Well, where do I start? I'm an average skilled modeler - I haven't scratchbuilt anything or used an airbrush. I love all Star Wars ships, and this Eta-2 Actis Interceptor in particular caught my eye in the movie. Of course, I had seen pictures of it before the film release, and was eager to see it in action. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. Now, on with the kits…

This has to be one of the most fun, well put-together, and most satisfying kits I've had the pleasure of building. I know some kits would give you the option of building a variant or two, but with this kit the possibilities were numerous - so I built seven. Now, there are readers out there with way more experience then I have when it comes to building these kinds of models, but one of my strengths came into play during construction - RESEARCH.

The kit goes together wonderfully, with super-glue used for most of the structure, the seams disappeared, well, seamlessly, and there were no major fit problems to speak of. On the box, they show you four different variations you can paint and have provided a nice set of decals with which to do so. Here, however, is the kicker…THEY'RE NOT ACCURATE. The paint schemes are nicely done, but if you're the kind of builder who likes accuracy, ditch the box top. Also, the paint set that saved my bacon was the miniatures paint set for Warhammer. From now on, when I do anything sci-fi, I use Citadel paints. Now, on to the reference material…

Just like books for aircraft, tanks, railroads and what have you, there is a silly amount of reference material on Star Wars spacecraft. The internet can also be a good source, but for one project in particular, it can be the bane of your existence. The first book, especially for scratchbuilders, is the ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO VEHICLES AND VESSELS. This will get you started for a lot of kits and homebuilds. The movie making books are also a treasure, especially for the Actis. The MAKING OF REVENGE OF THE SITH has all the detail you need for the Actis. There will be no federal standard number, but that's where the citadel paints come in.

For those of you who haven't tried them, it's literally a case of holding the jar up to the picture, and saying, "yeah, that's the one."

The hardest one to do was Vader's fighter post-Episode 3. Two references that weren't fan-generated were available - the Hasbro toy, and a small picture in the ESSENTIAL CHRONOLOGY. Someone had also scanned and posted what the sticker sheet would look like, which let me print them as decals. I had to mix the darkest gray by hand, but it was tint until satisfied, and it was a quick turnout at that. The canopy was tinted with warhammer red ink, and came out better than expected. So, once the internal thought process of how I was going to do all this was completed, it was simply a matter of carrying out the steps as per any other model.

As for the Mace Windu fighter, I like the toy version and the cartoon version, so I combined the two. Very simple, and all done with warhammer paints. So, everything else pretty much takes care of itself

Image: Anikin's

Image: Obi Wan's

Image: Another look at Vader's

Image: Green

Image: Mace's