This brings me to this latest project - the Millennium Falcon. Who doesn’t love this ship? Even as a kid growing up with the original Star Wars movies and toys the Falcon was always my favorite. I had an 8 or 9 inch long diecast Kenner toy version of it that I played with all the time. I wish I knew it’s whereabouts today. I have entertained the thought of purchasing one from ebay for nostalgia sake. Anyway, I found this papercraft version online and couldn’t wait to give it a go.
9 pages of parts, nearly 15 total hours of cutting, folding and gluing - not for the faint of heart. This was by far the most difficult papercraft project I’ve ever done, but also most rewarding. The amount of detail is incredible! There are multiple layers of the outer hull to give it a more textured, realistic appearance. The turrets, the satellite dish, the engine heat dissipation ports - everything is considered and rendered beautifully. There’s even a stand you can build to display it on when you’re done. For now, this definitely fills the void I was feeling with not being able to find my old diecast toy.
Things I might do differently if I do it again:
1. I would like to try printing it on larger paper, like maybe 11x17 instead of 8.5x11. This would have scaled everything up and yielded a larger finished product (the one I built is about 8.5” long. This also would have made some of the really small detailed and delicate parts a bit easier to work with too.
2. I would have taken more process photos while building it. I didn’t really start taking pictures until towards the end. I really wish I had taken the time to document it better. Next time!
I should note, the name of the artist that designed this awesome papercraft is Shunichi Makino. If anyone would like to try this for themselves, here is the link to download. http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~sf-papercraft/sf/falcon.html