Monday, January 16, 2006
Stormtrooper Vinyl Model Kit by Screamin'
I finally decided to build this kit after it had been sitting in my closet since 1993. At first glance, the detail looked great but as I started to research the "real" armor I noticed some problems.
All the pieces had really soft edges and inaccurate details. Some pieces could be brought up to "spec" with just some adjustment others would have to be trimmed away and rebuilt. Worst of all, the blaster was entirely the wrong size, a crappy casting and inaccurate.
Since the Stormtroopers had subtle differences in their armor over the original trilogy, I decided to give my trooper the armor and blaster from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. This trooper would have been stationed on the Death Star, so his weapon will have minimal wear and the armor will be nice and shiny!
To those experts out there, I did what I could with this kit. The only way I could've made it more accurate would be to build it from scratch. Some proportional problems I just had to live with. Vinyl is easy to cut but does not sand. Cleanup would have been easier if I had cast a copy in resin...maybe I'll do that for the Boba Fett kit.
I used an exacto knife to sharpen edges, re-shape armor plates and cut under the armor where appropriate.
At the waist, I had to reshape the crotch and butt plate and decided to remove the blocks that hang from the belt as they were molded in place and should hang free.
I toyed with the idea of removing the belt entirely and rebuilding it out of styrene but I was concerned about stability. I decided to just clean up the belt detail and reshape it later (it should not taper in as shown)
As vinyl kits are softer and subject to warping over time, I poured plaster into the legs.
The helmet had major problems in detail and proportion.
My "To Do" list:
1. Clean up lines
2. Remove large "ears" and rebuild
3. Snout too short and wrong shape
4. Eyes wrong shape
5. Putty over engraved "hash marks" on jaw (these are decals)
6. Rebuild snout details
The right knee plates too thick and soft. I tried carving them down to size but it turned out to be easier to rebuild this.
The left knee suffer similarly in that the detail is soft and the bumps are too big. I was able to successfully cut them down to an appropriate size.
The BIGGEST problem with this kit is the torso barely has a neck and there is no way to attach the helmet without gluing it directly on the shoulders. ¶ 12:33 AM
All the pieces had really soft edges and inaccurate details. Some pieces could be brought up to "spec" with just some adjustment others would have to be trimmed away and rebuilt. Worst of all, the blaster was entirely the wrong size, a crappy casting and inaccurate.
Since the Stormtroopers had subtle differences in their armor over the original trilogy, I decided to give my trooper the armor and blaster from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. This trooper would have been stationed on the Death Star, so his weapon will have minimal wear and the armor will be nice and shiny!
To those experts out there, I did what I could with this kit. The only way I could've made it more accurate would be to build it from scratch. Some proportional problems I just had to live with. Vinyl is easy to cut but does not sand. Cleanup would have been easier if I had cast a copy in resin...maybe I'll do that for the Boba Fett kit.
I used an exacto knife to sharpen edges, re-shape armor plates and cut under the armor where appropriate.
At the waist, I had to reshape the crotch and butt plate and decided to remove the blocks that hang from the belt as they were molded in place and should hang free.
I toyed with the idea of removing the belt entirely and rebuilding it out of styrene but I was concerned about stability. I decided to just clean up the belt detail and reshape it later (it should not taper in as shown)
As vinyl kits are softer and subject to warping over time, I poured plaster into the legs.
The helmet had major problems in detail and proportion.
My "To Do" list:
1. Clean up lines
2. Remove large "ears" and rebuild
3. Snout too short and wrong shape
4. Eyes wrong shape
5. Putty over engraved "hash marks" on jaw (these are decals)
6. Rebuild snout details
The right knee plates too thick and soft. I tried carving them down to size but it turned out to be easier to rebuild this.
The left knee suffer similarly in that the detail is soft and the bumps are too big. I was able to successfully cut them down to an appropriate size.
The BIGGEST problem with this kit is the torso barely has a neck and there is no way to attach the helmet without gluing it directly on the shoulders. ¶ 12:33 AM
