The Millennium Falcon

There are one of two things I would have liked to get finished first, but as we are going through a spell of unseasonally warm dry weather, I decided to take advantage of this while I can and paint the hull using aerosol paint before the winter rain or snow returns. Primer from a can always seems to bond better to plastic toys than primer applied with an airbrush indoors, so I think it was worth doing this while the weather allows even though I will have to repaint a few things later.

1- all bare plastic is primed with a grey plastic primer. This will give a good key for subsequent layers of paint to adhere to.

2- the underside is sprayed black. As I am intending this to be shadow, I used a Matt black instead of gloss.

3- the top hull and any edges that would catch the light are dusted with a satin white paint.

Once everything is dry the next day I set about making the ship look less pristine and white – the Millenium Falcon is supposed to look like a heap of junk. A crisp white finish just looks wrong.

I use vallejo sepia shade to age and weather the hull. I literally apply the shade to sections of the hull, then leave it for a minute or so before removing the excess with an absorbent kitchen towel.  This leaves the shade in the recesses and pockets where dirt would accumulate on a smugglers spaceship, and tints the white paint sepia. As I used satin white paint the shade can be wiped off while there being enough grip the stain the flat area of white. Gloss paint wouldn’t have been tinted enough by the shade, and Matt paint would have held too much of the shade.

Later, I will tidy up the hull and pick out some details by drybrushing the top hull with white paint, and the underside with a dark grey, but at the moment I am pretty happy with how the ship is progressing.