SPA Modeler

Here's my current project, Bandai's AT-ST. Excuse the WIP starting midway. I didn't get signed up for the forum until after I started.

It's a pretty easy kit assembly wise. Its a snap kit but I found it still benefits from some glue, particularly on the legs and 'body' to hold everything flush.

Sub assemblies are together. A few spots to cleanup and then time for some priming and painting.



I'm building this one with the hatch and 'eye's closed so I didn't bother painting the interior. However the detail in the cockpit is really nice. I may have to pick up another one in the future to pose with the hatches open.





More to come.

Very nice! That looks way better than the snap tite MPC kit that came out after Return of the Jedi back in the 80s.

This gem of a kit is waiting in my stash for some love. I'm curious to see how yours will turn out.

One advice (and warning): The plastic reacts to enamel thinners and washes in getting brittle and shrinking, so some not glued parts could fall apart. Better use lighter fuel and oil colors or acrylics for weathering effects.

Thanks mostrich. I had read up one some people's horror stories with mineral/white spirit and the bandai kits. I tried an experiment with with klean strip odorless mineral spirits and brushed some lightly on the spare hatch cover from the kit. I didn't get dramatic cracking or brittle shattering some people have had but it did cause a dimple in a thin spot of the hatch. Difficult to see in the pic but you can see the discoloration it caused. That was after only a few minutes. I can see how problems can happen if you use a wash of oil paint and mineral spirit, if it pools and gets on the interior of the assembled parts.



I've never tried lighter fluid before. If I wanted to do like a dot filter with oil paint would it work like mineral spirits? I have some chalk pastels and thought about scraping those to use in a wash as opposed to the normal oil paint and mineral spirit like I used on my fine molds tie.

I hit everything with a coat of alclad white primer tonight. No problems with the lacquer based primer.



Next up I plan to do some preshading with black before a light ghost grey color coat. I use model master enamels and I think I may use lacquer thinner instead of mineral spirits or the testors thinner to cut down on the dry time. The bandai plastic has me a bit paranoid lol.

I drilled out the rocket launcher tonight as well.

Cool Muzzy! Those Bandai kits are hard to find.

BorgR3mc0 wrote:Cool Muzzy! Those Bandai kits are hard to find.

I know, Disney isn't making it easy. At least here in the US they want everyone to buy the Revell kits. I managed to pick up this one before Disney started enforcing the license territories. The other Bandai kits I recently got I had to order through Amazon from a seller in Japan.

I did some preshading tonight. Think I went a little overboard with it, but we'll see how it looks once I start with the color coat. Hopefully it should help break up the monotone color scheme.

Looking good so far.... Now go find the AT-AT Walker. LOL!

BlackSheep214 wrote:Looking good so far.... Now go find the AT-AT Walker. LOL!

Dragon has one coming out

At 1/35th scale the thing must be huge.

Take that Disney!!!! Yeah, that's gonna be a big one, Maybe 2 1/2 feet high and 3 or 3 1/2 feet long. LOL!

BlackSheep214 wrote:Take that Disney!!!! LOL!