I was in the mood to build something quick today, so I pulled this little goodie that I had picked up the other day.
I gotta say that these little snap together Bandai kits are fun. The engineering and fit are superb on this kit. All I can say about that is “WOW!”. I built the basic kit in a very short time…
I mixed up a custom off white using Testors Acryl Reefer White and Bulkhead Gray then painted this in my 1977 technique… with a good old fashioned brush
and lastly some Humbrol metallics on the engines and laser cannon
And that’s where it stands after a couple of hours work…
Well the kit comes with the markings for Luke’s mount, Red 5. But that is SO commonly done. I wanted to do something a little different. So scouring the Internet I found that somebody had watched too much Star Wars (the original film will always be Star Wars to me, where Greedo never gets a shot off, but I digress) and had cataloged the markings for several different ships of Red Squadron. Anyways I saved all the profiles that he made and started on marking mine up.
Kudos to the one who can ID which ship I’m doing before I add the wing hash marks that positively ID my choice… anyways, based off of those profiles here is where I am so far. All hand brushed, mostly Humbrol enamels so I can clean up any excess off of the acrylic base…
They are the Revell “Quick Build” series that were in the vacuum sealed bags. I’ve got a couple of TIE Interceptors too.
I had the entire series at one point.
Thanks. The schemes were based on my ancient recollection of Rogue Squadron from the novels. Honestly I don’t remember if I got the right schemes or not. I was just painting them up from memory about 9 years ago now.
I never realized that the Revell bagged kits looked that good. In my mind I always thought that they were more toylike, without ever having seen one. I guess that it was the packaging. What scale would you guess that they are?
If I had to guess, I’d say relatively 1/76th scale. The figures are smaller than 1/72, but seem almost 1/76. Maybe a touch smaller.
I bought one of the TIE Interceptors on a whim and was delighted by the detail level and the parts fit. I started buying more after that. The TIE’s are about the same scale. The Jedi starfighters were larger (almost small enough for 1/72) and the Republic gunships were smaller than 1/76 for sure. So scale was not a consideration when Revell produced these kits.
Bish, Bandai does make several 1/144 scale Star Wars kits. I kinda like these little guys!
MB, thanks for that info. I’ll have to give them a new look. The packaging just throws me off.
Yesterday before the family thanksgiving meal outing, I masked off and painted on the fuselage red stripe. I had a bit of bleed under the masking, but was able to scrape most of that off with a toothpick. Hopefully upcoming weathering will take care of the rest…
And to now answer the question that I am sure was keeping nobody up at night for my markings choice…
“Red boys, this is Red Leader…”
I modified the kit stickers, yes it comes with stickers, not water slide decals, into the markings for Red Leader. And while I was leery at first of using the stickers, I must say that I was quite pleasantly surprised at their quality. I was able to burnish them down nicely using a toothpick over surface detail. Banzai Bandai!
and now I’ve started the weathering to bring out all that fine beautiful detail… but it’s cool and damp here today so the wash is drying quite slowly.
