Let's Roll - Naboo N1 Starfighter

[Revell-Fan]

Howdee fans,

today is my friend's BD and I was in the mood to build another Star Wars themed model for him as a present. Since this year is the 25th anniversary of "Episode I: The Phantom Menace" I though it would be a great fit to choose the Naboo N1 Starfighter. I would have love to make Mando's upgraded version but the only template I found is too simplistic and needs a little clean-up. So I chose Julius' template which you can find here.

I DLed the template several years ago, right after release. When I checked it before printing I noticed that the wing parts were white except for the panel lines. I re-downloaded the PDF last week and saw that Julius had updated the file and added the missing texture. So I advise you to check your file. If you too have the old one in your archive you may go and DL it again.



Now then. The colours turned out splendidly. The yellow is vibrant and rich, the metallic gradient really looks like metal in pictures.

I began with the fuselage.



I pre-shaped the big top part and glued it together using paper strips on the back side.



Please note that I did not cut out the holes for the cannon channels yet. That way I was able to pre-shape the edges of the channels properly. If I had cut the out before the edges might be very tricky to curve. This is a trick I learned from the cones of the Thunderfighter.



The channels were inserted and the formers attached.







Here you can see the back side of the bottom half with the paper strips attached:



The fin was assembled the same way:



Despite my worries attaching both halves is pretty straight-forward. I recommend glueing one section at a time. Take your time and work carefully to get a clean result.

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

That is a great gift! You are off to a great start with this project! I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Next were the canopy and the droid socket.















Everything went together very well.







Some placement marks for the canopy and droid socket would have been nice but if you attach the canopy right between the red marks on the fuselage you are good to go. After the cockpit attach the droid socket. I turned the droid head a bit to the left to make the model more interesting. Much to my surprise @mcusanelli did the same on his great build.

Now came the rolling time: A lot of tubes and cones had to be pre-shaped. Fortunately there were not too many of them so the amount of work was still manageable.









Everything went together well - aside from the silver cones at the front. I had the impression that they were a tad too small but it may be the case that my cutting was not precise enough. In the end everything looked pretty good though.



The wings are very similar to the wings of the Thunderfighter.





I chose to attach the thrusters to the wings first. That would keep them straight when the wings are attached to the fuselage later.

 

[Revell-Fan]

One thing I did differently: I skipped the small circles at the front of the cannons.



I painted the inside of the cannons dark grey and attached them. The open front gives the impression of hollow barrels which adds some realism. And saved me to deal with two small parts.





The display stand went together nicely:





Please note that you must not close the bottom part before inserting the strut. If you close it right now you won't be able to insert the strut any longer.





And now the real drama began.

Since there are no placement marks on the fuselage attaching the wings to the body proved to be extremely difficult. Dry-fitting is not an issue at all and shows that the wings fit in one place. However, once the glue is applied the wing mount tend to move and shift. I had to attach and re-attach the wings three times till they sort of fit. The area around the mounts got smeared with glue which made me fear that I had to scrap the project. It was really a mess. Fortunately the final result was not too bad in the end.









The constant moving caused especially the left wing to loose its stability so that it bagen to sag horribly. I had to glue a reinforcement piece into place. I repeated this on the other side as well to prevent sagging there as well.





After some curing time I attached the plane to the display mount. I noticed that if you attach the model to display it horizontally the front will be too heavy and lift the stand off a bit. So I chose to move the stand forward by one section to attach it at a slight angle with the nose facing down. This looked even better and made everything stable again.







The model was designed fairly well, assembly is straight-forward and the texture really pops. However, the missing placement marks on the fuselage turned attaching the wings into a challenge which threatened to ruin the model completely.

The model is now wrapped up and will meet its new owner in a few hours. I hope you enjoyed this short build thread. You will find more pictures in the gallery.

Take care and may the Force be with you!

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You did a FANTASTIC JOB on this project!
I hope that your friend like this! If not, you can always sent it to me!

 

[mijob]

I see ahappy face comming up when you give it to your friend. Great work.

 

[wedge]

great gift . Very nicely done

 

[Chuffy70]

Nicely presented and informative build of this particular craft, not one of my favourite SW ships, but the Mando version is winning me over, slowly! Just not big on ships with no landing gear...
I hope the gift is welcomed with open arms