Bandai’s 1:144 Millennium Falcons: model kit reviews
BANDAI
Bandai are a huge Japanese toymaker with many fingers in many pies. Although toys are their mainstay, they also are known for producing highly-detailed SF military robot (“mecha”) kits, known as “Gunpla” (for Gundam Plastic model) And they now sell extremely well-made Star Wars model kits. Here are some observations.
2015 THE FORCE AWAKENS:
In 2015 they produced a tiny 1:144 kit, a mere 25cm or so long, of the Millennium Falcon as it appeared in the first Sequel Trilogy film, the Force Awakens (TFA). Note that this is a different product from 2016’s Bandai Star Wars Vehicle 006 kit, which is a super-tiny palm-sized model based mostly on the ANH (Star Wars 1977/"A New Hope") Falcon. It's also different from 2017's 1:72 “Perfect Grade” model, which is a superdetailed ANH Falcon.
2017 THE LAST JEDI RELEASE:
In summer 2017, Bandai released a new 1:144 Millennium Falcon model, to tie in with the the Last Jedi (TLJ). This lightly modified version of the kit fixes the sidewall problem of the TFA kit, as described later.
2019 THE RISE OF SKYWALKER RELEASE:
In September 2019, Bandai announced another version of their 1:144 Falcon, to tie in with the Rise of Skywalker (TROS). This kit supplements the rectangular dish with an old-style round one. Scroll down for a photo of this version.
By the way – I’m simply using Bandai’s convention when referring to this model as being of 1:144 scale. Nobody knows exactly how big the Millennium Falcon should be, since neither movie miniatures nor sets were built to precise scales, so this is just a convenient label more than anything.
PROS OF THE BANDAI FALCON:
Awesome detail. The detailing is incredible. Really. Bandai are true masters of the styrene injection process, and they can put astounding levels of crisply moulded detail into their plastics. Even minuscule details, like the hull plate notches on the edges of the saucer, are present and correct. Sometimes it’s like looking at the detailed complexity of an insect or something. It’s sort of funny, really. You need the visual acuity of a child to make out all the details, but a kid would just break this thing. So you also need the dexterity, experience, and skill of a teenager or adult to make the damn kit properly! The picture here, of the unpainted port aft maintenance pit, is shown with a toothpick tip for scale.
It’s only a model. A model can never look like the real thing unless it’s pretty big. But the best praise you can give a very small model is that it looks much larger. And Bandai’s 1:144 Falcon, when properly painted, totally punches above its weight! Only a few awkward areas stand out (see below).
Proportions are right. The proportions seem to be highly accurate for the most part. The ship feels right – the saucer is curved, the mandibles angle in very slightly. It’s good stuff. I don’t think any manufacturer has produced a Falcon with truly accurate proportions like this before. (until it was superseded in quality by the Bandai 1:72 of course)
Five footer. It’s based on the Sequel Trilogy digital models, which in turn were based on the original and superdetailed ANH (Star Wars: A New Hope) 5 foot physical model. So from an old-skool perspective like mine, that’s really cool. Most previous plastic Falcons have been based around the less detailed 32" ESB (The Empire Strikes Back) model, not the 5 footer.
A few options. The ramp is either in a lowered position or not, and you can clip in or pull out the landing gear. There are provisions for basic lighting in the engine area. You can even omit the supplied solid fan grilles, and since Bandai has surprisingly included the normally hidden fake fans, (of the bumpy octagonal TFA type, not the flat round kind seen on the 5 foot Falcon) you can put in third party open grilles (see below) for extra realism. Note that the Last Jedi 2018 version of the kit has large rectangular holes in the fan tops for clipping the grille covers, making them less suitable to exposed open grilles, unfortunately.
No glue. Snap-together has a bad name in North America, because of the low-quality toylike junk produced by Revell and other companies. But although the Bandai product can be assembled without cement, it’s no shake-the-box kit. This is super precise stuff, and since you don’t have to glue, you have the flexibility of dry fitting a few times and reassembling later if you want.
Well constructed. The kit is ingeniously engineered. For example, the mandible pits have three-piece snap-together parts that allow for three-dimensional layering of components. (see right: the middle component is double-sided)
Clean parts. Flash is almost non-existent. Bandai have also carefully engineered each piece so that mould lines naturally fall in less obvious places, for the most part. The points where the parts attach to the sprue (the stem where the molten plastic flows in during the moulding process) are mostly on the underside of each component, so when you cut off the part there are almost no residual tabs to clean up. These are known as undergated runners. This also means you can prime (and paint) most of the pieces while they're still on the sprue without too much damage when you remove them if you want.
Third party parts. A market of third party add-ons has sprung up. Both photo-etched brass and 3D printed parts are available (see bottom of page), making it possible to superdetail the model — either to fix some of its shortcomings or to change it to an Original Trilogy Falcon (see the whole section on that below).
Superdetailing. Did I mention the detail is awesome? For example, the 5 foot movie Falcon was retrofitted for the ESB to have lights in the ventral saucer and mandibles. Many of the light points are represented correctly on the Bandai model with tiny bumps that you can drill out and fit with optical fibres if you want. Unfortunately the Bandai model doesn’t match the physical full-size set when it comes to all lighting positions, but that’s not their fault — ILM’s 5 foot model didn’t either!
Varying skill levels. Finally, it’s a carefully designed kit that can be enjoyed by a near beginner or an experienced model maker alike. If you’re new to model kits, you can spend a couple hours snipping the pieces off (definitely invest in a side cutter and don't use a knife to cut off the parts!), and snapping them together — it isn’t that difficult. The box even comes with a sheet of adhesive stickers for decorating the coloured panels without paint. Done! Or you can ignore the stickers and use the set of waterslide decals (transfers) that are included as well. Or you can go all out, and superdetail the model with third party products, skip the stickers and decals, and airbrush every last detail with paint. The adhesive stickers are actually great for this, as you can use the area around the stickers as masks to cover areas not to be painted! Or you can snap it together first, then paint it later. It’s all good!
A kit for all ages. There’s definitely some interesting cultural stuff here. In North America, model kits have long been seen as something juvenile — junk for little boys, like toy trains. Manufacturers like Revell have treated the model market as if it were a glorified toy market, churning out inaccurate and sloppily designed kits much like the old MPC kits. Now this approach has backfired, since kids don’t build models anymore — anything not on a computer is uncool. So now we have this ageing cohort of people (well, mostly middle-aged men!) who grew up with model kits, supporting a small high-end market of expensive and detailed products that’s fuelled by nostalgia. Things seem different in Asia, where people (well again, mostly males) of all ages still build kits. There’s definitely a youthful angle to the products, but nonetheless firms like Bandai are selling to a market that expects quality, accuracy, and affordability. And so that’s what they’re producing! Bandai’s Star Wars products are a prime example.
CONS OF THE BANDAI FALCON:
Okay. Most of this stuff is going to sound really nitpicky. So please don't think I'm trying to argue that Bandai have produced an inferior product, because their work is currently the best out there. But nothing is perfect.
Sequels. Obviously, it’s the Falcon from the Disney-era Sequel Trilogy. If you like those versions, great! But if you want an Original Trilogy Falcon, where the Force rolls over and hits the snooze button, then you’ll need to make some changes. At the very least you’ll need to replace the rectangular radar dish with the round one (unless you buy the TROS version), and replace the maintenance pits and sidewalls. By contrast the palm-sized Bandai Vehicle 006 Falcon kit was mostly based on the ANH Falcon, not the TFA one, and has both the round dish and no front-side landing gear boxes. (though later releases of the 006 kit apparently include the extra landing gear boxes) And the 1:72 "Perfect Grade" Falcon is 100% ANH to the last detail.
Making it old-skool. There are other things you could do to make it look more Original Trilogy. For example, you could cut off or omit a lot of the extra TFA pipe pieces, especially the stuff inside the docking rings and sidewalls. That’d help a bit. Or you could replace all the offending parts with 3D printed replacements – which is what I've done, using a bunch of parts I designed myself. However, if you want a truly accurate ANH era vessel, you’re in trouble. Since you’d have to saw off the ESB landing gear boxes and construct replacement ventral saucer panels to fill the gaps – not an easy job! So basically it's possible to get it looking pretty well like the five footer did during the ESB era, but difficult to get it exactly like the ANH version, because of the landing gear leg issue.
A few bad greeblies. Even though the accuracy is mostly amazing, there are a few let-down areas. And they seem even more surprising than they would on a lesser model, since the rest of it is so good.
The main offender is the top of the cockpit tunnel. This has a tall protruding row of greeblies that looks nothing like either the digital TFA model or the Original Trilogy physical models. Aaaaargh. This is a very difficult problem to fix without damaging the top of the tunnel, especially since there are too many greeblies, they should be recessed and not protruding, and the top greebly strip is almost twice as wide as it should be! It’s quite weird, as the strip looks like the one on the TFA physical set, not the TFA digital model. Of all the drawbacks of this model, this annoys me the most, as it’s a huge hassle to repair. The problem is not fixed with The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker versions of the model.
A lesser crime is that the fine mesh grille that extends around the right side of the cockpit tube (made from fine “Koolshade” window screening mesh on the original 5 footer) is represented by a fairly low-rez piece of stepped plastic, which bulges at the join. It would’ve been so awesome had that piece been a separate component with the superfine detail that Bandai is more than capable of executing!
The left front (port fore) sidewall is disappointing – see next section. The engine block housings in the sidewalls look rather underscale compared to the actual model. Finally, the blocky greeblies connecting the mandibles to the saucer (off a McLaren race car kit) are sunk too far into the saucer, and should really look like they’re resting on it. The top part of those greeblies should have been moulded into the saucer and not the mandible.
A photo of the actual 5 foot Falcon production miniature (left/top) and the Bandai model component (right/bottom). Not quite the same look, sadly. If only Bandai were to re-issue this model with the cockpit tunnel fixed...
Mirror, mirror, on the sidewall. A surprising annoyance of 2015's TFA Falcon model kit is that the sidewalls are mirrored. (i.e.: some components have the same design, flipped around) Apparently the Star Wars Battlefront video game has the same mirrored part problem. I've been told that both Bandai and the video game maker obtained non-final digital models from Lucasfilm somewhat early, apparently for product development reasons. And this data wasn’t complete and had mirrored parts.
Still a big bummer, since the sidewalls are pretty visible, and it’s kind of a pain to correct convincingly. Whereas other details, like the inner starboard mandible, are also mirrored but pretty easy to fix. The lower saucer maintenance pits are generally less easily seen, but are mirrored in the TFA model. And frankly only true rivet counters are going to notice that the hull plates shouldn't be mirrored, but are on the kit.
The top shot is of the actual 5 foot model used to film the Original Trilogy, not The Force Awakens. The lower shot is of the incorrectly mirrored Bandai left (port) sidewall. Not quite the same.
The Last Jedi 2017 update. The late 2017 version of the Bandai 1:144 Millennium Falcon, marketed in conjunction with The Last Jedi, has a couple of changes. The most notable is that the mirrored sidewall problem is fixed! The port mandible sidewall is no longer mirrored, as seen below. The subsequent Rise of Skywalker version of the ship contains the same fix.
Note that this mirror fix is present only with the kits that have the Last Jedi or Rise of Skywalker branding on the box!
Cockpit interior. The cockpit interior is a mixed bag. In a general sense it‘s mostly to-prototype compared to other model kits, given the challenge of fitting the set dimensions into the undersized cockpit tube. The dash console and sidewalls are pretty good in terms of detailing, and modelled after the sets and not the actual miniatures (which I think most people would agree is a sensible approach). Cockpit interior side details are accurate, though moulded into the cockpit tube and not a separate component, owing to the sizes involved.
But the seats are surprisingly bad, because Bandai’s engineers decided to make the seats part of the cockpit floor assembly. Unfortunately, since it’s expensive to have overhanging bits in an injection mould, (because you need sliding sections so you can pull the finished part out) the seats have been grossly oversimplified. The back seats lack proper armrests and overhanging tops, and are bizarrely pointy. The front seats are also wrong — they’re wide and oblong and not round enough. Finally, they have big holes in the seats so you can slot figures into place.
The cockpit is an area where 3D printed replacements (see below) are a good option. Seats aside, the side shelves are too wide and deep, and a weird gap is left in the middle of the door. If you cut the half door in the backwall it’s difficult to construct a visible corridor behind it, since the tunnel is filled with joiner posts inside both the tunnel and saucer.
Glazed or unglazed. Bandai gives you two options for the cockpit windows — one with and one without clear plastic. It’s fantastic to have the choice. I prefer unglazed, partly because the original ILM shooting models lacked glass (reflections would have interfered with the bluescreen process used to photograph the models) and partly because it’s much easier to see cockpit details without glazing.
But there’s no glassless option for the gunport windows. Only clear plastic. And like all clear plastic in model kits, the parts are thick and very slightly ripply, and look injection-moulded and toylike. It’s really a shame that Bandai hasn’t produced windowless frames with little grooves around the inside that diecut acetate 0.1mm sheets can fit into. That would be perfect. However, there are third-party options for both the cockpit and gunport windows (see below).
Cockpit cone. The cockpit cone is a bit toylike. The scribe lines are too deep and the plastic is too thick for the window panes. A real shame, given the level of detail elsewhere. I know that they wanted to make a rugged model without too many thin fragile parts, but thick windowpanes in particular instantly make the model look like a toy. A choice of two cockpit cones – one fragile and delicate, and one thick and tougher – would have been nice. Fortunately you can get a replacement 3D printed cockpit cone (see below).
Docking rings . The docking rings have tons of internal detail on the face, but it's only accurate for the Sequel Trilogy, not the OT. Also the panel lines on the side of the cone are excessively wide and look awful. I ended up making my own replacement docking rings (see below) to solve this one.
Big pipes. The add-on Sequel-style pipes for the sidewalls are oversized (though still mindblowingly delicate at this scale) and lend a toy-like look. Most are easily omitted, if you want to vaguely approximate an Original Trilogy Falcon. Just fill in the holes.
Fixed ramps. Sadly the ramp does not move, and comes as two separate components for either up or down mode. There’s no hinge, and making it movable would involve a fair bit of work. A real shame, as a movable ramp would have been an awesome feature. Still, you have to yank out the landing gear from their rectangular sockets if you want to go into flight mode anyway. Also the TFA/TLJ rectangular radar dish can be rotated but not tilted.
Tiny figures. The 2015 TFA kit gives you both sitting and standing versions of Han, Chewie, Rey, Finn, and BB-8. But the seated figures are disappointing. They’re superhumanly detailed, which is awesome. But they’re sitting there in ramrod straight postures, arms firmly by the side like they’re about to be called to the front of the classroom. Not very convincing – they should be leaning over the controls or hanging onto the seats or doing something.
2017 The Last Jedi Update. The 2017 TLJ version of the kit has a couple of changes here. First, the standing figures are no longer included owing to licensing issues with Disney. Second, the Han and Finn figures are not included – just Rey and Chewbacca. And BB8. No porgs.
2019 The Rise of Skywalker Update. The 2019 version of the kit includes Finn and Poe. Seated only.
Incidentally, I thought it should be possible to find some N scale model railway figurines (1:160 in Europe/North America, and 1:148 in the UK) or military miniature figurines (1:144, like this kit) but I couldn’t find anything. Eventually I found a 3D printed figure representing a seated businessman, with his hands up to hold a newspaper or something (upper left below), and that’s close enough to look like Han as a pilot when painted up. I ended up 3D-printing Chewbacca, Leia, and C-3PO.
Super-basic lighting. Bandai provide around eight cylindrical mounting points for ordinary 3mm LEDs within the model’s interior – the engine, the cockpit, and the gunbay. But strangely their optional lighting kit is expensive and lame, and includes a mere two 3mm LEDs on wires, so you have decide which two of the mounting points you want to light. It runs off three LR44 alkaline button cells, which really sucks since they’re low-capacity and non-rechargeable.
If you want a pre-made kit that lets you slot seven LEDs into the Bandai-supplied LED holders, and you’re okay with non-rechargeable lithium button cells, there’s this third-party product, though I haven’t seen it myself. Beware – many of the other unofficial “kits” marketed for the Bandai Falcon are merely a bag full of electronics, which may or may not be what you want!
Roll your own lighting. But really, the best solution is to add your own fibre optics and LEDs and craft your own lighting. The engine is easy enough, though you might want to build your own reflector with diffuser, in order to have even lighting with no hotspots. There’s a plastic holder for sticking an LED behind the cockpit door, but if you want more complex and subtle lighting you’ll need to replace the backwall. Also, running fibre to the cockpit side interiors, at this scale, is extremely difficult. There are numerous points where ventral lighting can be installed by drilling holes in the shell. There’s enough room in the battery bay area, if you enlarge the slot, to put in one of those lidless plastic battery holders with two AAAs side by side. And two AAAs can run multiple LEDs for some time.
Crappy base. The optional moulded yellow base of the TFA version is supposed to be reminiscent of Jakku’s sand dunes. It's actually really dorky and not at all convincing. The TLJ release has a land-textured base, and the TROS release is sort of grey and maybe supposed to be water-like. Or something.
Instructions. The TFA instructions were initially only available in Japanese, since that’s the product’s intended market. All later releases are in Japanese and English. Either way, they come in a printed booklet filled with high-rez black and white photographs and diagrams. And all the components are labelled with Roman letters and Arabic numerals. If you can’t figure that out, you shouldn’t be building a model kit!
Product availability. Until late 2016 you couldn’t buy Bandai’s Star Wars product line directly outside of Asia. This wasn’t Bandai’s fault. They had a licence with Disney/Lucasfilm to sell Star Wars merchandise only to the Asian market. This has been pretty frustrating for hobbyists, since Bandai’s North American competitor in this field, Revell, makes stuff that’s mostly junk compared to Bandai’s. (one exception – the repackaged Japanese-made Fine Molds kits that Revell resells aren’t bad, though they are costly). However as of late 2016 Bandai now has a North American distributor, BlueFin.
TLJ 2017 VERSION CHANGES
Here's a summary of the known changes between the original 2015 The Force Awakens version of this kit, and the 2017 The Last Jedi version of the kit.
The new kit has a different box design. The new box shows the Falcon's starboard (right) side, angling up to the upper left slightly. It also has the Last Jedi logo in the upper right corner.
The mirrored sidewalls problem is fixed. The new kit has sidewalls accurate to the movie model.
The TFA version shipped with two sets of figures – four seated and four standing, plus BB8. The figures were Han Solo, Chewbacca, Rey, and Finn. The TLJ version ships only with Chewie and Rey, seated only. The standing figures are gone, replaced with a flat cutout owing to licensing issues. BB8 is included in both.
The TFA kit had full fans in the engine deck. The solid plastic grilles clipped on using side clips. The TLJ and TROS kits have rectangular holes for holding in the grilles. This probably works better, but means that if you plan on replacing the solid grilles with etched open ones, you'll have ugly rectangular holes in the middle of the fans unless you fill them with putty or whatever.
The TFA kit had a rectangular plastic base meant to represent the sand dunes of Jakku. The TLJ kit has a rectangular base textured to represent the rocky isles of Ahch-To.
TROS 2019 VERSION CHANGES
The Falcon went through another version of its radar dish for the Rise of Skywalker. The Bandai kit features a round dish, seemingly identical to the ANH era one (right down to the internal ring). The black marks around the ring look like bumps in the photo, though. If you prefer the rectangular dish, that's also included in the kit. Choice is good. Note, however, that the base of the dish has a raised ring around it on the TROS Falcon. That ring was not present on the OT Falcon.
Everything else looks the same, so far, as the Last Jedi model, with the correctly non-mirrored sidewalls. The kit seems to have four figures, and a grey wavey-looking base. It has new box art.
Finally, a CGI rendering of the new Falcon was released, showing a new open maintenance pit behind the dish, where the squareish medium grey panel sits. Bandai have not modelled this pit, which is why I made a 3D printed part for this. For detailed photos of this new Falcon version, check out Schizophonic.
HOW TO TURN THIS KIT INTO AN ORIGINAL TRILOGY FALCON
The Sequel Trilogy Falcon has the same basic proportions as the five foot Falcon used to film the Original Trilogy of 1977-1983 films. But many of the details are different, and you will have to spend a bunch of money on replacement parts. For more information on 3D printed and metal etched parts, see the section below.
Now, as noted above it is possible to convert the Sequel Falcon into an episode V/Empire Strikes Back era Falcon by replacing a bunch of stuff. That will take you most of the way - only the shape of the underside pits will be wrong. However, because the Sequel ships have the same number of landing gear as the Episode V/VI ship, you’d have a ton of work to remove the two extra landing gear boxes to make an Episode IV ship!
Anyway. A full OT conversion to the ESB era will require:
The dish. If you have the TFA or TLJ kit, replace the bowtie dish with a round dish from 308bits. There are three versions with varying degrees of ease of installation. This is not necessary if you buy the TROS version of the kit, though you will need to cut off the ring around the base of the dish for full accuracy.
The cockpit cone. Replace the toylike cone with a new one from 308bits.
The sidewalls all the way around the hull. For a super-basic conversion, omit the pipes and things from the Bandai kit. For accuracy, buy the full sidewall kit from my site, Age of Plastic.
Docking rings. Replace with the two rings from Age of Plastic.
Circular maintenance pits. Cut off the TFA pipes for a rough approximation. Or replace with new maintenance pits from Age of Plastic.
Undersaucer pits. These are a problem, as the lower TFA pits are a totally different shape from any of the OT pits. The Age of Plastic replacement pits have a similar part arrangement to the OT ones and aren't mirrored like the TFA pits. But it's a ton of work to alter the actual shape of the pits, as you have to build up new saucer panelling. This is the one area where it's difficult to get a fully 100% OT look.
Cannons. Replace with Age of Plastic cannons.
Gunbay turret windows. Replace with 308bits window frames.
Cockpit tunnel ridge. The greeblies are wrong on the Bandai kit. Replace with an Age of Plastic part. This is, unfortunately, a lot of work to install as you need to do a lot of patching and scribing.
The engine grille. Replace the TFA grille with an SE one from Age of Plastic.
Optional extra stuff that isn't strictly TFA or OT, but makes for a better model:
The engine grilles. Green Strawberry and Paragrafix both make etched metal see-through grilles.
Cockpit interior walls. Green Strawberry and Paragrafix both make etched metal walls.
Cockpit interior details. 308bits make detailed replacement seats and consoles. They're not quite right, as the front console has ANH details but the back has ESB details, but they're close.
Gunbay interiors. Green Strawberry, Paragrafix and 308bits all make replacement gunbay interiors.
CONCLUSION
So that’s what I have to say about the Bandai 1:144 Millennium Falcons. It’s a trio of thoughtfully designed and well-constructed products with only a few flaws, and definitely worth its remarkably reasonable price.
Here’s a promotional video on Bandai’s Star Wars model kits, if you’re interested in seeing their technicians earnestly describing their love for making quality products.
THE DREAM IN 1:72
For years, us nerds were dreaming that Bandai would release a larger-scale model, using their know-how and data files. They did a teaser showing at a 2015 Tokyo trade fair, displaying a 1:72 Falcon with an Original Trilogy dish (though sadly with the same bad cockpit tunnel greeblies as the 1:144!). A 1:72 Falcon would warm the cockles of many a nerdy heart, but Bandai gave no release date — or even a commitment to selling the thing at all!
2015 and 2016 came and went. Bandai announced a box-scale super-miniature palm-sized Falcon, which strangely combines both Original Trilogy features (round dish and ANH-style landing gear) and TFA features (piped-up sidewalls and docking rings) for late 2016, but that was it.
Then, in early summer 2017, the bomb hit. Bandai’s “Perfect Grade” 1:72 Millennium Falcon was announced to much rejoicing. A 1:72 superdetailed model of the ship, as it appeared on-screen in 1977. It was released in August 2017 in Japan.
I've obtained a PG Falcon, and have written up a full review, for those interested!
A LOT OF SPECIAL MODIFICATIONS
A whole cottage industry has sprung up in the world of models — usually small businesses or individuals selling kits of detail items for “accurizing,” or improving a product. Since these companies are mostly Joe or Josephine Q. Modeller working out of a garage or shed, it can mean you get fantastic attention to detail and truly personal service, or it can mean you get erratic production schedules, indifferent customer service, and uneven quality control. Or both!
In the case of the Bandai Falcon, there are two basic types of add-on detail available – those made using 3D printing technology, and those made from photo-etched brass sheets. (the most traditional type of extra detail uses resin casting, but I don’t know of any resin-cast parts for the Bandai Falcon)
These enhancements offer great boosts in accuracy and appearance. But they also cost quite a bit – it’s easy to spend more on add-on parts than the reasonably priced Bandai model – and require medium to advanced modelmaking skills.
3D PRINTED PARTS
3D printing refers to producing plastic (or sometimes metal) objects based on models built on a computer. Instead of printing a picture to a flat 2D surface like a normal printer, a 3D printer builds objects from thin layers of material. A lot of companies now offer 3D printing services, with Shapeways being one of the most notable.
So, what is Shapeways? Basically it's a company based in the Netherlands and New York that produces 3D printed objects. Anyone can design a 3D model for something, upload the design to Shapeways, and open an online store for selling the products. Shapeways handles the money-handling, printing, and shipping. Since the designs are printed on demand, it makes the perfect marketplace for low-volume speciality items like hobbyist modelmaking.
Sometimes people talk about buying parts from “Shapeways”, but that's not really accurate – Shapeways aren’t the designer – they're just the hired manufacturer and online retailer!
PROS AND CONS OF 3D PRINTING
Generally speaking, 3D printed components aren’t cheap and definitely are not for casual beginners. Here are some points to keep in mind.
Print on demand comes at a price. Literally. A handful of replacement components with shipping is probably going to be more expensive than buying the damn Bandai Falcon from Japan in the first place! Shapeways ain't cheap, especially for fine detail products. Shipping is no bargain either – and they ship from New York or the Netherlands, depending on where you live.
The parts take work to install. Most aren’t drop-in replacements for the Bandai parts – they typically involve fitting and sanding and general preparation. They can’t snap together the way Bandai’s parts do – you have to glue them with epoxy or superglue.
While 3D printing is amazing, it isn’t magic. Even the highest print quality still results in parts with slightly rough or stepped surfaces that require cleanup, as shown below. Parallel print lines are often visible.
The parts are available in two grades of material – “frosted ultra detail” or FUD and the slightly costlier “frosted extreme detail” or FXD. The “extreme” version is shown above. Both are made from the same white or semi-translucent (depending on thickness and if it’s been fully cleaned) UV-hardened acrylic plastic, though the “extreme” variety is printed at a higher resolution of 16 micron layers versus 35. This can make a difference for smaller objects, but isn't always a huge difference.
Neither type is as smooth as Bandai’s injection-moulded styrene, unfortunately. Both have the slight stepped texture problem common to present-day 3D printing technology, though the “extreme” type is more subtle.
Wax is used as a temporary support material during the creation of these particular 3D prints, and some oily residue may be adhering to your parts upon arrival. It’s important to clean this off carefully before painting, since paint won’t stick reliably to waxy surfaces. And once the material is clean, it’s usually necessary to sand and prepare the rougher surfaces carefully to get the best results. Here’s my full article on the subject of preparing 3D prints.
Because most replacement parts are really accurate and close to scale, they’re unavoidably quite delicate owing to their size. Acrylic resin is quite brittle – not slightly flexible like the styrene used in model kits – so keep that in mind when working with the parts. (for example, don’t use normal sprue nippers on them as the plastic is likely to split)
Note also that the longevity of 3D printed parts is currently unknown — the technology just hasn‘t been around that long. We simply don’t know what shape they’ll be in in 10-20 years’ time. Hopefully UV-cured resin components will hold up okay, and not break down from exposure to UV or light over time. Painting with good opaque paint should help by blocking UV.
Still, if you want to super-detail your model and bring it closer to the way the Falcon looked in the Original Trilogy days, you can’t beat these products. It’d take a lot of highly skilful scratchbuilding to get this level of detail, and at the scale we’re talking that’s really really hard.
THE AGE OF PLASTIC
This is where I blow my own proverbial horn, as the Age of Plastic on Shapeways is my project.
So, why did I get into this whole business of designing my own stuff? I’d already bought a number of 3D printed items from 308 Bits (see the next section), such as a dish antenna, a cockpit cone, and a cockpit interior. And these parts are really good.
But Tony doesn't make everything, and I wanted to go all out. I wanted saucer sidewalls, maintenance pits, and engine grilles which correctly reflect the pre-TFA designs. I wanted to model the canonical original * 5 foot Falcon, not that 32 inch Johnny come lately!
So, necessity and invention and all that - I busted out some CAD software and down the rabbit hole I went.
* Almost. I wasn't prepared to do all the hull plating replacement work needed to remove the two ESB landing gear boxes. So my model is of ESB-era provenance.
Sidewalls for the Bandai 144 Falcon.
These are modelled as much as possible after the 5 foot OT miniature. A huge thank-you to all the people who have photographed the exhibition appearances of the 5 footer over the years! It's awesome having such a wealth of detailed source material.
I also tried to include the greeblies that have fallen off since shooting, based on archival photos of the ANH Falcon. And one bonus of building my own sidewalls is that I also fixed the mirrored sidewall problem that afflicts the TFA Bandai 144.
I wanted accurate five footer docking rings, not ones that look like those on the 32" Falcon. Plus I wanted the ability to install pushbuttons into the rings, so I could have hidden power switches. So I designed my own. Just the cone parts, though – they attach to the existing octagonal mounting plates. I also built the blast damage into the side of the starboard ring.
I've tried to replicate the look of the less crowded pits as they were in the OT days. That means replacing the busier TFA-era Bandai pits.
The semi-trapezoidal underside pits were a compromise in accuracy, however. The TFA pits are symmetrical in shape (though not content) and fairly wide. The ESB Falcon had narrower and asymmetrical pits. However, to avoid the problem of rebuilding the hull plating, I made replacements that simply drop into the Bandai TFA pits. My model is thus not 100% screen accurate. Oh, well.
The engine is an interesting problem. The OT films never actually showed the Falcon's engines. All you ever saw was a bright wall of white light coming out the rear end.I could be a purist and replicate the shooting model by sticking a blank white piece of plastic at the back. But that looks unconvincing and dull when it's off.Another option is to replicate the finely spaced rectangular grid seen in 1997's Star Wars Special Edition. Or the Fine Molds variant from 2005, which has an engine block apparently designed by ILM behind the Special Edition grille.Super-accurate TFA engine design.
Although I’m not planning on building a TFA Falcon, I did look into the engine design that they used. Unfortunately Lucasfilm and ILM haven’t, as far as I know, publicly released any details as to what this design looks like. Everybody’s had to reverse-engineer it from screencaps. Until now!
I was lucky enough to get a sketch of an engine block from a very kind contact associated with the production. And my model is based on that. Now, it’s not 100% screen accurate and I can’t claim official approval. But it looks pretty close to the final movie version, which is cool.
So. Which version? I'm leaning toward the SE grille with the Fine Molds engine as I think it looks interesting. But the big advantage of the TFA engine design is that it's more open and airy than the FM engine. And that means it will let through much more light from the internal LEDs given the small scale of this model. The FM block has teeny tiny square holes.
I've printed all these variants but haven't decided yet. For more information, check out my Age of Plastic site.
3D PRINTED PARTS FROM 308BITS
TonyRR/308 Bits, aka Antonio Regidor from Spain, also sells really nice 3D printed products via the Shapeways 3D printing and distribution company. In fact, he's the main champion and pioneer of Star Wars 3D-printed parts. And his work inspired me to do the stuff I've done.
Anyway. He’s designed all manner of 3D-printed Original Trilogy Falcon parts. He bills the parts as being for the “Banday” Falcon, to skirt trademark issues, so if you’re trying to find them on the Shapeways site, search for that.
308BITS 3D-PRINTED PART SUMMARY
The following are 3D printed parts from 308Bits/TonyRR which I’ve bought and can describe authoritatively:
Cockpit cones. Designed in the true 5 foot style – a bit stubby, with the flat facets to the front surface. Superduper delicate, but much more convincing to look at than the two-part toylike Bandai original, and it lets you see a tiny bit more inside the cockpit. It does take a little work to patch and sand the printing lines.
Docking rings. These are the protruding truncated cones which stick out above the ramps. Unfortunately the version of the 308Bits product that I bought had a significant error! As seen in the photo above, the cylinders themselves are too long and too parallel-sided. They match the dimensions of the 32" model's cones, not the 5 footer's. It's a shame, as the internal detailing is extremely accurate to the 5 foot model. These rings also have solid triangles in place of proper curved brackets, and the port ring lacks the laser blast damage seen on both the models and the sets.
Apparently Tony since has revised the model to look more like the true 5 footer profile, but I haven't bought replacements from him since I ended up making my own screen-accurate parts.
Original Trilogy round radar dish and mount. Separate dish and mount components which you can glue together at the angle of your choice. Or you could drill out a fine hole in the mount and add a wire as an axle for a tiltable dish. Note that this is technically the ANH version of the dish, since it has the ring on the inner cone that later movie versions, including the 32" Falcon, lack. The ring is not easily removed. Excellent small greeblies, but the curved dish-like surfaces have some 3D printing artefacts which need careful priming and gentle sanding to remove. (you don’t want to lose details!) Tony sells three versions of this dish.
1) Separate dish and mount parts. This version requires the most care to assemble, as you have to precisely align and glue two V-shaped brackets to the dish and mount each. Also, because the cylindrical mount is supposed to protrude through the hull plates in the 5 Foot Falcon, you need to cut a hole in the Bandai top saucer, and scratch-build your own mounting plate under the hull, to install it. This is actually a fair bit of work, but it gets you something mostly screen-accurate to the Original Trilogy 5 Foot Falcon. I didn’t actually get this version.
To give you a sense of the work involved to install the dish... On the left: the Bandai hull with the original protruding dish mount. I’ve started drilling out small holes around the ring in preparation for its removal. On the right: the prepared hole, almost ready for a platform to be installed to hold the 3D-printed mount. The triangular wedge is a repair from where I cut out too much material, and I still have to notch a couple of the plates.
2) Separate dish and mount, both with integrated triangular brackets. Less work to fit, as the two triangular brackets are already built into their respective parts. But you still have to cut the saucer up to install it. This option is cheaper than buying the dish and mount separately, and is also mostly screen-accurate. This is the version I bought.
3) Dish and mount designed to fit the Bandai saucer base. This version is, by far, the easiest to install as you simply glue the mount to the existing cylindrical base that’s moulded into the Bandai saucer. No cutting and reconstructing are required! If you’re a novice modelmaker or don’t feel like screwing around for hours making holes, this is the version for you! The drawback? The base is not entirely screen-accurate. Tony made this version after I suggested that a lot of people would have difficulty modifying the hull, but I haven’t bought or seen this version myself.
Replacement gun turret windows. These look great, but are incredibly fine, delicate and easily broken, because they’re close to scale. When installed they are recessed below the window opening (because the clear Bandai pieces protrude from the outer ring), which doesn’t quite look right, though it does protect them a bit. You have to file/trim down the opening if you want them to mount flush.
Replacement consoles, cockpit bases, and backwalls. Bandai’s rendition of the T-shaped console/control panel (installed into the cockpit base, below right) is actually not bad, especially given how tiny the part is. It’s a slightly too narrow interpretation of the TFA version. Unfortunately the rest of the cockpit is disappointing — the shelf is unconvincingly wide, and the seats are terrible (see below). How could anybody, let alone a 7'6" Wookiee, actually climb into either front seat, given how wide and jammed-in they are?
By contrast, TonyRR’s 3D printed product (below left) isn’t quite as smoothly moulded as the injection piece (the shelves in particular need fine sanding), but has a ton of super-accurate detail, albeit as a weird combination of ANH and ESB features. It has the ANH frontmost panel. But it also has ESB/TFA yokes, ESB/TFA port-side levers, and the ESB small boxy back panel greebly.
If you’re going for an ANH Falcon, cut off the yokes and port-side levers, and file down the back box to a circular ring. For an ESB Falcon you could file the front panel flat, slice the Bandai TFA greeblies off its console’s front panel, glue them on the printed replacement and you’d be close. I asked Tony if he could narrow the shelves to something closer to the width of the blueprints, and he’s done so in the version above – which looks great! The Bandai version’s shelves look like the gunwales on a pedalboat.
Replacement cockpit seats. TonyRR’s seats are insanely tiny, but are as perfect as you can expect given today’s 3D printers. Note that buying them on their own only makes sense if you plan on keeping the Bandai cockpit base. It’s a better deal to buy them combined with the console and backwall and whatnot, owing to the layout charges from Shapeways.
The following are parts I haven’t seen in person:
Replacement quad cannon guns and yoke supports, 5 foot style. For the total completist, since the Bandai cannons can be trimmed down to be a bit more accurate, and this replacement yoke support isn't really any better than the original. Bandai’s cannons are a bit undersized and more TFA than Original Trilogy, and the yoke support is a bit curved rather than being flat and angular. But note that the Bandai styrene material is slightly flexible and thus slightly more resilient than 3D printed acrylic. Also, TonyRR doesn’t make yokes so you have to cut down the Bandai ones. No yoke. Bit odd, though, as the Bandai yoke is pretty unrealistic.
Landing gear rings. The 3D versions have square perforations, unlike the solid plate-like Bandai ones. I went for etched brass ones (below) rather than 3D printed since the material can be thinner, albeit more fragile.
Replacement engine grilles and nozzles for a more detailed representation of the gridwork. They don’t seem to have the angled internal parts seen in TFA.
TFA rectangular radar dishes. The Bandai ones are designed to be a bit sturdier and so are chunkier and less accurate than these detailed replacements.
Gun bay interiors. A superdetailed drop-in replacement. I already have the etched brass parts for this (see below), so I’m using those instead. Since it’s difficult to see into this area in the completed model anyway, I’m going for the Bandai gunner chair. Which isn’t great, but it’s adequate.
See-through circular exhaust grilles. I went for etched brass ones, which can be made finer than the 3D part. I think the 3D grilles can be cheaper though, if all you want are the grilles.
Replacement cockpit backwalls. I haven’t bought a 3D-printed cockpit backwall, since I’m going for the etched brass PE approach (see below). The printed backwall is predrilled for 0.25mm fibre optics. This works well and produces a nicely lit backwall, but the drawback is that all the lights are circular. Most of the Falcon’s lights are square or rectangles, though of course this isn’t going to be noticeable from a normal viewing distance from the model. The 3D printed backwall is also missing the port side (Han side) lower light bar.
R2 UNITS, 3D PRINTED
Other designers are making interesting products as well. For example, two makers now sell (again via Shapeways) unbelievably tiny 1:144 R2-D2 units, suitable for dioramas and the like. Paint them to be your faves!
Gafsa Design (a single detailed R2 unit)
Winup Scale Models (a sixpack of less detailed R2 fun)
The Winup ones are shown below. If they seem a bit rough, look at the ruler – they’re a miniscule 7.8mm (that’s just under 5/16" for you crazy people not using metric) in height! At this insanely tiny size, detail is affected heavily by the current limits of 3D printing technology. The slight bumpiness of the surface is pretty apparent. But I’d say the real limit is your ability to paint in the dtails!
(note: Disney is apparently ordering hobbyists who make R2 designs to take them down, so grab them while you can...)
PHOTO-ETCHED BRASS
ParaGrafix and Green Strawberry both sell nice photo-etched (PE) brass kits – thin flat metal sheets known as frets, with tiny components acid-etched in. These high-resolution parts let the experienced modeller bump up the appearance of a model by providing key super-sharp details. Like the 3D parts, they are not for kids or beginners. You have to snip the pieces off the flat sheet, paint the raw brass with primer, many parts must be carefully folded into shape, and the pieces must be glued into place.
PROS AND CONS OF PHOTO-ETCHED BRASS
In the case of the Bandai Falcon, etched details offer three main advantages over stock plastic parts. First, etched grilles can be made for the six circular fan covers on the back of the engine deck. These can be etched sufficiently finely to make see-through grilles, so you can see the simulated fans underneath. This is something so crazy that even ILM didn’t bother – the big 5 foot Falcon had beautifully constructed true grilles made from Koolshade window screening, but the 32" version simply had solid black discs. Of course even the finest etched brass can’t get close to true-scale reproduction of the 5 footer grilles when reduced to 1:144, but they nonetheless look pretty great.
Second, you can replace the round cockpit backwall with an etched piece filled with tiny holes. This functions as a light mask when used with a printed decal or paper sheet, eliminating the problem of printed backwalls glowing unconvincingly in supposedly opaque areas. The big advantage of using such a PE mask is that the etched holes can be square or rectangular. If you were to light the backwall using fibre optics then all the lights can only be circles.
Third, very fine details that are solid lumps of plastic in the Bandai kit, such as the perforated circular rings around the landing gear, can be delicate thin objects with tiny square holes. Done well, the etching process can produce unbelievably accurate detail.
There are a couple of main disadvantages. First, PE parts are extremely delicate, easily damaged (both during shipping and during installation), and difficult to work with. You have to prime and paint them carefully, and attach them with superglue (ideally with an accelerant to speed up setting time) or epoxy. If you’ve never worked with PE, spend some time viewing online instructional videos, like these ones. It’s worth it.
Second, if you have a brass wall such as the cockpit backwall or the gunport sidewalls, you can indeed have beautifully sharp square light sources. But the appearance of the wall when not lit can be a problem. Makers generally supply printed paper stickers or decals to go on the brass sheet, with the idea that the printed detail will look crisp and sharp. This works if the printing is done well, but then you have a totally flat and unconvincing wall when it’s not backlit. You’re well-advised to glue on small physical greeblies wherever you can, to make the wall look less like a fake sheet of printed cardboard!
While similar, there are differences between the Paragrafix and Green Strawberry products.
PARAGRAFIX’S BRASS PARTS
Paragrafix’s Paul Bodensiek (USA) includes both the fan grilles and the other components in a single etched fret. The sheet also includes the gunbay walls, gunbay window frames (since these are brass, they may be a bit sturdier than the extremely thin 3D printed ones), 8 landing gear rings (thoughtfully there’s one extra of these delicate pieces in case you screw one up), and various other bits such as the ramp door (though it’s flat, not curved as it is in the movie).
Not included: the cockpit’s interior sidewalls or replacements for the landing gear hatch doors. The hatch doors don’t matter since you can scratchbuild thinner doors than the Bandai ones yourself in minutes, using styrene sheet. But unfortunately the absence of cockpit sidewalls is a bummer for me. Although the sidewalls are stupidly hard to work on, and difficult to see once the model is finished, I do want actual lighting on the cockpit sides and ceiling, as crazy as that sounds.
Because ParaGrafix products cost more for me to buy than Green Strawberry’s, (I live in the UK, and shipping costs from the US are higher) I haven’t bought and thus haven’t examined the ParaGrafix Bandai fret in person. So this does not constitute a review. However ParaGrafix has a long-standing reputation in the modelmaking community for quality.
GREEN STRAWBERRY’S BRASS PARTS
Green Strawberry‘s Lukáš Zátopek (Czech Republic) sells two products for the Bandai Falcon – one consisting solely of the fan grilles, and one consisting of all the other bits. I suppose that could be good if you only want the grilles, but annoyingly it ends up much more expensive if you want both sets of parts. The frets don’t include a spare landing gear ring, or gunbay window frames, which is a shame. Though one big point in favour of the Green Strawberry grilles is that they include separate components for the raised bars on the grilles, whereas they're all flat on the ParaGrafix grilles. This gives a little extra dimensionality and realism to the GS grilles.
The main Green Strawberry sheet for the 144 Falcon includes the cockpit sidewalls, the landing gear hatch doors (though they’re flat, featureless, and lack the paneling detail), a replacement TFA radar dish bracket, a Harrison-Ford-leg-breaking curved ramp door, and a few extras such as near-microscopic console steering yokes. If you’re keeping the Bandai rear seats there’s a pair of ultrasmall fold-up headrests to make the seats look more like the ejection seats of the real sets. But the strangest part is a tiny curved bit to simulate the quilted curved part on the ceiling of the cockpit. That’s a part that’s nigh-impossible to see when the cockpit cone is installed!
Unfortunately, there are two problems with the Green Strawberry cockpit components.
First, they were overly ambitious in terms of putting ultra-small holes for lights in the sidewall and backwall components, or else they didn’t do proper quality control during the etching – because many holes aren’t etched all the way through! Very frustrating, given that their advertising photo shows a picture of a backwall with some of those holes backlit. The photo below shows the areas with incomplete etching on my backwall sample.
Note you can’t easily open up those holes with a drill or even a pin, as they‘re so tiny! (for scale – this piece is exactly 2 cm, about 3/4 inch, at its widest point) In fact, the filled-in holes are probably too tiny - they're basically too small to be usable light masks at this size, so I ended up drilling them out with 0.3mm and 0.5mm drill bits to get circular holes about the same size as a the midsized square ones. If you think I’m exaggerating check out the shot below – that’s the tip of a very fine beading needle, which was too big to pierce the holes! You can easily see the areas which weren’t successfully etched all the way through.
Green Strawberry’s answer when I emailed them about the etching problem? They apologized and offered a refund if I hadn’t opened the package. Oh well.
Another point of complaint – the circular display screen on the copilot side of the backwall (in the upper left above) has no provisions for lighting at all. I had to drill out a neat hole to illuminate the screen properly. By contrast the ParaGrafix backwall has a few odd dots of light in that display, but doesn’t expose the entire area to light either.
I’ve seen a high-rez photo of the ParaGrafix equivalent part, and the etched holes are fewer and slightly larger on the backwall, no doubt avoiding this problem and making it easier to light. It really is a shame since the rest of the Green Strawberry fret is very nicely done – it's precise, sharp and cleanly etched, as you can see.
The second major problem is that, while the internal cockpit side panels are mostly a close match to the real TFA sets (which are based on the ESB/ROTJ sets), there are two notable errors. The sections marked in red to the right are modelled after ANH panels – which is a problem since the Bandai Falcon is TFA and so should have the deeper Empire-style cockpit interior.
Incidentally, this scan also shows the holes that were properly etched (they show as black) and the countless ones that weren’t (they show up as gold).
I haven’t seen ParaGrafix’s backwall print, but Green Strawberry’s isn’t very good. It’s a paper printout that you can cut up and glue to the etchings. It’s probably from a colour laser printer, but sadly has a lot of halftoning that obscures details. I ended up making my own replacement print, and fixed the ANH/ESB panel problem as well.
So that’s the choice, for PE parts. Either you get a product that’s missing the cockpit sidewalls (if you care, that is – I’m sure many people don’t, since the internal sides are a pain to work on and mostly obscured once the cockpit cone is in place). Or you get a product that includes the sidewalls, but is missing the gunbay windows and has partly flawed etching work for the sidewall and backwall. Now you may not care about the flaws – as you can see above, all the larger light holes are etched fine. It’s just the tiny ones that aren’t.
In terms of brass etching, I’d love to see a long strip of etched vent for the outer (starboard) half of the cockpit tube – to simulate the Koolshade material used in the original movie miniature. In terms of other PE components that nobody would ever make, it’d also be fun to see covers for the dash console, replacement triangular cross beams for the rear starboard access pit, and a cockpit interior corridor. Sadly I doubt anyone is going to produce such parts – not much of a market, I’m sure. Especially the cockpit corridor, as you have to cut a lot of support posts and other material out from the Bandai model to install one.
OTHER REVIEWS/PAGES
Model Kits Review (and the finished product)
Building an ANH version of the Bandai Falcon (Britmodeller)
Accurizing the Bandai Falcon (ARC Discussions)