2 Fat Guys : Troop Ship

First Look

December 22 , 2008

2 Fat Guys : Troop Trasport

MISCELLANY
Kit #	N/A
Scale:	1:2256
Pattern Maker:	Stefan Hacker
Caster:	2 Fat Guys
Produced:	December 2008

It was a long 16 years between the end of Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace and Star Wars fans were excited that George Lucas' universe will expand, revealing new worlds and visiting old ones with a richness and depth that wasn't quite possible with the first three films. A generation grew up with the look of Star Wars, as rendered by Ralph McQuarrie, Joe Johnston, and the slew of artists at ILM that gave life to Lucas' universe. With a new designer at the helm, Doug Chiang, and new technology, cutting edge digital graphics, Lucas unveiled a whole new universe filled with sleek Naboo cruisers, dark, arcane Sith characters, and a Seperatist movement of various races nipping at the edges of the Republic. One of the more unique designs from the new movie is the Trade Federation Landing ship, massive transport ships used to carry large amounts of heavy ground assault tanks and remotely controlled droid armies to battle zones. This looming biplane shaped transport strikes an indelible impression. And it's ironic that the only model kit of it was Revell AGs dimunitive pocket kit. A styrene model only a few inches across! Now, 2 Fat Guys have finally given fans a model kit with some meat on the bones. At 1:2256 scale, 2FGs Troop Transport is about Six and a half inches wide, and nearly three inches from front to back. It's designed to be in scale with 2FGs earlier "Acclamator" kit and Revell AGs Republic Star Destroyer.

Box art. It looks like its a frame from the movie.

My sample was cast in light green resin.

The parts layout is pretty straightforward. 10 parts: 4 parts for the ship and 6 parts for the armorment.(2 main guns, and 4 wing guns--there are 2 extra wing guns, which is great, as they are tiny and I actually lost one to the carpet gods.Kit comes with a four-page set of instructions. Kit does not include a stand, base nor decals. Some thin wire is needed for the wingtip gun turrets.

Here's a close-up of the guns and spine plate (lower right). The small wingtip guns (upper right) has a lot of resin flash that's actually holding all the parts together. I taped a piece of coarse sand paper (80 grit) to the top of my workbench and simply rubbed the wingtip guns, flash side down, until the excess resin wore down to the point where the gun parts were thin enough to be easily seperated.

Main hull piece. This had a few air bubbles in the front of the "foot" and a couple of really small resin blobs stuck in the corners of the "fenders". A thin layer of gap-filling CA glue and some light sanding took care of the bubbles. I easily removed the resin blobs with a sharp hobby knife. I also sanded down the top of the piece for a nice flat surface to mate with the wings and as the model does not include a stand or a base, I drilled out a mounting hole in the bottom of the piece. to accept a brass rod.

There's a lot of nice detail on the wing pieces. There is plenty of fine scribed panel lines throughout, and the superstructure details are very well done. The mold seam lines are very fine to non-existant. And where there were some seam lines evident, simply scraping with a hobby knife or sanding with a flat needle file took care of it. The only place where this was more difficult was on the very front of the forward wing piece, where the seam line ran diagonally across the details on the front face of the part. I got into removing as much of the seam as possible with the hobby knife and this revealed a very slight mold mismatch. This is to be the most visible part of the ship so I wanted to clean that up as much as possible. I found a thin layer of CA glue was the best filler to use. The mismatch is slight and the area full of detail, so anything more viscous, like epoxy glue or putty would've overwhelmed the detail.

After the wings were assembled, I discovered a problem that will make fitting the main hull a little difficult. The spine connection on the rear wings is just a bit thicker than the front wings. When assembled, this creates a step that will prevent the main hull from fully mating with the wings, as shown in the next picture.

This will leave a large gap between the main hull and the wing assembly. I think I would've thinned the spine on the rear wings to make everything line up, but I had already glued the wing assembly together and at the time did not realize the step in the spine would be a problem. .

I decided to cut a reciprocal step in the main hull piece instead. I dryfitted the part to the wing assembly and with a hobby knife, marked out where the step needed to be made. Then it was just a matter of carving and filing the part down, with lots of check fitting until the main hull fully connected with the wing assembly. This probably took less than 5 minutes to do.

Main guns are attached.

Wing tip guns are glued to the top and bottom of the front wings. Small wire for the gun barrels (not included) need to be cut and glued in place. There wasn't any clear indicators where the gun parts went other than the photo in the instructions, so I just eyeballed them and took care that they were all about lined up with each other. It might be worth it to review photos of the ship in the second Star Wars Chronicle book or one of the Incredible Cross-Sections books to get a better idea on how the wingtip guns look.

Here's a gungan-eye view of the Trade Federation Landing Ship! After adding the wingtip gun barrels, this ominous harbinger of war will be ready for some paint!

Here's the bonus kit for early purchasers. Very nice touch!

In Conclusion

Fine panel lines, sharply rendered detail, and pretty solid engineering makes 2 Fat Guys' Troop Tranport and excellent model kit. It was pretty easy build and only took only about an hour to assemble. There were some minor excess resin to remove from the gun parts, a few hairline seams, air bubbles, and resin blobs to remove.But it was all easy work and once assembled, the model looks great! With the small wingtip guns, uncertain parts placement for the guns and the need modify one of the parts, I wouldn't recommend this as a first resin kit, but it's great for anyone with moderate skills and a must-have for any Star Wars fan. Way to go 2 Fat Guys!