Snowspeeder

  • cockpit rebuild
  • model to coin comparison
  • 3/4 view
  • aft view

This is the smaller Revell Snowspeeder snap kit (view on Scalemates) with some modifications. The cockpit canopy was rebuilt from scratch, because the one that was in the kit is way too thick and looks very toy-ish, which drags the whole model down a lot imho. The protruding circles on top of the font and back cockpit dash had to be sanded down, they're completely made up for no reason and weird. The pilots aren't great either, so it's probably better not to use them. Otherwise just regular mold line cleanup, with some brute force applied to get proper fitment. As for the scale - Revell says this is 1:52, Bandai's speeder is 1:48 but it's about 20% larger, so take it/them with a grain of salt.

The model came pre-painted in the original release, now there's a variant without paint as well. It doesn't matter which one you choose because if you want a decent paint job, you have to completely re-paint it anyway.

I applied pre-shading to the panel lines with almost no wash after base paint - the panel lines are very deep. I used the salt technique to add some color modulation to the grey color. The wear spots on red markings, which show the base grey, were created with masking fluid. Initially I overdid it, so I had to overpaint some spots with red again to remove them. Chipping on edges is hand painted, following Night Shift's steel chipping method. The small red squares are cut from decals of some other kits; the ZZ symbols are painted using masking tape as a stencil. The rebox now contains decals so it may save you work if you want to have these as well.

Overall - if you want a great snowspeeder, go for the Bandai model, which is way more accurate, bigger and better fitting. This one is dirt cheap though - you can get 4 for the same price as 1 Bandai, so if you're building a diorama and willing to put in some effort, it may be worth it.