A little side project

So the insanity begins. I have a friend named Rob (not me)​ who is a member of the 501st Legion.  He has made a number of Star Wars related costumes (Commander Cody, a rebel pilot, a tusken raider, etc) as well as a BB-8 droid (which seems to be his newest specialty).  He has a Facebook group called Rob’s Armor Diary where he chronicles his builds

His armor diary has inspired me to start a project of my own and chronicle it.  I have never been into cosplay myself (although I respect the dedication and attention to detail making those amazing costumes entails), so instead I am going to build and paint the DeAgostini Millennium Falcon.  It is an incredibly accurate 1:1 copy of the shooting model of the Millennium Falcon from The Empire Strikes Back. This is a subscription model kit, so I will receive four magazine issues and four packets of parts each month for the next 25 months.  Each issue is chock full of information about the Millennium Falcon, as well as instructions for how to assemble the parts that came with the issue.

I plan on taking pictures and keeping a journal of the build along the way similar to my friend Rob's Armor Diary.  I may create a Facebook group of my own and/or a Google+ group, but since I have this blog I figure I may as well use it as the central repository for all of this.

I don’t have a lot of experience making models.  I would build the occasional model when I was a kid, but really haven’t done any model-making since then.  I have a little more experience with painting, as I used to paint miniatures for Dungeons & Dragons.  I have no experience using an air brush, although I imagine I will get some before this is all over.

I can’t really explain why I decided to jump back into model-making with this project.  Part of it is I simply love the Millennium Falcon.  When I was a kid I owned the old Kenner Millennium Falcon toy and I would be lying if I didn’t say that the removable hull and interior details of this model didn’t remind me of it.  Nostalgia is a powerful motivator.

Also, it will be an amazing display piece when it is finished.  The blueprint below is 1:1 with the finished model (Xbox controller included for scale).

Hopefully you will enjoy following this build as it progresses over the next two years.  I know this is will be an interesting journey for me.