With the last delivery been and gone, my daughter and I were waiting for the next one. When it did arrive, it was rather large to say the least. This was the one that contained not only the magazines for this delivery, the five from parts seventy-seven to eight-one but also all the missing installments up to that point. It was a rather hefty box to say the least. Not only did it have the missing issues for us to carry on with but also had another binder. While I like the binders and use them to house all my magazines, I was still only halfway through using two of them, let alone needing another one on top of the three I already had. I cannot for the life of me understand why I would need quite so many. Perhaps I shouldn’t complain, I would much rather be in the position of having too many than in the position of having too few.
With the delivery opened, the magazines sorted, it was time to look at what Ember and I would be doing. This project has been a steep learning curve for myself and my nine-year-old daughter (who was six when we started this endeavour), more so for me of having to figure out how to make a project like this work for someone quite so small. It has been nowhere near as taxing as I would have imagined and it has been truly special to watch her grow in terms of skills and confidence but also to see our relationship grow and evolve. Even at nine though, I still wanted to scout the magazine, to check what we would be doing and if anything needed preparing. It had been a long time since any preparation had been needed; this was more for when we’d been working on the interiors of the Millennium Falcon.Looking through I instantly found that it would feel a bit more like the old days, I needed to do some preparation.
Before I got around to that, I wanted to see what we would be doing in this installment and if we could fit two magazines in one sitting. Screwing the recesses on, adding details, while there was a part of me that would say we could maybe do more, I was very aware that in the last few issues, doing less was in some ways better. It meant that neither Ember and I felt exhausted after doing too much and that we left feeling happy and excited for the next part. If I’m being completely honest, there was that little part of me realising that we were starting to head towards the final parts of getting this ship finished. Now while I’m very excited to have a completed Falcon in my house, it would also be the end to a very long project, one that I have enjoyed. Slowing down – just a little – meant that the project could carry on for just that bit longer.
So, the preparation work. The recesses that were built in the last two installments needed some painting. Now while I would let Ember do some painting at this stage, the painting was more spraying the recesses, something I have yet to do with Ember and probably won’t do for another year or two. We’re just starting to airbrush; spray cans are a bit of a different beast. The recesses needed undercoating in black before they are fitted. Now while I plan to repaint the whole Falcon once it is complete, I understand that painting the recesses can be a bit of a pain. Painting them now, if only temporarily, would mean that it would make my life a little easier when I come to repaint the whole thing. I sprayed all the recesses with a standard black. When the instructions mentioned dry brushing the parts, I used the Archive X paints that I had, those that matched to the paints used by ILM at the time of Star Wars. While I don’t imagine they will stay like that, this was a good half measure for the time being.
With that done, it was time for Ember and I to take our seats and finish the rest of the magazine. We started off by fitting the painted recesses to the mandibles. Ember loved identifying the correct pieces and lining them up. The upper mandible was relatively easy to do as thankfully, on the next page of the magazine, there was a clear illustration of which way round they should fit. For the lower mandible this wasn’t as clear. What should be stated is that for the fourth part, there is actually an indent in the recess, that allows you to line this up, so you don’t get it the wrong way around. Very helpful but would have been even more helpful if it was mentioned initially in the instructions. Ember was very happy screwing these into place with practised ease. I’m not going to lie, they look fantastic, adding a level of depth to the construction that really makes it come alive.
Once this was done it was time to add on details to the lower mandible. It was at this point that Ember reminded me that we needed to switch roles, she would be the cameraman, and I would do the actual work. A new development for us and although I want Ember to do most of the work, I quite enjoy getting to do my fair share these days. As we started with this part, I was grateful I had been given this role. The first thing to note is the instructions are wrong for part 2. It says to use piece one, but actually, it’s referring to piece three. From then on, all the other parts were a bit of a faff to fit. A lot of the piping didn’t fit in but had to be pushed and squeezed into place. There was a lot of holding to pieces to make sure that they stayed where they should. Ember was loving taking the photos and I realised this had gone rather well with the role reversal. Small blessings! With the details done, it was time to finish. It was a short session but after the details I could feel my frustration rising. It was the perfect time to end.
Short but effective. There was more preparation to do than there has been in a long while. Ember loved the parts she did, she loved the points she could take photos. I got to do the fiddly bits which I think could have led to a lot of confusion and mistakes. Just make sure you dry fit all the parts first and watch out for that step two. Everything went well and the rhythm Ember and I have found myself in seems to be working brilliantly. The finished mandibles – well part finished – look incredible. I can’t wait to see these get added to the main part of the ship!
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