaaay buy the Viper first.

reddog-03 - very nice! wash made the difference

dmk - nice detailing of the 'pit"; yep, i never liked the orange suits but oh well.. not much military "logic" in SW.

Glamdring - neat kit..surprised at the level of detail, as you say.. it IS mark hamill! lol

terry35 - I really like how it came out..nice weathering!

Boba Fett - yours too! I need to get myself one of those lol

Am I the only one old enough to have worn a "May The Force Be With You" iron-on T shirt in the 70s, when the first movie came out? 

JMart wrote:

dmk - nice detailing of the 'pit"; yep, i never liked the orange suits but oh well.. not much military "logic" in SW.

 I was looking at the pilot figure last night after a coat of primer and it occured to me that he looks a lot more like a Viper pilot from BSG Reimagined. I'm going to run with that and see where it takes me....

Am I the only one old enough to have worn a "May The Force Be With You" iron-on T shirt in the 70s, when the first movie came out?

Never wore the T-shirt though. I wan't that big a geek.

dmk wrote:

Am I the only one old enough to have worn a "May The Force Be With You" iron-on T shirt in the 70s, when the first movie came out?  Nope. I saw the first release in the theatres too. I remember seeing the previews for it on TV. Nothing like that was ever shown the the movies before. For a young sci-fi fan it was an exciting experience. Never wore the T-shirt though. I wan't that big a geek.

If only I lived then, I woulda worn the shirt! However, when Revenge of the Sith came out, I considered wearing my Dad's Darth Vader helmet! He didn't let me though. Too fragile...