SPA Modeler

Well, thanks to the generosity of Bruce who sent me the Revell Imperial Star Destroyer, I can now start this Group Build. Thanks Bruce!

This is a well engineered snap together kit that surprisingly needed very little glue to seal seams and went together very quickly. It is also a 'motorized' kit with lights and sounds which are all controlled in this little module:



That clear pull tab will activate the batteries allowing this to work. I'll pull that when I am done with this.

Here it sits all nestled in place right in front of where the engines go:



There are openings in the back that will light up some clear blue parts in the engines.

Once the rear and engines were assembled and installed, the top hull was added to this lower hull. Easy peasy:



Here's a shot of the engines with the clear blue inserts that light up:



And yes, that gap is supposed to be there.

Next is the lower superstructure. You can see how they engineered this kit to go together without seams:





Next I added the upper superstructure to this assembly:



I then installed it on the main hull and slid the bridge neck into place:



Building the bridge itself required a bit of glue to close the seams adequately:



Finally, here she is in all her finished glory:





Finished assembly, that is. I still need to paint and detail this. To start that, I shot a coat of light grey primer over this whole thing:



With all the detail on this, it is screaming for some washes and dry-brushes of color!



That is all I have for now. That Star Destroyer was a real fun and relaxing model to build; it really helped bring me down from some of the more frustrating models I was working on *cough*VW BUS!*cough* which you can see in my Maddog Manufacturing Thread.

I don't know how much more I'll be able to do for the next few days, but stay tuned, I'll be working on some of this hopefully soon. Thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.

WELCOME TO THE STAR WARS GROUP BUILD, DUKE!!!!


I am so happy to see your progress. I was listening to the Imperial March earlier today, maybe I was hearing the echoes from the Kuat Drive Yards. Now I understand how the Empire was able to build its fleet so efficiently... with you in command, the ship comes together so well! You have so much talent and experience, Mark. It's always a pleasure to follow your building progress / prowess... and I am so excited to see what you will do next to bring out the details of the kit.

You might find this an interesting video to watch:

Thanks for the warm welcome Bruce! This being a snap-together kit does mean too much talent ain't that necessary. I do appreciate the weathering video; I was hoping to do something similar to that to mine. I can only hope mine turns out at least half that good! I'll be shooting a lighter grey over this to give it a more 'white-ish' appearance and then I'll hit it with the dark wash. This is so much fun!

I am very happy and honored to have you on board, Commander! Your Star Destroyer will be the first completed build as well. I am tempted to send you my X-wing. I reviewed your Go Ahead Styreniac Build Something (I am missing words, I know) Already Group Build series and was very interested in how you would shoot white over what kind of primer and how much pebble texture you would leave on the finish to have some grip. I just stripped the Horten gently, but I did have to sand again progressively from about 600 grit onwards through 6K to get things where I want them, but on the X-Wing I was going to use a black base followed by a good wet-sanding to smooth things out—whoa, I should be writing about the Star Destroyer.... *choking sounds* "Vader, release him!"

Glad you appreciated the video. I have no worries that your ISD will be better in appearance. As far as accuracy, of course the garage kit is very detailed, but even so, Randy is overhauling that project in light of so much new tasty high def blue ray details that are popping up with each subsequent re re re release of Star Wars for the masses. I think this kit—although it may be "Snapped" together—is very well detailed, and formed!

All the best.

Thanks Bruce! Yo are absolutely right, this is one well-detailed kit! Here's some more progress, now that I finally have a bit of time.

I decided to experiment with some weathering and panel line pinwashing on the bottom of the Star Destroyer. I'm not that happy with the results under here; except in the shuttle bays:



I think I'm going to do that over.

I also did the same deep wash on the face of the command module. I'm well pleased with how this looks so far:



I'll be dry-brushing with a lighter grey over this later on.

I did the same on the back of the module and on the neck as well. It looks well enough so far:



That's all I have so far. I'll continue to try other techniques as I see more ideas. Stay tuned, more to come.

That looks great Mark! That kit is way better than the old MPC kit of the Star Destroyer that I built almost 25 years ago...

Thanks Carlos and Bruce.

Bruce, the wash I'm using is a 'homebrew' mix of Windsor-Newton oil paints in Mona Lisa thinner. Mona Lisa thinner is the most inert thinner on the market out there that does not react with anything previously applied. I fill an old, empty Tamiya Thin glue bottle with the thinner, then add a pea-sized glob of Windsor-Newton oil paints in my chosen color and mix well. The glue 'brush' inside the Tamiya Thin bottle top is perfect for applying pin washes. Right now I have two bottles each of Raw Umber, Burnt Umber and Black washes. One set is in my travel tool box, the other set is on my desk.

I'll be doing some more experiments to see if I can make this look even better, stay tuned....

Mmmm. Mhm.

Mark, that's a damn good idea to use the Tamiya extra thin bottle and brush to hold your wash. I just mix up small batches in a palette and dispose of what I do not use after....