Rogue Leader - Bandai Snowspeeder

[Stokesy44]

I first saw The Empire Strikes Back in a double bill with Star Wars at the Well Hall roundabout cinema in southeast London. Empire immediately became my favourite film and 34 years later it still is.

For my 17th birthday I received an ex-rental video of the movie for approx. £30. Movies took years to come to video back then so to have an ex-rental copy before you could buy it in the shops made me feel top of the world. I still have the video but obviously have nothing to play it on anymore!

To me the snow battle is still the best land battle in the saga, the merciless advance of the walkers, the speeders taking them down while the troops on the ground heroically defend the power generators.... From an SFX viewpoint the battle is as good as anything done today and that says a lot for the ILM crew at the time and the director, Irvin Kershner.

When I saw this SIG, I knew I had to enter and after I saw the new Bandai releases, I knew it had to be the Speeder.

The box is fantastic, shiny black with great pics and fantastic art on the front


Inside, the box is stacked with plastic, its beautifully crisp, no flash or mould marks AT ALL.





Instruction booklet is beautiful but its in Japanese. Its not a problem though, it virtually builds itself


I was so keen to get stuck in I approached the kit like an armour subject - do everything possible before getting the paint out. The result was major construction done in less than a morning. Its a cliché, I know, but this thing goes together like a Swiss watch.

Upper hull and rear bulkhead. The kit's like a sandwich, the upper hull has all the bits on it and the cockpit sides and panels, the lower hull has the seats for the pilots and slots in nicely.


Blaster barrels and boxing






Cockpit detail inserts



Out comes the paint - cockpit sidewalls, seats and IPs - there are decals for these but I didn't use them, too fiddly for not much result.



Not sure I like yellow for the targeting screen, may go for green instead.



Inserted into the hull




As mentioned, I may change the targeting screen for Dak, then its onto painting him and Luke. I am making the kit closed up and in flight so the cockpit canopy will be down and the air foils positioned appropriately once I decide how it will be positioned, probably banking and in a slight climb.

All good fun - may the Force be with us!

[Pacheco]

Looking good.

[Stokesy44]

Painted Luke and Dak. Felt a bit sorry for Dak, given he's gonna get blown up then squashed - not a fun day out when you consider he was going to take on the whole empire by himself. Still, cant fault the guy for trying, if only he'd managed to set his approach vector, he might have made it!

Ok, didn't have any orange paint so it was Tamiya yellow and red mixed together for the flight suit. then black, grey and white for the details and finally some yellow for the visors. Decals for the helmets was a nice touch too. They don't look bad and will look tasty through the glass canopy once done.






I've decided to have the canopy down given the speeder will be 'in flight' on its stand. The closed canopy comes as a one piece plastic frame and a one piece clear insert, nice and easy to mask - and like everything else, it all fits nicely.





Looking like a proper speeder now. Next up is black primer all over then white/grey all over. I don't think I'll use the decals for the darker panels, paint will look better and the areas in question will be easy to mask.

Just a nice little kit that does exactly what it says on the tin!

[kiwigav]

Looking top notch.
Its a great kit...enjoy

[Stokesy44]

Finally go some more done on the speeder. I abandoned my plan of using black primer as a pre-shade and went with my tried and tested light grey primer followed by a panel line pre-shade. I have never painted a model black before painting and given the speeder is predominantly off-white, I just didn't trust myself to get it right!

So, on with the pre-shade. Pretty liberal in its application, there's tons of surface detail to bring out and plenty of nice angles on the hull and the blaster pods. The underside will look interesting too as there are subtle angles and lines which will be brought out once the paint goes on.

The kit continues to thrill me and being a SW geek I still spend far too long just cradling the thing in my hand and admiring it.





The model as it appears in the film is off-white or a very pale grey. Any grey I had was too dark and I wanted to preserve the lightness of the movie prop. I used flat white with just a drop of black to add the colour. I really like the way it has come out.







I have decided to use the decals for the rear blaster pods after all. There is too much detail to ignore with the red outlines so I will give them a go. Next up then is to apply a coat of future and get stuck into the decal work. Fun, fun, fun - although I may be side-tracked by the RWC games on this afternoon!!

As Del said to Rodney, 'Well, we've had worse days....'

[Stokesy44]

A most productive weekend. A good coat of future followed the painting then on with the decals. They went down fine with a bit of Micro Set, then more future to seal.

A black pastel wash and a wipe down to finish - a very wet wipe down as I didn't want to dirty the colour down too much. Added a little streaking here and there using the remains of the wash and applied with the good old cotton bud. Finally, a little silver dry brushing on the blaster pods to bring out the lovely surface detail.

AT-ATs beware, she's ready for action!











I want it banking to the left (as the left air-brake is up) and climbing but the available angles on the stand are a bit steep, I may amend them by cutting the teeth out of the joints and gluing them at a lesser angle of attack.







Summing up then - a beautiful little kit, great price and a great amount of fun to do. I'm well pleased. Luke and Dak are ready to kick some Imperial butt!

[Twokidsnosleep]

Pretty darn cool....you did an awesome job on this , looks perfect

[Stokesy44]

Pretty darn cool....you did an awesome job on this , looks perfect

Thanks mate, much appreciated.

[Coen]

Very very fine work.
The reveal was awesome too.

[Stokesy44]

Very very fine work.
The reveal was awesome too.

Thanks, that means a lot.