Last year I was contacted by someone to help with decorating his new movie themed restaurant called ‘Happily Ever After Dessert Cafe’. The owner had a couple of ideas for iconic spaceships that  would look good hanging from a 10 ft. ceiling and wanted a few more to choose from. I created a list of ideas and available kits/toys/collectibles that could be adapted for his purposes. Out of several he liked, he decided on the Millenium Falcon, there is nothing more recognizable than that ship! He was able to purchased a used, large sized toy which is made by Hasbro. It was in great shape minus the landing legs and the figures, but was perfect for display.

I was asked to weather the toy like the filming model and light it and meet a 60 day deadline. Because it was still in its ‘toy’ state, I had to glue and screw down loose doors and hatches that were used to get the action figures in and out of it. I then opened up the hull halves and by-passed the sound board and some push button switches that were used for sound effects and flashing lights, etc. To light the toy, I by-passed the battery box the toy used so I could plug into an standard wall outlet. I chose a lighting kit from Madman Lighting, Inc. The kit, although made for a small model kit, has engine lights and fiber optic strands that were perfect for this large sized toy. Adding longer wires form the LED’s was the only thing required to adapt it to my purposes, and it worked perfectly!

Now that I had the wiring/lighting figured out I could move onto the fun part, making it look like the filming model used in Star Wars. I turned over one of the hull shells and did some tests with different paints and clear coats for compatibility. I was going to have to coat the finished model in a semi-gloss to seal it from possible grease and other food particles associated with a restaurant, and did not want the the paint ruined by the clear coat. Everything worked nicely together so it was onto the exterior weathering. Finding tons of images of the filming model on the internet made duplicating the weathering go smoothly. I also used artistic license here and there as I knew no one was going to the cafe’ to compare my Falcon to the one used in the movies!

Once the weathering was done and approved by the client, I did a final check on the three ‘eye hook’ bolts that were going to hold the weight while it was hanging from the ceiling. I let the lighting in the model run for almost 24 hrs. before I screwed the shells back together for the last time. I think the model turned out really nice and most importantly, so did the client.