The Millennium Falcon

As the Millenium Falcon has many jury rigged repairs heaped on top of heath Robinson lash ups, it shouldn’t look too neat and tidy. I also don’t want too much unstructured cardboard left before painting, as it won’t look very realistic.

To simulate the ship’s many power conduits I use paper straws. But surely, draws are too fragile and easily crushed you are probably thinking….. Not when they are filled with hot glu e and allowed to set.  I promise you, this project was not sponsored by a bit glue manufacturer – but when you are looking for a solution, and happen to have a bit glue gun in your hand….

A word of caution though. Hot glue is, well, very hot, and it needs to be very hot to run down into a straw. If doing this don’t let the glue run straightening through the straw and out onto your tender skin, as it will cause blisters, welts or worse. It can be advisable to use tweezers to hold the straws!

It is best to mitre the joints sure the straws meet as closely as posible. Any gaps can be covered by making a sleeve –  just cut a straw lengthwise, but it to shape, then glue it over the original straws. It should just pop on, like miniature pipe lagging.

I continue adding straws, as well as s some parts cut from cheap plastic toys bought from a pound store for this purpose. Also left over bits from the original toy spaceship are repurposed and stuck in place to add details. I have to careful to not block any walkways, while trying to make the ship look as cluttered and messy as possible. So, lots of straws in corners where they won’t interfere with miniatures on circular bases, but none where they would narrow corrridors too much.

All this adds details and texture to the surfaces that should make my painting and drybrushing look much better – Grey card is a great building material, but it doesn’t look particularly great painted so it has to be covered with other texture before priming.

Some of the horizontal straws are placed to give added support to the roof in places where it was just floating without support previously. It was only when I started adding these that realised how important they would be to make the roof nice and firm when on top of the ship.