I found myself torn between projects I could start after finishing the A320, going so far as to post a picture of my kit stash on Facebook for suggestions of what to tackle next. I’ve got a bunch of the amazing Star Wars kits that Bandai’s been releasing for the past couple of years but nothing was calling to me. I started considering the Polar Lights Delorean Time Machine, but as I began looking into it, I found that there were so many little details that I’d want to get as correct as I could that I needed to put that on the backburner for awhile and do plenty of research in the meantime. So I came back to my small stack of airliner models and picked another Zvezda kit, this time Boeing’s huge 777-300ER. In short, my brain is in airliner-mode and I’ve already done a bunch of research and photo gathering.

This is quite a bit more simple than the A320. Even though it’s about 5 times the size of the A320, it’s a pretty basic kit – no flap or door options here. But it’s beautifully crafted with a lot of fine detail all over. A great example of that is found in the twin engines. The fan blades are two separate discs that slot into each other, allowing a lot more detail than would normally be allowed.

I painted these up with Model Master Metalizer gunmetal grey, buffing the central “hub” of the fan to make it glossy and stand out, then lined each blade with a thin strip of steel.