Perfect Grade Millennium Falcon WIP 1 Planning and Building

Welcome to the first work in progress post for the Perfect Grade Millennium Falcon hereafter referred to as the PGMF.

This first post is going to focus more on goals, strategy and planning more than outright building.

If you haven't already seen the unboxing, check it out.

Goal:

The goal for this project should be obvious right? Complete the kit! But, there is this disclaimer that I have whenever I build anything from the Star Wars Universe, and that is; my kits are not intended to be a perfect replica from the movies. If you want to see film grade replicas go check out the RFP.
I will be happy so long as the kit fits with the mental image and memory that I have.

My other goal, is to finish this project is before the end of the year. Two months sounds like a reasonable time frame, but we’re already experiencing daily freezing temperatures in my region; make painting uncomfortable and troublesome.

Strats & Plans:

I’m not building the PGMF in order according to the manual. Instead, I have decided that the best way to keep things consistent across the build is to grab group all similar areas together and to build and paint them at the same time. I used this strategy on the earlier X, Y and A wing kits to great effect.

I started with deeper more internally located parts. The plan as it stands now is to fully shade, paint and assemble these sections now and set them aside for later. These areas include the access holes in the front mandibles, the maintenance areas on lower and upper hull, the cockpit interior and turret gunner positions among other areas.

I started with these parts full un-assembled and painted them with a dark neutral grey IV. after which

I assembled these parts and started to paint and shade with neutral grey I which is almost white. Painting in this way creates some easy and natural looking shading, however a few very light coats are required to get the colors correct.

For now, I will set these parts aside. Later into the build the kit will receive a wash, dry brushing and other weathering techniques. I'm expecting some brushes and other tools and materials to help with this later.

This post is late and I had to push it out because if I delayed any longer, the kit would probably be done without a single WIP out.