Back during christmas, my wife got me yet another Star Wars model kit as a gift. This was the first one I would build that would be of a human character, rather than a spaceship of some sort. Specifically, this is a kit of my favorite bounty hunter:
I assumed it would a similar process to building a Gundam model. In both cases you are building a model out of a head, arms, legs, chest and backpack. And yet now that I am done, I can say that the build actually felt more similar to my previous, starship-based Star Wars kits. Whether human or spaceship, they tend to use fewer pieces than Gundam kits, but require far more painting/detailing/weathering. Ostensibly, the experience is the same, but in practice they are very different. You have to pay very close attention to what color everything should be, since there are many small details that may happen to be colored silver or black or brown. You have to come up with painting strategy in which you figure out what to paint, in what order, and when to apply decals or weathering. I found it to be extremely challenging, though when everything comes together the results are quite worth it.
Anyway, let’s get to the kit. Normally this is when I start talking about how I made all sorts of mistakes, and I try to convince myself that everything came together. This time I know there are mistakes, but I just cannot fixate on them. One thing I like about these Star Wars kits is that because they are meant to look weathered and dirty, a lot of mistakes and goofs end up blending in and looking intentional. That doesn’t mean I advocate being sloppy, but you have some leeway if you need it. As a result of this, my mistakes simply don’t bother me, because they blend in and help make the overall kit become a home run visually.
My greatest concern with this kit was the weathering. You want Fett’s armor to look scratched and beaten up in a way that feels natural. If the scoring marks look too square or circular in shape, it will look like you just poked the kit with a paintbrush and called it a day. As I worked on the kit, I came up with a technique in which I spread the paint around using different sides of the brush. It required a very light touch and a careful hand; I could tell when had the right touch based on how easy it was to fix a mistake. If the paint didn’t wipe clean off, then I was using too much pressure.
The other challenge with weathering is determining where to apply it, and to what extent. This might sound counter-intuitive, but you don’t want the weathering to be evenly distributed. Some parts of the armor should be lightly worn, while other sections should look like they were dragged down a gravel road by a truck.
The amount of weathering and painting I had to do on this kit was kind of astounding. I’ve never done so much in a single build, nor was it ever quite this difficult. If I had built this kit even a few years ago, I shudder to think about how I would have managed to screw it up.
I did not use all of the decals that came with the kit, but I did use a bunch of them. They tend to be applied to flat surfaces, which made them adhere nicely. These weapons tucked into his legs are a great example of a decal doing some heavy lifting and saving me from some challenging painting.
One thing I was frustrated by is how certain components on this kit are 0% color-accurate. If you want your Boba Fett to look right (or close to right), you are going to have to paint. The rifle is one such component:
If you do a search online about this blaster rifle, you will find that it is drawn/rendered/reproduced in a few different color schemes. One is black with a wooden stock (like I made it), while others make the entire thing black. That means if Bandai had made all of the blaster rifle pieces out of black plastic, you would have a finished gun that looks color accurate to some fans, and close enough to the rest. But that’s not what they did. See the part I painted black? That was green. See the part I painted brown? That was black. I don’t understand why they did this. Just make the black runner bigger, ass some more pieces on it. Easy Peasy.
The other, bigger crime against color accuracy is that Fett’s jetpack and arm gauntlets are all supposed to be the same color, a bluish-grey. Instead, they are all molded out of olive drab plastic. I wonder how hard it really would have been to make one runner in this color. I think there were enough pieces to justify one. Whatever the reason, it significantly ratchets up the difficulty of the build.
Painting the jetpack and the gauntlets was the most complex painting job I’ve ever experienced. This was the first time I had to mix colors together and test them until I got the correct shade, at which point I had to get the pieces all painted at once so they would be uniform in color.
Somehow I must not have thinned or mixed the paint correctly, because it got a bit thick and crusty after it dried. It looks a bit like my first attempt at painting that Gundam accessory pack, which is a bit embarrassing to admit. Anyway, in some cases I tried using some sandpaper to smooth things out and give the paint a more consistent finish. In other cases I added some weathering on top of the crusty paint to help make it look pocked and damage. This actually turned out quite nicely, though I still feel like the gauntlets in particular look as if they have a different paint finish than the rest of the kit.
At least the jetpack came out looking pretty decent.
As I was taking pictures, I became aware of how much effort Bandai put into hiding some of the model’s joints. This model represents a person, after all, not a robot. It should not look as if its limbs are made out of component parts. The utility belt, for example, covers up the hip joints. The neck joint is wrapped with a piece of plastic that is made to look like the fabric of Fett’s shirt. When the model is standing straight and all the pieces are pushed in and secured, it really does look fairly seamless.
Once you start posing it, however, the illusion falls apart. In this photo alone you can see how the knee joint is exposed as soon as it is bent, and the gauntlets are separating a bit from the arm.
I do not point out to complain, merely to observe. I honestly don’t know what else Bandai could do to solve this problem, short of actually draping the kit in real cloth in order to completely conceal the joints. It is a tough problem to be sure.
Let’s talk about the articulation. This kit has roughly the same kinds of joints and articulation points as a Gundam kit. That means you can make Boba do things that are impossible with real human limbs, like this:
Yet despite this fact, there are still a number of limitations that affect its range of motion. The utility belt puts a damper on how far forward the leg can move, and the shoulder pads limit how far the arms can extend to the sides.
Considering this is a model of a human, I understand and accept the notion that its articulation may not be as extensive as that of a robot. I also do not believe it affected any of the poses I attempted to perform. Again, this is a person, and so I had no interest in making it do anything that a real person would not.
With all that being said, however, even the conservative poses I had in mind managed to be trouble. In my experience, I have found that there is a certain paradox about model kits - they sometimes have articulation beyond what a real person can achieve, and yet there are certain kinds of poses that a human can do without thinking, but which completely stimie a model. For example, try going down on one knee. Assuming you are of able body, this should not be a problem. Now try that with a model kit without it falling over. Here is my best attempt:
If I did not use that little square base, the kit would have keeled right over (more on the base later).
Let’s try something else. Grab a stick or something and hold it as if it were a rifle. I bet you can get it up on your shoulder, and keep it pointing straight, and extend your non-dominant hand to cradle the far end of the stick. Let’s see how Boba Fett manages:
It isn’t looking too good…
None of these struggles are unique to Boba Fett. These are the same struggles that I face when I pose any model kit like this. It’s just that with a Gundam kit, I simply avoid these kinds of stances in favor of something less realistic. With Boba, however, these simpler and more realistic poses are all I want to do. But since even they are either impossible to pull off, or simply look wrong, I instead ended up taking a lot of photos of him standing around holding the rifle at rest. It isn’t fancy, but it looks natural and comfortable.
Now I want to talk about that base. One thing I love about the spacehip-based Star Wars kits is that they always come with some sort of nice stand to prop them up on.The X-Wing comes with a diorama recreating the Death Star Trench run (translation: amazing). The miniature X-Wing/Y-Wing combo pack comes with tiny plastic stands that have labels telling you what they are (translation: pretty neat). The TIE Striker only has a simple, unmarked stand, but it is big and sturdy and has some solid articulation.
All Boba Fett gets is that stupid flat square of plastic. It reminds me of the shitty stands that came with 90’s era GI Joes.
But while those Joes were secured to their bases by inserting a peg into a hole in their shoe, Boba Fett is secured to his base by locking his one foot into a roughly foot-shaped outline, like this:
I bet you are wondering whether that foot pops out all of the time. Let me spoil it for you.
It pops out all the time. It is slightly better than worthless on a good day. It might help him stay upright on a desk or something, and that is about it.
What Bandai should have done is ship this kit with a cheap facsimile of an Action Base. They do this sometimes for Master Grade Gundam kits, and last I checked this Boba Fett kit is roughly the same price as some of those. Thankfully, it is compatible with an Action Base 2, I had a spare one lying around. That allowed me to get him airborne. I would show you what it looked like, but I lost everything from my first photo shoot. Instead I leave you with this one goofy pose, just to prove that the Action Base works.
Conclusion
Despite every hot take ever written about him from professional Internet contrarians, I am still a huge fan of Boba Fett, and think he is one of the coolest characters in the Star Wars universe. I believe his model kit deserves the best treatment, and unfortunately I do not believe that is what Bandai gave us. The lack of color accuracy, coupled with the lack of a good base or some other accouterment, makes it feel like a less-than-premium product.
Furthermore, this is not a kit for beginners. The amount of detailing and painting necessary to get it to look right is intense. If you take the time to give it some TLC, the result will look phenomenal, but a straight build using nothing but decals and some panel lining would look pretty awful. I cannot recommend this kit to anyone unless they are both big fans of the character, and have the skills/equipment/willingness to give it the extra attention it needs.
It will look great on my shelf, and I enjoyed the build a lot, but I do not know if I will build another character-based Star Wars kit. I do not get the sense that Bandai takes them quite as seriously as the ship-based kits.
Remaining Thoughts
Boba Fett’s right gauntlet contains a grappling hook, and for some reason Bandai insisted on having a small piece of wiry plastic extend from the gauntlet into his arm, as if to signify that the rope itself is hidden under his clothes. I lost this tiny little piece of plastic on the very last day of building. I would have been fine with that, if not for the fact that there was a gaping hole in his arm that bothered the hell out of me. I fixed it by taking one of those pieces of plastic that clothing price tags are attached to, painting it silver, and super gluing it onto the model. The paint is likely to chip off, and the plastic thingie will likely not stay in place, but for the time being it looks perfect.
I did not realize this until I built this kit, but there are major differences in the color of Boba Fett’s outfit in The Empire Strikes Back versus Return of the Jedi. It looks as if this model replicates the Empire look, which is a safe bet if you ask me. The only thing that looks a little bit off from photos I’ve seen is that the backpack probably should be more green than grey. Maybe leaving it unpainted would have been the best thing!
PS - I have an album available containing photos of both this kit, and the other two kits I recently built. Find it here