Boba Fett's Ship
In honor of May 4th I have decided to share my project from this winter. Boba Fett has always been my favorite Star Wars character. Since I just happened to win this kit in a raffle at a model show last November I decided it was the kit I would use to get through the cold months. It was fun to build but the quality is definitely not great.
This kit is made by MPC. Boba Fett's ship has been known by several names. It has been called Slave 1 before, which references his father's servitude before gaining his freedom, but the ship is officially titled the Firespray-31-class patrol and attack craft. I believe the scale is roughly 1:48, but MPC never has those details on the box so that is my estimate.
I have done one other kit from that company, the AT-ST walker, but I will probably not do another one. The molds are horrendous with very little detail and they don't match the versions from the movies very well. The fit of the pieces is horrible and requires vast amounts of putty and sanding to make the seams look somewhat decent. I even had to putty a lot around the window canopy just to make it look like it fit. This is pretty standard from MPC but they are very cheap so it balances out somewhat.
Since this was not going to be something I entered in a show I figured I would experiment with the paints and put some lights in for the engines. I was actually pleasantly surprised with how the paint job turned out and I had a bunch of fun with the light. The LED lights and switch come from Evan Designs. I have used their stuff for a couple builds now and it is pretty straight forward. There is some soldering involved, but it is pretty easy. To defuse the light a bit I put some velum paper over the lights and that worked.
Overall it was a fun build, but definitely not my best work or a great quality so it is more for my entertainment than entering in a competition. I may do a large scale Boba Fett 3d print this year to display next to this.
May the 4th be with you...
Looks great. Slave I is almost as iconic as the Millennium Falcon to Star Wars fans.
May the 4th be with you.
I totally agree. It is so iconic. Thank you.
Love it Joel! Very nice subject, beautifully done!
Thank you, Spiros.
Excellent work, Joel @wintermodeller
Thank you, John.
Great results! The source for lights helps me with a scratch build space ship project that I am in the "Collecting Possible Parts" phase. Some of the parts have openings in them that are "screaming" to have light emit from them, so now I know where to get the hardware and advice to install them.
Thanks. I am glad that info is useful for you. Someone in my modeling club told me about them. They ship very quickly and their products are good quality and affordable. They give instructions in the sets you buy so you know how to wire everything up. Enjoy.
Nice! Complete with Han in carbonite!
Thank you. Ya that was a cool little extra detail. I was wondering if I could get it to hover somehow by using little magnets. I'll have to work on that.
Nicely done.
I picked up this kit from an Antique store a few months ago. I had originally built one when it first was released in the 80's.
Thank you, Michael (@aurora700). I hope you have fun building yours. Despite the bad fit of the parts it is still a pretty fun kit to put together.