In 1977 my father and I stood in line at a small, single screen, stereo sound, local theater to see a movie we had never heard of and knew nothing about, except that it had spaceships. About 2 hours after sitting down my life had literally changed. Beyond generating an interest in sci-fi in general, Star Wars has impacted much of my life. George Lucas’ creation of ILM, from zero to a multi-billion dollar company, has guided my work ethic and how I went about creating my own business. It spawned my interest in technology, model making, story telling, and world building. While the final product was world changing, what really grabbed my attention was ‘how it was made’.

Obviously one of the more recognizable ships in the franchise is Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon. The fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy was represented on screen with props ranging in size from a full size set built by ship builders, to the 4 foot ‘hero model’, to the 32” model that has the most screen time, all the way down to a 2 inch model that fits in the palm of a hand. Each model, serving a different purpose, was custom built using a technique called ‘kit bashing’. That is, taking parts from off the shelf model kits and repurposing them for use as ‘greeblies’ that add details to custom shells.

In 2023 I began the process of building my own replica of the 32” filming miniature. The goal being to get it as close as possible to the real filming model. There are multiple small scale kits of the Falcon on the market and one “full size” prop replica that you can purchase. But I wanted to build my own. I began with the Deagostini Falcon Builders Club kit. A true to size replica of the 32” filming model. The finished build is about 80% accurate and rather toy like. Its pre-painted parts and soft and missing details wasn’t suitable for my end goal, but it’s not a bad starting point. As part of the ‘accurate-izing’ process, I have stripped the parts of paint and repainted matching colours to the original prop. Kit parts and details were replaced with parts from the actual model kits used to create the original. In cases where those kits are too rare and unattainable, I’ve designed and 3D Printed replacements.

Where possible I’ve matched the painting processes using the those used by the ILM artists.