Greebles!

For those who don't know, a greeble (sometimes called a nurnie) is a detail added to the surface of an object that makes it appear more complex, and therefore more visually interesting. In the 70s, model builders at ILM re-purposed parts from plastic model kits to decorate the surfaces of the spaceships for Star Wars. Most of the kits used were World War II tanks, battleships, and planes, but race-cars were also frequently used. Here's an image of the 5 foot Millennium Falcon miniature being "kitbashed."

Since Star Wars is so beloved by fans, many of the model kits and individual parts used to build the ships have been identified and catalogued. RPF member Gort has a thread identifying many of these parts on the 5 foot Falcon. Discovering this research by members of the RPF is part of what inspired me to begin this model over a year and a half ago. This thread on Studio Scale Modelers offers a list of the kits with links to flatbed-scanned images of some of them. These scans were essential to my build, here's an example: this is a sprue from the Tamiya 1/12 scale Ferarri 312B kit and the corresponding parts I modeled for the Falcon.

One of the more recognizable model kit parts on the Falcon are these two halves of the Entex 1/5 scale Wankel Rotary Engine kit which appear on both sides of the Falcon where the mandibles meet the saucer.

The kit that was most widely used on the Falcon was the Tamiya 1/12 scale McLaren M23 kit. 178 parts from this kit were used on the Falcon. Here are the individual parts (note: for my library I have not included mirror images of parts, but some of the suspension parts do have corresponding mirror images.)

When scans weren't available I used these sets of photos taken by Andre Bustanoby and David Emmerichs to model my parts. Also, since the 5 foot Falcon is over 40 years old, a few pieces have been damaged or have come off completely. This thread of vintage Falcon pics started by Whiskey helped me track some of those missing parts down.

I put this video together to showcase all the parts I've built for my library, just for a bit of fun. It doesn't include duplicates or mirrored parts, but it does give an idea of how many greebles cover the surface of the Falcon.

I hope that was enjoyable; I certainly had a good time making it! It's been such a long time since my last post because there were so many greebles to sift through! The final count of my greeble library for the Falcon was 1,125 individual parts, if you count all the duplicates and mirrored parts that appear on the Falcon the number jumps to 2,548! That's a lot of glue! As I go through each section of the Millennium Falcon from here on it's going to be all about greebles so prepare yourselves!

Thanks for reading!  Next time: Dish Network!