With the Second Death Star complete, it was time to move onto its pair in the box, the legendary Imperial class Star Destroyer.
Here is a look at the runners:
A lot of big obvious shapes, and then a lot of small pieces which will certainly be used to construct the command tower. Still, there are a few pieces here and there where I cannot easily guess where they will wind up.
Detailing this Star Destroyer will be hard. It does not need weathering, as SD’s are typically depicted as having pristine outer hulls. What this needs is some simple shading to highlight some of its extremely small, fine grained detailing (much of what you can see in the photo above).
This is easier said than done. I painted all the pieces, so a panel lining marker is out of the question. A paint wash will stain and smear the pristine grey color. My only option here was to try and use the weathering compound that worked so well on the Death Star, only instead of using the rust color, this time I used the dark gunmetal grey compound.
The results were not disastrous, but nevertheless they fell short of the vision in my head. The problem is that the pieces on this kit are extremely small, and so the detailing is even smaller. Any tool small enough to do precision detailing on this kit is likely too small and fragile to effectively pick up any of the weathering compound. That meant I had to use a (relatively speaking) bigger, sturdier applicator - like the one that came with the weathering kit.
Unfortunately, both the sponge and the brush on the applicator were indeed too big for this kit:
The result is that instead of the weathering compound getting into the cracks and crevices of each piece (where I wanted it), a lot of it landed on the surface (where I did not want it).
I also learned that this compound is a lot like paint in that it will smear if wiped off, and getting it wet usually makes things worse rather than better. If you apply too much to any given spot, you may be stuck with it (unless you repaint).
Let’s look how some of the pieces came out:
These pieces look a lot darker in this photo than they do in person.
These look a little bit lighter, but you can still see the problem I was dealing with, where the compound completely darkened the entire paint job.
The engine section benefits a lot more from some darker shading.
Here are the engines with the thrusters plugged in. I went for a blend of light blue and white inside of the thrusters, so as to mimic their look in the films:
Here is one of the side walls of the Star Destroyer. Both walls have a few spots in which I painted in some running lights. I had no idea at the time whether they would be visible once the kit was assembled, but it certainly could not hurt.
In terms of remaining details, I painted the window of the bridge, and I painted the shield generators with a mix of gunmetal grey and white paint. My intent was to highlight them without making them a drastically different color from the rest of the ship.
Lastly I painted the turbolasers gunmetal grey as well. Without a bit of color, it looks as if the ship has no weaponry:
With all this complete, I assembled the kit … and found it lacking. I will not show you any photos (as I took none), but some of the things I noticed included:
- A number of spots wherein the grey paint either chipped off, or which were simply not painted at all.
- Some sections were too dark from the weathering compound.
- I accidentally painted the four small circular bits nestled between the engines the same color as the engines. Woops!
- The nose of the ship kept separating.
With this in mind, I used some super glue and touchup paint to fix things up. Next was a bit of clearcoat, which I hoped would cause the weathering to smooth out and blend together into a nice even color (it worked on the Death Star …). Now you can see the final result:
All in all, the clearcot helped to smooth out and blend in the color from the weathering compound. If you see some spots that are brighter than others (especially in that second photo), that is due to me (stupidly) doing touch ups after the fact. This photo of the bottom side shows off a much more consistent color:
This one’s a bit blurry, but it shows off the running lights along the side of the ship:
Here is the way I see this build - it was my first time using a new technique (taking weatehring compound and using it like a panel lining marker), and while the results were worse than desired, they were not ruinous either. I tried something new, learned some lessons, and can do better next time.
Now as for the quality of the kit itself? Despite the small size, it packs in a ton of detail. The best part of building this Star Destroyer is that it reminded me that the back half of the ship is made up of multiple stories before you finally get to the bridge tower. Those lower sections are easy to forget about, but they really stand out when seen in real, 3d space.
There is nothing I associate more with the Imperial March than the Star Destroyer. Not the Death Star. Not Darth Vader. To me the sight of a fleet of dagger shaped Star Destroyers is the ultimate symbol of the might and terror of the Empire.
This little kit, small as it may be, also manages to evoke the tune in my head, so it must be doing something right.