Holy snowballs Lord Vader, an AT-ST on Hoth.

[Deadman Disciple]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr98j2NrJc8[/youtube]

My wife bought me the Bandai Star Wars AT-ST kit for christmas from an Amazon.co.uk seller based in Japan costing £16 with free shipping.

This was supposed to be one of the Bandai SW kits I would have bought with the £70 left over from last November's model kit fair.

Looking at the sprues, the parts look smaller than id imagined & the various build pictures ive seen make it look bigger than it actually is.

Anyways, construction is fairly straight forward, starting with the belly.

It was fairly easy to snap-fit all the belly parts, but the braided tubing was very flimsy, so care was taken when cutting them off the sprues & slight sanding.

Also the tubing will need gluing into the relevant holes as they feel really loose & did pop out a few times.

Continuing with the legs & it was all easy to snap-fit together, a few peices were a bit flimsy, namely the rear moveable strip caliper.

Slowly but surely adding the parts to the legs came the feet, which were a tight fit & took a bit of persuation to snap together but I got there in the end.

Once done, id noticed I had built the lower leg back-to-front & the mounting ring was supposed to be on the top instead of underneath, but taking everything apart again to correct such a small mistake to me was pointless.

Moving onto the interior cockpit/command area.

I primered all the interior wall parts, seating, dashboard & driver figures & started painting.

Pretty much all Tamiya XF-80 (Royal Light Grey) & picked out the various light panels & switches in various colors & the same on the dashboard & then gave it a black wash to bring out the rest of the detail.

Seating area was nato olive for the seats & a little white for the detail & greyish blue for the joysticks.

The rear wall was washed in white wash & black washed around the outer parts.

The drivers were then painted:-

US Compass Grey for the uniform
Folkart Greenscape for the helmets
Flesh Pink for the faces
Nato Olive for the seatbelts
Black for the goggles, gloves & boots.

Then I mounted them into the seats with a smidgen of glue for a little extra security.

I had to widen the mounting holes slightly when putting the cockpit/command area together, as primer had gotten into them & the back wall took my pressure clamp to get in mounted properly, but all the other walls went together fairly easy.

Cheers,

Wayne.

 

[Deadman Disciple]

Re: Another Bandai AT-ST? Really.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlVLKE__bcs[/youtube]

Now the cockpit/command area is done, now starts the main head construction.

Which was snap-fitting the main head into the back of the dashboard, & aligning the side panels of the head onto the sides of the cockpit/command area.

The back panel then went in & the cosmetic side panels snapped into place on the headpeice, along with the bottom panel which houses the belly support ball peice, the 3 peices of braided tubing & the mounting for the front cannon.

The front cannon & side head guns were 4 part assemblies which were very fiddly indeed, but I managed to put those together.

Now with all the main construction is complete, the AT-ST is all ready for primer.

I used some double sided sticky tape to hold the lid down on the head & used the closed eyehole lids option so no primer would get into the cockpit.

Once the primer dried, I started painting the AT-ST parts.

Again using the Tamiya XF-80 Royal Light Grey, starting on the legs to which I removed the knee guards & painted underneath & then continuing down to the feet, but I left the underneath of the feet in the primer.

Then removing the guards on the belly to get underneath & painting the light grey, making sure to get into the nooks & crannys & then putting the guards back into place.

Then the completed head piece was painted next & there were a few streaks to contend with, but when the second coat went down they dissapeared.

Whilst the paint dried, I started on the base, to which Ive decided to buck the trend of Endor & go with Hoth instead.

Using some of the plank left over from the munster house base, I bought some 1cm thick square balsa dowling from Hobbycraft & glued it around the edges of the wood with some PVA glue & left it 24 hours to dry.

Using some normal household filler, I filled in the hollow underneath of the kit base, to make a better all-round flat surface for the PVA to work whilst it was clamped to the wood base.

This is a great way to make the kit base more sturdy (if you plan to use the kit base by itself) & it would prevent the AT-ST from tipping over.

To create the ice wall, I found some flat foam packaging & using the glue & glaze to glue it into place.

Once that was dry, I found a partial tube of silcone sealant so I decided to use that to fill in the wooden base.

Even though the silicone dried perfectly, my star wars miniatures wouldn't glue the base, as the glue just sat on the surface refusing to dry, I had to cut out & remove the silicone (which was really easy) & resort to using the household filler.

Once the filler dried, my star wars miniatures have now glued down a treat & now its time to paint on the snow & finish the final detailing on the AT-ST, so It can go on the base.

Cheers,

Wayne.

 

[Quaralane]

Re: Another Bandai AT-ST? Really.

Nicely done so far, Wayne

 

[Hagoth]

Re: Another Bandai AT-ST? Really.

This is turning into a cool little diorama. Looking forward to a view of the finished At-ST.

 

[Deadman Disciple]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3c3m959v_M[/youtube]

First of all, I would like to apologize to Patrick (dubster72) for calling him Richard in my video.















Its finale time on my Bandai AT-ST on Hoth.

Starting back onto the finishing touches on the AT-ST itself, painting the second coat of the XF-80 light grey.

I started with the underneath of the head & the belly, than I black washed & using Humbrol's enamel rust wash picking out a few details here & there.

Not worrying about the stories I had read of enamel wash attacking the Bandai plastic, as I had already primered & 2 coats of the light grey to protect the plastic.

I then slowly but surely pushed the head onto the ball joint of the belly very slowly, not to do any damage to the head or belly & it eventually snapped into place.

I then did the same treatment of the 2 coats of the light grey, black wash & rust wash to the guns, eyehole lids & the legs.

Pushing the leg mounting pegs into the side of the belly very slowly, making sure not to snap the pegs & using my pressure clamps to help the push the last few mm's into place, then came the mounting of the completed AT-ST onto the base.

Putting a little glue onto the feet mounting area on the kit base & pushing the feet onto the mounting pegs, the primer had made the peg holes on the underneath of the feet a little tighter, but it was really easy & the gravity of the AT-ST held the feet into place whilst the glue dried.

Then came the snow effect, using the tip I picked off youtube about the PVA, white paint & bicarbonate of soda mixture, I couldnt get the crusty/crystalised consistency.

Asking about on Britmodeller forums, Patrick AKA dubster 72 (sorry I said Richard on the video) gave me an awesome tip.

Using hairspray & the bicarbonate of soda, I managed to get the perfect snow effect.

There was still some daylight when I got home from work, so I got my foldable table & chair and took them both outside & sprayed the hairspray onto the base & sprinkled on the bicarb.

Sprinkling the bicarb on the base, around & onto the feet & legs on the AT-ST, also a little more around the laser turret.

Left it to settle for around 10 mins or so, I lightly sprayed the hairspray onto my snow by pressing the spray cap halfway down to get a slow & consistant spray (instead of blasting the snow) & left it outside to dry for an hour or so.

Brought it back inside as the pungent smell of the cheap hairspray had gone & left it overnight to continue drying.

The tip worked a treat, so thanks to Patrick for that.

I then finished off the AT-ST with some Citadel Purity Seal, after I shook the can for a good five mins to make sure it didnt dry to the dusty effect I got on my Tornado model a couple of years back & the the purity seal dried clear with no problems.

I did go a little overboard with the rust wash & with the snow on the feet, but I still think it looks great.

Cheers,

Wayne.

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/robinsongamingsupplies
Link for the Wizards of the coast minatures I bought.

 

[Quaralane]

Turned out really well, Wayne

 

[Hagoth]

Very nice! Those rebels are in a tight spot.