Monday, March 3, 2014

Time for a little X-Wing....




This Falcon, after much cutting and scrapingwas lit using Poweredplay Gaming's lighting products, which, true to their word, are easy to mess around with and install. If I have a complaint, it's that they don't (yet) have a coin-battery cell that fits into FFG's Slave-1


Cringe-inducing, isn't it? There's enough room in there for the board and switch, but the big honking 9v cell just won't fit. Not to worry, though; I found some on Amazon, complete with wiring, which will hopefully fill the bill. The FFG ships are made of a resilient plastic with the right amount of form-holding bendability, so once I took the battery out and clamped the bottom plate back in place, she looked like she'd just come out of the box. The Falcon's rear plate clamps back on its little peg quite snugly as well, without the need for magnets. I honestly wish FFG would come out with a hobby series of unpainted ships on sprues, but oh well. They pull apart easily enough if you're determined (and bold), but do be careful. 

My foray into X-Wing also marked my first Shapeways order, which resulted in this: 


Better pics to follow, I promise. FFG neglected to package a senatorial shuttle with its starter set, probably because it would've been huge. Nonetheless, you too can buy one from Shapeways, no doubt incurring the wrath of Disney/Lucas/FFG if you do. I honestly have no idea how those brave sculptor/sellers haven't been hit with a cease-and-desist yet, but wow, talk about having great big pirate balls. 


5 comments:

greggles said...

This is really cool. Thanks for sharing!

The falcon just looks amazing!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing. Awesome stuff.

BTW we just released our Small Vehicle kits that do use a coin cell battery. http://poweredplay.net/catalog/smallvehicle-kit/

I'll link your article from our FB page.

Chris of PoweredPlay Gaming

Mark said...

I actually have those, thanks to your Kickstarter! Still trying to figure out how to shoehorn them into Slave-1 and the Lambda shuttle. The regular ones are great, especially when combined with some fiber optics on larger models like the Raider corvette.

Anonymous said...

We have lit and filmed tutorials for a bunch of the X-wing and armada models. Once we've posted them I'd love to get your thoughts as well.

I have one question about the Falcon. What did you do to secure the fiber in place?

Mark said...

I ran it through little holes in the Falcon's "headlights", and snaked it around the internal supports along the side. I secured it in place using CYA glue, which was fine for the Falcon, but in the Raider proved too strong for the brittle fibers. Vinyl cement is better as it remains flexible but firm.