Starship Modeler: Gallery (Star Wars)

Trade Federation Tank

This is an AMT model kit of the Trade Federation Tank from Star Wars Episode One, The Phantom Menace. The kit was a skill level two kit with approximately fifty parts. It's a relatively strait forward kit, so I decided to customize it slightly. I had seen a picture of a Tank Commander Droid popped out the top hatch scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars.

I started by modifying the turret. The first thing I did was very carefully put out the hatch and split it in two peices along the panel line. The I took sheet styrene and made a tube to serve as the tunnel done the hatch. Then using sheet styrene and spair engine parts I created the "mechanisms" on the inside of the hatches. After that I simply epoxied them (open) to the turret.

Otherwise, I assembled the kit according to the instructions. The base coat of paint was a light tan spray paint. Then I used acrylics to detail it. The intersting part was the battle damage. It was done primarily with colored pencil. I ground them up to make a powder which I brushed on. Afterwards, I sealed the whole model with Krylon Matte Acrylic Clear Coat.

The Tank Commander was an action figure, repainted to make it look more realistic. The elctro-binoculars were made from a peice of balsa wood carved and painted. The binoculars were then glued into the figure's reshaped hands.

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