The Past Is A Far Galaxy.

I was eight years old when I first saw Star Wars in 1978., and became daft for anything science fiction - not that I needed much persuasion growing up with Star Trek and Space: 1999.

My folks gave me set of plastic space soldiers made in Hong Kong, obviously a Star Wars cash-in with pseudo-stormtroopers and ersatz-droids - as well as a starfighter that was an intriguing cross between an X-Wing fighter and a General Dynamics F-16 'Fighting Falcon'; a new jet fighter that was new at the time and as futuristic as anything Ralph McQuarrie could design.

I wish I still had that plastic spaceship, having been lost somewhere in time whilst growing up, so I decided to try and re-create it as best I could using the relevant 1/100 scale model kits.