And so the painting begins! I started with a good preshading of the lower hull. I went a little heavy because I will be covering it with the base color coat afterward.





I gotta say... I really am loving my spray booth... works better then I expected it too! After the preshading I covered it with a good light coating of my base color. This serves two purposes... one the base coat since its a lacquer, will be easy to fix errors on, and two it acts as a great light barrier for the lights inside! Here's the result using the Krylon Ivory paint/primer that I used from a rattle can. The results are better than I expected!




The preshading is subtle but really makes the details pop! Whatcha all think?

:scratch: you painted all that dark on there just to cover it all? This is why I don't do models. To much work.

Kidding aside it looks good. Man I can't wait to see this thing all together. Do you have the whole kit already? I am not sure since it comes out in increments if the whole thing is out yet or not.

trappedtexan wrote:

:scratch:  you painted all that dark on there just to cover it all?  This is why I don't do models.  To much work.

Kidding aside it looks good.  Man I can't wait to see this thing all together.  Do you have the whole kit already?  I am not sure since it comes out in increments if the whole thing is out yet or not.

If you look real close at the second pic, you can see the darkness under the base coat. Really adds an illusion of depth to the small areas.

No... the latest issue I got is 52... so I'm only a little over halfway thru the 100 issues needed for the complete kit! You get 4 issues a month (or once a week)... so I'm only a year into it so far! I can't wait to see it completed either!

Wow, another 48 issues to go. This means at least a year off. Jim you follow any other guys building this? Is anyone building it stock or is pretty much everyone customizing. Just curious what the kit would look like if nothing custom was done to see a comparison to yours where everything is customized.

trappedtexan wrote:

Wow, another 48 issues to go.  This means at least a year off.  Jim you follow any other guys building this?  Is anyone building it stock or is pretty much everyone customizing.  Just curious what the kit would look like if nothing custom was done to see a comparison to yours where everything is customized.

There are TONS of other build logs. Matter of fact on the RPF itself they had to open up a subforum dedicated to just the DeAgostini falcon because so many are building it. Many are doing it out of the box. Me, I'm making a few special modifications myself. She may not look like much but she's got it where it counts! LOL Some builders are doing it straight out of the box, others are making extensive mods to it. I know one guy that's making the 3 landing gear ANH version and a OOB version. The OOB looks good but leaves ALOT to be desired. I saw some extensive photos on FB the other day of the new released Falcon in Japan. What they show is alot of disappointed stuff. One is the inclusion of alot of stickers all over the hull... I'm not talking about big painted panel stickers either like you see in the Hasbro toy, but a bunch of tiny stupid ones that don't really need to be there. Another thing that is upsetting alot of us is that if we are to go on the photos of that Falcon, it looks like the landing gear won't be strong enough to hold up the Falcon at all and there will be plastic posts that the temporary bolts go thru to hold it up in the mounting holes. None of us are happy about that at all. but I'm sure if you do a google search of "Deagostini falcon build log" you'll find tons of builders logs and videos showing others building this exact same model kit!

Oooooooo... almost got ahead of myself here. Before I settled on this color, I sprayed the top turret to see how the colors would look. I also did some light weathering to see if the color holds up under weathering. Here's the result (before I painted the hull).

That weathered area turned out great.

trappedtexan wrote:

That weathered area turned out great.  

Thanks bro... still got a long way to go, but it's getting there!

Haven't seen you on for a bit. Hope all is well. Anything new on the falcon?

trappedtexan wrote:

Haven't seen you on for a bit.  Hope all is well.  Anything new on the falcon?

Yeah... all is well... been stalled out waiting for some more Shapeways parts and paint to arrive is all. Andy Preston who makes the D.O.A. Falcon specific paints has been backed up on orders. His paints are a perfect match for the colors of the original prop, but this guy is just one man mixing and making the paints out of his house. He recently had a problem with some stock chemical suppliers and has been trying to clear it up for awhile. It's going on 3 months now. But I talked with him recently and he said he hopes to have them all mixed and available in the next few weeks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Did you get the paints or the parts? Really like this build, suspense over it getting done is killing me.

This is amazing

I have to keep watching this now, must see the finished Falcon

There are some pics missing but i have read and this is some serious work kudos to you

trappedtexan wrote:

Did you get the paints or the parts?  Really like this build, suspense over it getting done is killing me.

Got the parts... still waiting for the paint. DOA is seriously backlogged and it's been 3 months now, I'm hoping I'll be in the que for the next batch of paints!

Lobotic wrote:

This is amazing

I have to keep watching this now, must see the finished Falcon

There are some pics missing but i have read and this is some serious work kudos to you

Thanks bro... I need to go back and repair the missing photolinks in the previous posts to fix the photos. Could take me awhile thou. Glad you're enjoying the build!

LrdSatyr8 wrote:

trappedtexan wrote:

Did you get the paints or the parts?  Really like this build, suspense over it getting done is killing me.

Got the parts... still waiting for the paint.  DOA is seriously backlogged and it's been 3 months now, I'm hoping I'll be in the que for the next batch of paints!

I think were all hoping the same thing with the paints

Hopefully they do arrive soon so you can finish the Falcon its amazing

Lobotic wrote:

LrdSatyr8 wrote:

trappedtexan wrote:

Did you get the paints or the parts?  Really like this build, suspense over it getting done is killing me.

Got the parts... still waiting for the paint.  DOA is seriously backlogged and it's been 3 months now, I'm hoping I'll be in the que for the next batch of paints!

I think were all hoping the same thing with the paints

Hopefully they do arrive soon so you can finish the Falcon its amazing

I've got some Acrylic paints and have attempted to mix the main gray and rust myself, but here's the problem with acrylics. You can mix the perfect color... it will match perfectly to the actual color, but they always dry 2-3 shades darker then you mixed them. So... here's the dilemma I face. I'd have to mix enough paint in a large enough supply to test the color properly... and I would have to do alot of test painting to make sure I match the color. But I'd have to wait 24 hours between each test painting to allow the color to dry and cure before I could do a match color test. If it doesn't match, I'd have to adjust the color slightly and wait again. Major major pain in the tush... it could end up taking weeks to come up with a single matching color and there are about 10 different colors on this (5 different shades of gray!). So the way I see it, if I have to mix my own colors I estimate it would take roughly 10-15 weeks of matching/drying/testing. Right now, I've been waiting 12 weeks for the DOA paints. If they don't restock soon, I'll probably end up going the enamel route but I really don't want to (enamels go on the same color as they are mixed and stay that way). The problem with enamels is the cleanup time and wear and tear on the airbrushes. The vapors tend to be more toxic as well. So I really want to keep with the Acrylics if I possibly can!

I totally understand, i did not realize it was such a process just to add some paint

It sounds like a time consuming and might i say little bit frustrating task you have taken on, but we can see the outcome is going to one of a kind, which msu be totally worth it. I would love to try something a lot later on when i have the resources and also learned a bit more.

Keep up the good work, it is 100% worth it excellent to see

It's slowly turning into a masterpiece.

Like it was said above, keep up the good work! PS - I really enjoy that paint job. It's spot on!

Thanks guys... I've taken some pics of my latest "test" painting... and how badly the color turned out. I've got a pretty cool trick for making the paint looked chipped which I'll post later on. Thanks for the kind words!

No thank you for sharing the build with us all

Cant wait to see more

Ditto!

Sorry you had a mishap with the paint but thankfully it was just a test.

Can I ask what size the final model will be? Is it the same as the original 32" Studio Falcon?

trappedtexan wrote:

Roger when you say your building one out of silver, can you explain?  Does this mean your melting down silver and casting pieces for a falcon out of it?  That is an expensive custom.

Sorry Bryan just noticed your question from March! Yes I make all sorts in silver and like to combine silversmithing with Star Wars where I can but yes it is expensive that's why I've not got very far with the falcon.

TeekSolo wrote:

Can I ask what size the final model will be? Is it the same as the original 32" Studio Falcon?

When it's completed it will be the exact size and scale of the original 32" filming miniture!

darthmatt22 wrote:

Sorry you had a mishap with the paint but thankfully it was just a test.

No big deal... it happens more then you think... just spray it with some Esy Off and start over! Easy Pesy!

Jim, any progress?