MPC/AMT Slave-1
This is my build-up of the old 1/72 scale Slave-1 by MPC/AMT. It’s on the verge of being replaced in my collection by the new, and much more accurate, Fine Molds kit. Until Fine Molds released their kit a couple of years ago, the MPC/AMT version was the only one available and its shortcomings are notorious…
Most notably, the cockpit area is entirely incorrect. There should be three seats on two tiers, not just a single pilot’s chair. Also, the folks at MPC/AMT copied the layout of the Kenner Slave-1 toy and designed the entire cockpit to pivot. This allows the cockpit module to remain horizontal while the body of the ship changes attitude for takeoff/landing. I corrected the pivoting/wobbling action of the cockpit by gluing it in place and blanking off the clearance space around the module with plastic card. The Boba Fett figure provided to fill the cockpit also leaves a bit to be desired; the proportions are basically correct, but his hands are non-existent and he’s missing the viewfinder on his helmet. I grafted on hands from a 1/72 scale ground crew figure and added a periscope made from wire and plastic strip.
Moving on to the underside – this seems to have been molded with no regard at all to the original filming miniature. The only aspect which seems accurate is the placement of the two main engine thrusters, which I replaced with brass tubing as the parts in my kit were horribly mis-cast. At the time I built this kit there were few reference photos available of the Slave-1’s underside and it’s screen time was minimal so I decided to just go with what the kit had to offer (I could always display it in a “landed” position I suppose).
I think I’m starting to digress; I didn’t intend for this to be a bashing of MPC/AMT’s kit. It’s funny how I found it pretty acceptable until Fine Molds came along. At any rate…
I built the rest of the kit mostly straight from the box, I just added a few strips of styrene here and there and made new gun barrels from brass tube. What really satisfied me was the way the paint scheme turned out; it was my first attempt at a seriously weathered and chipped finish. First, I base coated the model in its “primer” base colour; after that coat dried, I then strategically applied liquid masking fluid over this using reference photos as a guide to where the most wear occurred. Once the masking fluid was dry I over coated the model in its finished colours. After that dried, I peeled off the masking fluid and buffed down the edges of the chipped paint with an old toothbrush to remove any loose flakes. I followed this with a brushed-on application of a lightened shade of the main paint colour to ease the transition between the top and bottom layers of paint. The weathering was done with heavy washes, silver pencil, oil washes and pastel powder.
Once again, I was pretty happy with this until a better kit was produced – despite its inaccuracies. Since the Slave 1’s original design is classified as a Kuat Systems Engineering Firespray-Class Patrol and Attack Ship maybe this model will be resurrected with new livery to represent its role in planetary defence.
