The new year is officially here, and with it my family has been doing all sorts of cleaning and re-organizing so as to kick things off on the right foot.
My personal cleanup effort has mainly involved tidying up the basement, where I found these little display bases on a shelf:
These have been sitting there since December 2021, when I got - and intended to build - three Star Wars model kits.
But then I got intimated by the amount of detailing and weathering work that would be involved, so I only ended up building one of them, while assembling the display stands (and only the display stands) for the other two.
But now I’m tired of seeing these stands lying around, so I vowed to build at least one of these kits before the end of the holiday break:
This proved easier than I expected, partly due to the fact that it is small and easy to assemble, and partly because the weathering and detailing work wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. I got this all done in the span of a lazy afternoon on New Year’s Day.
Let’s talk about it.
About the Razor Crest
Here is what Wookiepedia has to say about this ship:
The Razor Crest was an ST-70 class Razor Crest M-111 Assault Ship used by the Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin. Prior to the rise of the Galactic Empire, it served as a military patrol craft. The vessel eventually fell into the hands of Din Djarin, who lived and worked from it as he hunted bounties in the Outer Rim Territories in the early years of the New Republic. He used it throughout the search for the child named Grogu, and continued to use it on the quest to find Grogu's species in 9 ABY.
The Razor Crest is one of those perfect little Star Wars ships. It’s bigger than a fighter, but much smaller and more intimate and more personable than a giant capital class cruiser. It’s basically a home (and home office) that can fly, the kind of thing that epitomizes the romantic ideal of living free in outer space.
Also, according to one of its designers, it’s based on the A-10 Warthog, which, yeah, I can see it:
About the Model Kit
I was very excited when this kit was first announced, but when I finally saw it on store shelves I was underwhelmed. I was expecting it to be reasonably large, similar in size to Bandai’s 1⁄72 scale X-Wings. Instead, it’s closer in size to their tinier kits, the kind that could fit in a matchbox.
Oh well, let’s get on with it.
Assembly
Here are the parts:
Considering the size of the model, it’s a fairly solid amount of parts. I didn’t end up taking any WIP photos, though if you need to know how it all goes together, here are the instructions, (not so) conveniently printed on the inside of the box:
In terms of decals, we get some black ones for the cockpit, as well as some markings that go along the sides of the ship. Lastly, there are decals that go around the exhaust port of the thrusters. We’ll look closer at those later on.
Detailing
Like I said at the top of the post, I put this build on the backburner out of fear that it’d take a lot of work to weather and detail it. I feel like this isn’t the first time I’ve fallen into such a trap; however, the truth about a lot of Star Wars kits is that you can take (or at least start wtih) a shotgun approach to weathering and panel lining. You don’t even need to use a paint wash (though that can help in some spots). All you need to do is cover it with black paint and wipe away the excess. You get instant panel lines, and if some of the paint lingers in certain cracks and corners, you get instant weathering.
Then all you have to do is add some weathering compound here and there, and you’re pretty much done.
Top Coating
I didn’t topcoat this model. This time it wasn’t out of laziness or anything. This is simply a rare case where the metallic finish of the plastic actually looks pretty good. It’s not too matte, but also not too glossy. I didn’t want to find out the hard way that a matte (or gloss) topcoat would make it look worse, so I decided to leave it be.
Finished
Here now is the finished Razor Crest:
I was skeptical of this kit for the last two years, but in the end it’s won me over:
- Like I said, the metallic finish on it is pretty good, especially once you add some panel lines and weathering
- As it turns out, it’s actually the perfect size. It’s big enough to capture all the important details, without being so big that it needs it’s own shelf or anything
- Some of the decals blend onto the body better than I expected, even without topcoat
I’m starting to wish I had built this sooner, though better late than never I suppose.